Secret Doctrine Text
Version
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY
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THE
SECRET DOCTRINE.
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[[Vol.
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HELENA
PETROVNA BLAVATSKY
1831-1891
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THE
SECRET DOCTRINE:
THE
SYNTHESIS
OF
SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY
H.
P. BLAVATSKY,
AUTHOR
OF "
[[devanagari
characters]]
"There
is no Religion higher than Truth."
VOL.
I. -- COSMOGENESIS.
THE
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED.
7,
WILLIAM
Q. JUDGE,
117,
THE
MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST,
Adyar,
---
1888.
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"Entered
according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by H. P. Blavatsky,
in
the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C."
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This
Work
I
Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In
every Country,
And
of every Race,
For
they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
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[[blank]]
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PREFACE.
THE
Author -- the writer, rather -- feels it necessary to apologise for the long
delay which has occurred in the appearance of this work. It has been occasioned
by ill-health and the magnitude of the undertaking. Even the two volumes now
issued do not complete the scheme, and these do not treat exhaustively of the
subjects dealt with in them. A large quantity of material has already been
prepared, dealing with the history of occultism as contained in the lives of
the great Adepts of the Aryan Race, and showing the bearing of occult
philosophy upon the conduct of life, as it is and as it ought to be. Should the
present volumes meet with a favourable reception, no effort will be spared to
carry out the scheme of the work in its entirety. The third volume is entirely
ready; the fourth almost so.
This
scheme, it must be added, was not in contemplation when the preparation of the work
was first announced. As originally announced, it was intended that the
"Secret Doctrine" should be an amended and enlarged version of
"Isis Unveiled." It was, however, soon found that the explanations
which could be added to those already put before the world in the last-named
and other works dealing with esoteric science, were such as to require a
different method of treatment: and consequently the present volumes do not
contain, in all, twenty pages extracted from "Isis Unveiled."
The
author does not feel it necessary to ask the indulgence of her readers and
critics for the many defects of literary style, and the imperfect English which
may be found in these pages. She is a foreigner, and her knowledge of the
language was acquired late in life. The English tongue is employed because it
offers the most widely-diffused medium for conveying the truths which it had
become her duty to place before the world.
These
truths are in no sense put forward as a revelation; nor does the author claim
the position of a revealer of mystic lore, now made public for the first time
in the world's history. For what is contained in this work is to be found
scattered throughout thousands of volumes embodying the scriptures of the great
Asiatic and early European religions, hidden under glyph and symbol, and
hitherto left unnoticed because of this veil. What is now attempted is to
gather the oldest tenets together and to make of them one harmonious and
unbroken whole. The sole advantage which the writer has over her predecessors,
is that she need not resort to personal speculations and theories. For this
work is a partial statement of what she herself has been taught by more
advanced students, supplemented, in a few details only, by the results of her
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[[Vol.
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own
study and observation. The publication of many of the facts herein stated has
been rendered necessary by the wild and fanciful speculations in which many
Theosophists and students of mysticism have indulged, during the last few
years, in their endeavour to, as they imagined, work out a complete system of
thought from the few facts previously communicated to them.
It
is needless to explain that this book is not the Secret Doctrine in its
entirety, but a select number of fragments of its fundamental tenets, special
attention being paid to some facts which have been seized upon by various
writers, and distorted out of all resemblance to the truth.
But
it is perhaps desirable to state unequivocally that the teachings, however
fragmentary and incomplete, contained in these volumes, belong neither to the
Hindu, the Zoroastrian, the Chaldean, nor the Egyptian religion, neither to
Buddhism, Islam, Judaism nor Christianity exclusively. The Secret Doctrine is
the essence of all these. Sprung from it in their origins, the various
religious schemes are now made to merge back into their original element, out
of which every mystery and dogma has grown, developed, and become materialised.
It
is more than probable that the book will be regarded by a large section of the
public as a romance of the wildest kind; for who has ever even heard of the
book of Dzyan?
The
writer, therefore, is fully prepared to take all the responsibility for what is
contained in this work, and even to face the charge of having invented the
whole of it. That it has many shortcomings she is fully aware; all that she
claims for it is that, romantic as it may seem to many, its logical coherence
and consistency entitle this new Genesis to rank, at any rate, on a level with
the "working hypotheses" so freely accepted by modern science.
Further, it claims consideration, not by reason of any appeal to dogmatic
authority, but because it closely adheres to Nature, and follows the laws of
uniformity and analogy.
The
aim of this work may be thus stated: to show that Nature is not "a
fortuitous concurrence of atoms," and to assign to man his rightful place
in the scheme of the Universe; to rescue from degradation the archaic truths
which are the basis of all religions; and to uncover, to some extent, the
fundamental unity from which they all spring; finally, to show that the occult
side of Nature has never been approached by the Science of modern civilization.
If
this is in any degree accomplished, the writer is content. It is written in the
service of humanity, and by humanity and the future generations it must be
judged. Its author recognises no inferior court of appeal. Abuse she is
accustomed to; calumny she is daily acquainted with; at slander she smiles in
silent contempt.
De
minimis non curat lex.
H.P.B.
London,
October, 1888.
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TABLE
OF CONTENTS.
-------
PAGE.
INTRODUCTION
... xvii.
The
Need of such a Book ... xix.
The
Antiquity of Documents and MSS. ... xxiii.
What
the Book is intended to do ... xxviii.
-------
VOLUME
FIRST.
COSMOGENESIS.
PROEM
... 1
The
Oldest MSS. in the world and its Symbolism ... 2
The
One Life, Active and Passive ... 4
The
Secret Doctrine -- Pantheism -- Atheism ... 6
"Space"
in all Religions and in Occultism ... 9
Seven
Cosmic Elements -- Seven Races of Mankind ... 12
The
Three Postulates of the Secret Doctrine ... 14
Description
of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan ... 20
-------
BOOK
I. -- PART I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
SEVEN
STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN ... 27
-------
STANZA
I. -- THE NIGHT OF THE UNIVERSE... 35
The
Seven Eternities ... 36
"Time"
... 37
The
Universal Mind and the Dhyan Chohans ... 38
Nidana
and Maya: The Causes of Misery ... 39
The
Great Breath ... 43
Being
and Non-Being ... 45
The
Eye of Dangma ... 47
Alaya,
the Universal Soul ... 49
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[[Vol.
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PAGE.
STANZA
II. -- THE IDEA OF DIFFERENTIATION ... 53
The
Absolute knows Itself not ... 55
The
Germ of Life was not yet ... 57
The
Universe was still concealed in the Divine Thought ... 61
-------
STANZA
III. -- THE AWAKENING OF KOSMOS ... 62
The
Great Vibration ... 63
Nature's
Symbols ... 65
The
Power of Numbers ... 67
The
Logoi and the Dragon ... 73
The
Astral Light ... 75
Primeval
Radiations from Unity ... 79
The
Web of Being ... 83
Conscious
Electricity: Fohat ... 85
-------
STANZA
IV. -- THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 86
The
Sons of the Fire ... 86
The
Vehicle of the Universe -- the Dhyan Chohans ... 89
The
Army of the Voice ... 93
Speech
and Mind ... 95
The
Ogdoad and the Heptad ... 99
The
Stellar "Sons of Light" ... 103
-------
STANZA
V. -- FOHAT: THE CHILD OF THE SEPTENARY HIERARCHIES ... 106
The
Fiery Whirlwind and the Primordial Seven ... 106
They
Produce Fohat ... 108
The
Correlation of the "Gods" ... 113
Evolution
of the "Principles" of Nature ... 119
The
Mystery of the Fire ... 121
The
Secret of the Elements ... 123
The
Square of the Tabernacle ... 125
The
Planetary Spirits and the Lipika ... 129
The
Ring "Pass Not" ... 130
The
Sidereal Book of Life ... 131
The
Soul's Pilgrimage and its "Rest" ... 134
-------
STANZA
VI. -- OUR WORLD, ITS GROWTH AND DEVELOPMENT ... 136
The
Logos ... 136
Mystery
of the Female Logos ... 137
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[[Vol.
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PAGE.
The
Seven Layu Centres ... 138
The
"Elementary Germs" ... 139
The
Evolution of the Elements ... 140
The
Building of the Worlds ... 145
A
Neutral Centre ... 147
"Dead"
Planets -- The Moon ... 149
-------
THEOSOPHICAL
MISCONCEPTIONS ... 152
The
Planetary Divisions and the Human Principles ... 153
The
Moon ... 155
Transmigrations
of the Ego ... 159
The
Septenary Chain ... 161
Relation
of the other Planets to the Earth ... 163
-------
EXPLANATIONS
CONCERNING THE GLOBES AND THE MONADS ... 170
The
Lunar Chain and the Earth Chain ... 172
The
Earth, the Child of the Moon ... 173
Classification
of the Monads ... 175
The
Monad Defined ... 177
The
Lunar Monads -- the Pitris ... 179
A
Triple Evolution in Nature ... 181
-------
STANZA
VI. -- CONTINUED ... 191
"Creation"
in the Fourth Round ... 191
The
"Curse," "Sin," and "War" ... 193
The
Struggle for Life and the Birth of the Worlds ... 202
The
Adepts and the Sacred Island ... 207
-------
STANZA
VII. -- THE PARENTS OF MAN ON EARTH ... 213
Divisions
of the Hierarchies ... 214
Correlations
of Beings ... 223
What
incarnates in Animal Man ... 233
Formation
of Man: the Thinker ... 238
Occult
and Kabalistic Pneumatics ... 243
Akasa
and Ether ... 257
The
Invisible "Lives" ... 259
Occult
Vital Chemistry and Bacteriology ... 261
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[[Vol.
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PAGE.
The
Watcher and his Shadow ... 265
Earth
peopled by the Shadows of the Gods ... 267
-------
SUMMING
UP ... 269
The
pith and marrow of the Secret Doctrine ... 273
Hermes
in Christian Garb ... 285
Some
Occult Aphorisms ... 289
The
Seven Powers of Nature ... 293
---------------------
BOOK
I. -- PART II.
THE
EVOLUTION OF SYMBOLISM IN ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.
§§
I.
SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303
Emblem
and Symbol differ ... 305
Magic
Potency of Sound ... 307
Mystery
Language ... 309
-------
II.
THE MYSTERY LANGUAGE AND ITS KEYS ... 310
Egypt's
many Religions ... 311
The
Jews and their System ... 313
Moses
copied from Sargon ... 319
Identity
of Ancient Symbols ... 323
-------
III.
PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE AND DIVINE THOUGHT ... 325
Divine
Thought, or Cineritious Matter? ... 327
Ether
and Intelligence ... 330
The
Seven Prakritis ... 335
The
Mystic Fire ... 339
One
Tree of Knowledge ... 341
-------
IV.
CHAOS -- THEOS -- KOSMOS ... 342
The
Union of Chaos and Spirit ... 343
The
Birth of Mind ... 345
-------
V.
THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS ... 349
The
Gnostic Idea ... 351
International
Correlation of Gods ... 355
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[[Vol.
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§§
PAGE.
VI.
THE MUNDANE EGG ... 359
Egg-born
Logoi ... 363
The
Winged Globe ... 365
-------
VII.
THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
Human
Gods and Divine Men ... 369
The
Rebirth of Gods ... 371
The
Puranic Prophecy ... 377
-------
VIII.
THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
Exoteric
and Esoteric ... 381
The
Purity of early Phallicism ... 383
The
Egyptian Lotus ... 385
-------
IX.
DEUS LUNUS ... 386
A
Glance at the Lunar Myth ... 387
A
Key-note to the Moon ... 389
Copies
and Originals... 393
The
Moon Bi-sexual ... 397
-------
X.
TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
Degeneration
of the Symbol ... 405
The
Seven-headed Dragons ... 407
Dragon
and Crocodile ... 409
-------
XI.
DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
Death
is Life ... 413
The
Fall of the Angels ... 418
Transformation
of the Legend ... 421
-------
XII.
THE THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS ... 424
The
Point within the Circle ... 426
The
Logos or Verbum ... 429
The
Factors of Creation ... 432
Identity
of the Hierarchies in all Religions ... 438
Difference
between the Aryan and Semitic Systems ... 444
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§§
PAGE.
XIII.
THE SEVEN CREATIONS ... 445
The
Gnostic and the Hindu Versions ... 449
The
Seven Puranic "Creations" ... 450
-------
XIV.
THE FOUR ELEMENTS. ... 460
The
"Gods" and the "Elements" ... 463
The
Language of the Elements ... 464
Pagan
and Christian Worship of the Elements ... 467
-------
XV.
ON KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
Kwan-Shi-Yin
and Phallicism ... 471
The
Real Meaning ... 472
---------------------
BOOK
I. -- PART III.
SCIENCE
AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.
§§
I.
REASONS FOR THESE ADDENDA ... 477
Occultism
versus Materialism ... 479
The
Sabbath of the Mystic ... 481
-------
II.
MODERN PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF ... 482
-------
III.
AN LUMEN SIT CORPUS NEC NON? ... 483
The
Hypothetical Ether ... 485
Scientific
Theories of its Constitution ... 489
-------
IV.
IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490
Intelligences
or Blind Forces? ... 493
The
Cause of Attraction ... 498
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§§
PAGE.
V.
THE THEORIES OF ROTATION SCIENCE ... 500
Conflicting
Hypotheses ... 502
More
Hypotheses ... 505
-------
VI.
THE MASKS OF SCIENCE ... 506
What
are the "Forces?" ... 508
The
View of the Occultists ... 510
Scientific
and Occult Theories on Heat ... 515
The
Atoms of Science ... 519
-------
VII.
AN ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
Ether
and Atoms ... 527
-------
VIII.
LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
Dr.
Richardson on Nervous Ether ... 531
The
Senses and their Action ... 535
Too
much "Life" may Kill ... 539
-------
IX.
THE SOLAR THEORY ... 540
The
Primordial Element ... 542
Elements
and Meta-Elements ... 546
The
Tree of Life and Being ... 549
Prof.
Crookes on the Elements ... 552
-------
X.
THE COMING FORCE ... 554
Mr.
Keeley, an Unconscious Occultist ... 557
Inter-Etheric
Waves ... 561
The
Secrets of Sound and Odour ... 565
-------
Xl.
ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
Metaphysical
Chemistry ... 569
What
are the Seven Planets? ... 575
The
Cyclic Fall of the Gods ... 577
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[[Vol.
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§§
PAGE.
XII.
ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
All-Potential
Unity ... 583
The
"Seventh" in Chemistry ... 585
-------
XIII.
THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
Forces
are Emanations ... 591
What
is the Nebula? ... 595
-------
XIV.
FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
The
Vital Principle ... 603
Occult
and Physical Science ... 605
-------
XV.
GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS ... 610
The
Gods of the Ancients -- the Monads ... 613
The
Monad and the Duad ... 617
The
Genesis of the Elements ... 621
Hermes
and Huxley ... 625
The
Teaching of Leibnitz ... 627
The
Monads according to Occultism ... 632
-------
XVI.
CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
Karmic
Cycles and Universal Ethics ... 637
Destiny
and Karma ... 639
Karma-Nemesis
... 643
-------
XVII.
THE ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
The
Jewish Patriarchs and the Signs of the Zodiac ... 651
Zodiacal
Cycles ... 656
Hindu
Astronomy ... 661
-------
XVIII.
SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
Science
Confesses her Ignorance ... 669
Materialism
is leading Europe towards a catastrophe ... 675
-------
N.B.
-- The Index and Glossary will be found at the close of Volume II.
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[[Vol.
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INTRODUCTORY.
-------
"Gently
to hear, kindly to judge."
--
SHAKESPEARE.
SINCE
the appearance of Theosophical literature in England, it has become customary
to call its teachings "Esoteric Buddhism." And, having become a habit
-- as an old proverb based on daily experience has it -- "Error runs down
an inclined plane, while Truth has to laboriously climb its way up hill."
Old
truisms are often the wisest. The human mind can hardly remain entirely free
from bias, and decisive opinions are often formed before a thorough examination
of a subject from all its aspects has been made. This is said with reference to
the prevailing double mistake (a) of limiting Theosophy to Buddhism: and (b) of
confounding the tenets of the religious philosophy preached by Gautama, the
Buddha, with the doctrines broadly outlined in "Esoteric Buddhism."
Any thing more erroneous than this could be hardly imagined. It has enabled our
enemies to find an effective weapon against theosophy; because, as an eminent
Pali scholar very pointedly expressed it, there was in the volume named
"neither esotericism nor Buddhism." The esoteric truths, presented in
Mr. Sinnett's work, had ceased to be esoteric from the moment they were made
public; nor did it contain the religion of Buddha, but simply a few tenets from
a hitherto hidden teaching which are now supplemented by many more, enlarged
and explained in the present volumes. But even the latter, though giving out
many fundamental tenets from the SECRET DOCTRINE of the East, raise but a small
corner of the dark veil. For no one, not even the greatest living adept, would
be permitted to, or could -- even if he would -- give out promiscuously, to a
mocking, unbelieving world, that which has been so effectually concealed from
it for long aeons and ages.
"Esoteric
Buddhism" was an excellent work with a very unfortunate
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title,
though it meant no more than does the title of this work, the "SECRET
DOCTRINE." It proved unfortunate, because people are always in the habit
of judging things by their appearance, rather than their meaning; and because
the error has now become so universal, that even most of the Fellows of the
Theosophical Society have fallen victims to the same misconception. From the
first, however, protests were raised by Brahmins and others against the title;
and, in justice to myself, I must add that "Esoteric Buddhism" was
presented to me as a completed volume, and that I was entirely unaware of the
manner in which the author intended to spell the word "Budh-ism."
This
has to be laid directly at the door of those who, having been the first to
bring the subject under public notice, neglected to point out the difference
between "Buddhism" -- the religious system of ethics preached by the
Lord Gautama, and named after his title of Buddha, "the Enlightened"
-- and Budha, "Wisdom," or knowledge (Vidya), the faculty of
cognizing, from the Sanskrit root "Budh," to know. We theosophists of
India are ourselves the real culprits, although, at the time, we did our best
to correct the mistake. (See Theosophist, June, 1883.) To avoid this deplorable
misnomer was easy; the spelling of the word had only to be altered, and by
common consent both pronounced and written "Budhism," instead of
"Buddhism." Nor is the latter term correctly spelt and pronounced, as
it ought to be called, in English, Buddhaism, and its votaries
"Buddhaists."
This
explanation is absolutely necessary at the beginning of a work like this one.
The "Wisdom Religion" is the inheritance of all the nations, the
world over, though the statement was made in "Esoteric Buddhism"
(Preface to the original Edition) that "two years ago (i.e. 1883), neither
I nor any other European living, knew the alphabet of the Science, here for the
first time put into a scientific shape," etc. This error must have crept
in through inadvertence. For the present writer knew all that which is
"divulged" in "Esoteric Buddhism" -- and much more -- many
years before it became her duty (in 1880) to impart a small portion of the
Secret Doctrine to two European gentlemen, one of whom was the author of
"Esoteric Buddhism"; and surely the present writer has the undoubted,
though to her, rather equivocal, privilege of being a European, by birth and
education. Moreover, a considerable part of the philosophy
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expounded
by Mr. Sinnett was taught in America, even before Isis Unveiled was published,
to two Europeans and to my colleague, Colonel H. S. Olcott. Of the three
teachers the latter gentleman has had, the first was a Hungarian Initiate, the
second an Egyptian, the third a Hindu. As permitted, Colonel Olcott has given
out some of this teaching in various ways; if the other two have not, it has
been simply because they were not allowed: their time for public work having
not yet come. But for others it has, and the appearance of Mr. Sinnett's
several interesting books is a visible proof of the fact. It is above
everything important to keep in mind that no theosophical book acquires the
least additional value from pretended authority.
In
etymology Adi, and Adhi Budha, the one (or the First) and "Supreme
Wisdom" is a term used by Aryasanga in his Secret treatises, and now by
all the mystic Northern Buddhists. It is a Sanskrit term, and an appellation
given by the earliest Aryans to the Unknown deity; the word "Brahma"
not being found in the Vedas and the early works. It means the absolute Wisdom,
and "Adi-bhuta" is translated "the primeval uncreated cause of
all" by Fitzedward Hall. AEons of untold duration must have elapsed,
before the epithet of Buddha was so humanized, so to speak, as to allow of the
term being applied to mortals and finally appropriated to one whose
unparalleled virtues and knowledge caused him to receive the title of the
"Buddha of Wisdom unmoved." Bodha means the innate possession of
divine intellect or "understanding"; "Buddha," the
acquirement of it by personal efforts and merit; while Buddhi is the faculty of
cognizing the channel through which divine knowledge reaches the
"Ego," the discernment of good and evil, "divine
conscience" also; and "Spiritual Soul," which is the vehicle of
Atma. "When Buddhi absorbs our EGOtism (destroys it) with all its Vikaras,
Avalokiteshvara becomes manifested to us, and Nirvana, or Mukti, is
reached," "Mukti" being the same as Nirvana, i.e., freedom from
the trammels of "Maya" or illusion. "Bodhi" is likewise the
name of a particular state of trance condition, called Samadhi, during which
the subject reaches the culmination of spiritual knowledge.
Unwise
are those who, in their blind and, in our age, untimely hatred of Buddhism,
and, by re-action, of "Budhism," deny its esoteric teachings (which
are those also of the Brahmins), simply because the name
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[[Vol.
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suggests
what to them, as Monotheists, are noxious doctrines. Unwise is the correct term
to use in their case. For the Esoteric philosophy is alone calculated to
withstand, in this age of crass and illogical materialism, the repeated attacks
on all and everything man holds most dear and sacred, in his inner spiritual
life. The true philosopher, the student of the Esoteric Wisdom, entirely loses
sight of personalities, dogmatic beliefs and special religions. Moreover,
Esoteric philosophy reconciles all religions, strips every one of its outward,
human garments, and shows the root of each to be identical with that of every
other great religion. It proves the necessity of an absolute Divine Principle
in nature. It denies Deity no more than it does the Sun. Esoteric philosophy
has never rejected God in Nature, nor Deity as the absolute and abstract Ens.
It only refuses to accept any of the gods of the so-called monotheistic
religions, gods created by man in his own image and likeness, a blasphemous and
sorry caricature of the Ever Unknowable. Furthermore, the records we mean to
place before the reader embrace the esoteric tenets of the whole world since
the beginning of our humanity, and Buddhistic occultism occupies therein only
its legitimate place, and no more. Indeed, the secret portions of the
"Dan" or Jan-na"* ("Dhyan") of Gautama's metaphysics
-- grand as they appear to one unacquainted with the tenets of the Wisdom
Religion of antiquity -- are but a very small portion of the whole. The Hindu
Reformer limited his public teachings to the purely moral and physiological
aspect of the Wisdom Religion, to Ethics and MAN alone. Things "unseen and
incorporeal," the mystery of Being outside our terrestrial sphere, the
great Teacher left entirely untouched in his public lectures, reserving the
hidden Truths for a select circle of his Arhats. The latter received their
Initiation at the famous Saptaparna cave (the Sattapanni of Mahavansa) near
Mount Baibhar (the Webhara of the Pali MSS.). This cave was in Rajagriha, the
ancient capital of Mogadha, and was the Cheta cave of Fa-hian, as rightly
suspected by some archaeologists.**
Time
and human imagination made short work of the purity and philo-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Dan, now become in modern Chinese and Tibetan phonetics ch'an, is the general
term for the esoteric schools, and their literature. In the old books, the word
Janna is defined as "to reform one's self by meditation and
knowledge," a second inner birth. Hence Dzan, Djan phonetically, the
"Book of Dzyan."
**
Mr. Beglor, the chief engineer at Buddhagaya, and a distinguished
archaeologist, was the first, we believe, to discover it.
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[[Vol.
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sophy
of these teachings, once that they were transplanted from the secret and sacred
circle of the Arhats, during the course of their work of proselytism, into a
soil less prepared for metaphysical conceptions than India; i.e., once they
were transferred into China, Japan, Siam, and Burmah. How the pristine purity
of these grand revelations was dealt with may be seen in studying some of the
so-called "esoteric" Buddhist schools of antiquity in their modern
garb, not only in China and other Buddhist countries in general, but even in
not a few schools in Thibet, left to the care of uninitiated Lamas and
Mongolian innovators.
Thus
the reader is asked to bear in mind the very important difference between
orthodox Buddhism -- i.e., the public teachings of Gautama the Buddha, and his
esoteric Budhism. His Secret Doctrine, however, differed in no wise from that
of the initiated Brahmins of his day. The Buddha was a child of the Aryan soil;
a born Hindu, a Kshatrya and a disciple of the "twice born" (the
initiated Brahmins) or Dwijas. His teachings, therefore, could not be different
from their doctrines, for the whole Buddhist reform merely consisted in giving
out a portion of that which had been kept secret from every man outside of the
"enchanted" circle of Temple-Initiates and ascetics. Unable to teach
all that had been imparted to him -- owing to his pledges -- though he taught a
philosophy built upon the ground-work of the true esoteric knowledge, the
Buddha gave to the world only its outward material body and kept its soul for
his Elect. (See also Volume II.) Many Chinese scholars among Orientalists have
heard of the "Soul Doctrine." None seem to have understood its real
meaning and importance.
That
doctrine was preserved secretly -- too secretly, perhaps -- within the
sanctuary. The mystery that shrouded its chief dogma and aspirations -- Nirvana
-- has so tried and irritated the curiosity of those scholars who have studied
it, that, unable to solve it logically and satisfactorily by untying the
Gordian knot, they cut it through, by declaring that Nirvana meant absolute
annihilation.
Toward
the end of the first quarter of this century, a distinct class of literature
appeared in the world, which became with every year more defined in its
tendency. Being based, soi-disant, on the scholarly researches of Sanskritists
and Orientalists in general, it was held scientific. Hindu, Egyptian, and other
ancient religions, myths, and emblems were made to yield anything the
symbologist wanted them to
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yield,
thus often giving out the rude outward form in place of the inner meaning.
Works, most remarkable for their ingenious deductions and speculations, in
circulo vicioso, foregone conclusions generally changing places with premisses
as in the syllogisms of more than one Sanskrit and Pali scholar, appeared
rapidly in succession, over-flooding the libraries with dissertations rather on
phallic and sexual worship than on real symbology, and each contradicting the
other.
This
is the true reason, perhaps, why the outline of a few fundamental truths from
the Secret Doctrine of the Archaic ages is now permitted to see the light,
after long millenniums of the most profound silence and secrecy. I say "a
few truths," advisedly, because that which must remain unsaid could not be
contained in a hundred such volumes, nor could it be imparted to the present
generation of Sadducees. But, even the little that is now given is better than
complete silence upon those vital truths. The world of to-day, in its mad
career towards the unknown -- which it is too ready to confound with the
unknowable, whenever the problem eludes the grasp of the physicist -- is
rapidly progressing on the reverse, material plane of spirituality. It has now
become a vast arena -- a true valley of discord and of eternal strife -- a
necropolis, wherein lie buried the highest and the most holy aspirations of our
Spirit-Soul. That soul becomes with every new generation more paralyzed and
atrophied. The "amiable infidels and accomplished profligates" of
Society, spoken of by Greeley, care little for the revival of the dead sciences
of the past; but there is a fair minority of earnest students who are entitled
to learn the few truths that may be given to them now; and now much more than
ten years ago, when "Isis Unveiled," or even the later attempts to
explain the mysteries of esoteric science, were published.
One
of the greatest, and, withal, the most serious objection to the correctness and
reliability of the whole work will be the preliminary STANZAS: "How can
the statements contained in them be verified?" True, if a great portion of
the Sanskrit, Chinese, and Mongolian works quoted in the present volumes are
known to some Orientalists, the chief work -- that one from which the Stanzas
are given -- is not in the possession of European Libraries. The Book of Dzyan
(or "Dzan") is utterly unknown to our Philologists, or at any rate
was never heard of by them under its present name. This is, of course, a great
drawback
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to
those who follow the methods of research prescribed by official Science; but to
the students of Occultism, and to every genuine Occultist, this will be of
little moment. The main body of the Doctrines given is found scattered
throughout hundreds and thousands of Sanskrit MSS., some already translated --
disfigured in their interpretations, as usual, -- others still awaiting their
turn. Every scholar, therefore, has an opportunity of verifying the statements
herein made, and of checking most of the quotations. A few new facts (new to
the profane Orientalist, only) and passages quoted from the Commentaries will
be found difficult to trace. Several of the teachings, also, have hitherto been
transmitted orally: yet even those are in every instance hinted at in the
almost countless volumes of Brahminical, Chinese and Tibetan temple-literature.
However
it may be, and whatsoever is in store for the writer through malevolent
criticism, one fact is quite certain. The members of several esoteric schools
-- the seat of which is beyond the Himalayas, and whose ramifications may be
found in China, Japan, India, Tibet, and even in Syria, besides South America
-- claim to have in their possession the sum total of sacred and philosophical
works in MSS. and type: all the works, in fact, that have ever been written, in
whatever language or characters, since the art of writing began; from the
ideographic hieroglyphs down to the alphabet of Cadmus and the Devanagari.
It
has been claimed in all ages that ever since the destruction of the Alexandrian
Library (see Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 27), every work of a character that
might have led the profane to the ultimate discovery and comprehension of some
of the mysteries of the Secret Science, was, owing to the combined efforts of
the members of the Brotherhoods, diligently searched for. It is added, moreover,
by those who know, that once found, save three copies left and stored safely
away, such works were all destroyed. In India, the last of the precious
manuscripts were secured and hidden during the reign of the Emperor Akbar.*
It
is maintained, furthermore, that every sacred book of that kind, whose text was
not sufficiently veiled in symbolism, or which had any
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Prof. Max Muller shows that no bribes or threats of Akbar could extort from the
Brahmans the original text of the Veda; and boasts that European Orientalists
have it (Lecture on the "Science of Religion," p. 23). Whether Europe
has the complete text is very doubtful, and the future may have very
disagreeable surprises in store for the Orientalists.
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direct
references to the ancient mysteries, after having been carefully copied in
cryptographic characters, such as to defy the art of the best and cleverest
palaeographer, was also destroyed to the last copy. During Akbar's reign, some
fanatical courtiers, displeased at the Emperor's sinful prying into the
religions of the infidels, themselves helped the Brahmans to conceal their MSS.
Such was Badaoni, who had an undisguised horror for Akbar's mania for
idolatrous religions.*
Moreover
in all the large and wealthy lamasaries, there are subterranean crypts and cave-libraries,
cut in the rock, whenever the gonpa and the lhakhang are situated in the
mountains. Beyond the Western Tsay-dam, in the solitary passes of Kuen-lun**
there are several such hiding places. Along the ridge of Altyn-Toga, whose soil
no European foot has ever trodden so far, there exists a certain hamlet, lost
in a deep gorge. It is a small cluster of houses, a hamlet rather than a
monastery, with a poor-looking temple in it, with one old lama, a hermit,
living near by to watch it. Pilgrims say that the subterranean galleries and
halls under it contain a collection of books, the number of which, according to
the accounts given, is too large to find room even in the British Museum.***
All
this is very likely to provoke a smile of doubt. But then, before
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Badaoni wrote in his Muntakhab at Tawarikh: "His Majesty relished
inquiries into the sects of these infidels (who cannot be counted, so numerous
they are, and who have no end of revealed books) . . . As they (the Sramana and
Brahmins) surpass other learned men in their treatises on morals, on physical
and religious sciences, and reach a high degree in their knowledge of the
future, in spiritual power, and human perfection, they brought proofs based on
reason and testimony, and inculcated their doctrines so firmly that no man
could now raise a doubt in his Majesty even if mountains were to crumble to
dust, or the heavens were to tear asunder." This work "was kept
secret, and was not published till the reign of Jahangir." (Ain i Akbari,
translated by Dr. Blochmann, p. 104, note.)
**
Karakorum mountains, Western Tibet.
***
According to the same tradition the now desolate regions of the waterless land
of Tarim -- a true wilderness in the heart of Turkestan -- were in the days of
old covered with flourishing and wealthy cities. At present, hardly a few
verdant oases relieve its dead solitude. One such, sprung on the sepulchre of a
vast city swallowed by and buried under the sandy soil of the desert, belongs
to no one, but is often visited by Mongolians and Buddhists. The same tradition
speaks of immense subterranean abodes, of large corridors filled with tiles and
cylinders. It may be an idle rumour, and it may be an actual fact.
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the
reader rejects the truthfulness of the reports, let him pause and reflect over
the following well known facts. The collective researches of the Orientalists,
and especially the labours of late years of the students of comparative
Philology and the Science of Religions have led them to ascertain as follows:
An immense, incalculable number of MSS., and even printed works known to have
existed, are now to be found no more. They have disappeared without leaving the
slightest trace behind them. Were they works of no importance they might, in
the natural course of time, have been left to perish, and their very names
would have been obliterated from human memory. But it is not so; for, as now
ascertained, most of them contained the true keys to works still extant, and
entirely incomprehensible, for the greater portion of their readers, without
those additional volumes of Commentaries and explanations. Such are, for
instance, the works of Lao-tse, the predecessor of Confucius.*
He
is said to have written 930 books on Ethics and religions, and seventy on
magic, one thousand in all. His great work, however, the heart of his doctrine,
the "Tao-te-King," or the sacred scriptures of the Taosse, has in it,
as Stanislas Julien shows, only "about 5,000 words" (Tao-te-King, p.
xxvii.), hardly a dozen of pages, yet Professor Max Muller finds that "the
text is unintelligible without commentaries, so that Mr. Julien had to consult
more than sixty commentators for the purpose of his translation," the
earliest going back as far as the year 163 B.C., not earlier, as we see. During
the four centuries and a half that preceded this earliest of the commentators
there was ample time to veil the true Lao-tse doctrine from all but his
initiated priests. The Japanese, among whom are now to be found the most
learned of the priests and followers of Lao-tse, simply laugh at the blunders
and hypotheses of the European Chinese scholars; and tradition affirms that the
commentaries to which our Western Sinologues have access are not the real
occult records, but intentional veils, and that the true commentaries, as well
as almost all the texts, have long since disappeared from the eyes of the profane.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"If we turn to China, we find that the religion of Confucius is founded on
the Five King and the Four Shu-books, in themselves of considerable extent and
surrounded by voluminous Commentaries, without which even the most learned
scholars would not venture to fathom the depth of their sacred canon."
(Lectures on the "Science of Religion," p. 185. Max Muller.) But they
have not fathomed it -- and this is the complaint of the Confucianists, as a
very learned member of that body, in Paris, complained in 1881.
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If
one turns to the ancient literature of the Semitic religions, to the Chaldean
Scriptures, the elder sister and instructress, if not the fountain-head of the
Mosaic Bible, the basis and starting-point of Christianity, what do the
scholars find? To perpetuate the memory of the ancient religions of Babylon; to
record the vast cycle of astronomical observations of the Chaldean Magi; to
justify the tradition of their splendid and eminently occult literature, what
now remains? -- only a few fragments, said to be by Berosus.
These,
however, are almost valueless, even as a clue to the character of what has
disappeared. For they passed through the hands of his Reverence the Bishop of
Caesarea -- that self-constituted censor and editor of the sacred records of
other men's religions -- and they doubtless bear to this day the mark of his
eminently veracious and trustworthy hand. For what is the history of this
treatise on the once grand religion of Babylon?
Written
in Greek by Berosus, a priest of the temple of Belus, for Alexander the Great, from
the astronomical and chronological records preserved by the priests of that
temple, and covering a period of 200,000 years, it is now lost. In the first
century B.C. Alexander Polyhistor made a series of extracts from it -- also
lost. Eusebius used these extracts in writing his Chronicon (270-340 A.D.). The
points of resemblance -- almost of identity -- between the Jewish and the
Chaldean Scriptures,* made the latter most dangerous to Eusebius, in his role
of defender and champion of the new faith which had adopted the Jewish
Scriptures, and with them an absurd chronology. It is pretty certain that
Eusebius did not spare the Egyptian Synchronistic tables of Manetho -- so much
so that Bunsen** charges him with mutilating history most unscrupulously. And Socrates,
a historian of the fifth century, and Syncellus, vice-patriarch of
Constantinople (eighth century), both denounce him as the most daring and
desperate forger.
Is
it likely, then, that he dealt more tenderly with the Chaldean records, which
were already menacing the new religion, so rashly accepted?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Found out and proven only now, through the discoveries made by George Smith
(vide his "Chaldean account of Genesis"), and which, thanks to this
Armenian forger, have misled all the civilized nations for over 1,500 years
into accepting Jewish derivations for direct Divine Revelation!
**
Bunsen's "Egypt's Place in History," vol. i. p. 200
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So
that, with the exception of these more than doubtful fragments, the entire
Chaldean sacred literature has disappeared from the eyes of the profane as
completely as the lost Atlantis. A few facts that were contained in the
Berosian History are given in Part II. of Vol. II., and may throw a great light
on the true origin of the Fallen Angels, personified by Bel and the Dragon.
Turning
now to the oldest Aryan literature, the Rig-Veda, the student will find,
following strictly in this the data furnished by the said Orientalists
themselves, that, although the Rig-Veda contains only "about 10,580
verses, or 1,028 hymns," in spite of the Brahmanas and the mass of glosses
and commentaries, it is not understood correctly to this day. Why is this so?
Evidently because the Brahmanas, "the scholastic and oldest treatises on
the primitive hymns," themselves require a key, which the Orientalists
have failed to secure.
What
do the scholars say of Buddhist literature? Have they got it in its
completeness? Assuredly not. Notwithstanding the 325 volumes of the Kanjur and
the Tanjur of the Northern Buddhists, each volume we are told, "weighing
from four to five pounds," nothing, in truth, is known of Lamaism. Yet,
the sacred canon of the Southern Church is said to contain 29,368,000 letters
in the Saddharma alankara,* or, exclusive of treatises and commentaries,
"five or six times the amount of the matter contained in the Bible,"
the latter, in the words of Professor Max Muller, rejoicing only in 3,567,180
letters. Notwithstanding, then, these "325 volumes" (in reality there
are 333, Kanjur comprising 108, and Tanjur 225 volumes), "the translators,
instead of supplying us with correct versions, have interwoven them with their
own commentaries, for the purpose of justifying the dogmas of their several
schools."** Moreover, "according to a tradition preserved by the
Buddhist schools, both of the South and of the North, the sacred Buddhist Canon
comprised originally 80,000 or 84,000 tracts, but most of them were lost, so
that there remained but 6,000," the professor tells his audiences.
"Lost" as usual for Europeans. But who can be quite sure that they
are likewise lost for Buddhists and Brahmins?
Considering
the sacredness for the Buddhists of every line written
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Spence Hardy, "The Legends and Theories of the Buddhists," p. 66.
**
"Buddhism in Tibet," p. 78.
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[[Vol.
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upon
Buddha or his "Good Law," the loss of nearly 76,000 tracts does seem
miraculous. Had it been vice versa, every one acquainted with the natural course
of events would subscribe to the statement that, of these 76,000, five or six
thousand treatises might have been destroyed during the persecutions in, and
emigrations from, India. But as it is well ascertained that Buddhist Arhats
began their religious exodus, for the purpose of propagating the new faith
beyond Kashmir and the Himalayas, as early as the year 300 before our era,* and
reached China in the year 61 A.D.** when Kashyapa, at the invitation of the
Emperor Ming-ti, went there to acquaint the "Son of Heaven" with the
tenets of Buddhism, it does seem strange to hear the Orientalists speaking of
such a loss as though it were really possible. They do not seem to allow for
one moment the possibility that the texts may be lost only for West and for
themselves; or, that the Asiatic people should have the unparalleled boldness
to keep their most sacred records out of the reach of foreigners, thus refusing
to deliver them to the profanation and misuse of races even so "vastly
superior" to themselves.
Owing
to the expressed regrets and numerous confessions of almost every one of the
Orientalists (See Max Muller's Lectures for example) the public may feel
sufficiently sure (a) that the students of ancient religions have indeed very
few data upon which to build such final conclusions as they generally do about
the old religions, and (b) that such lack of data does not prevent them in the
least from dogmatising. One would imagine that, thanks to the numerous records
of the Egyptian theogony and mysteries preserved in the classics, and in a
number of ancient writers, the rites and dogmas of Pharaonic Egypt ought to be
well understood at least; better, at any rate, than the too abstruse
philosophies and Pantheism of India, of whose religion and language Europe had
hardly any idea before the beginning of the present century. Along the Nile and
on the face of the whole country, there stand to this hour, exhumed yearly and
daily, fresh relics which eloquently tell their own history. Still it is not
so. The learned Oxford philologist himself confesses the truth by saying that
"Though . . . we see still standing the Pyramids, and the ruins of temples
and labyrinths, their walls
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Lassen, ("Ind. Althersumkunde" Vol. II, p. 1,072) shows a Buddhist
monastery erected in the Kailas range in 137 B.C.; and General Cunningham,
earlier than that.
**
Reverend T. Edkins, "Chinese Buddhism."
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[[Vol.
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covered
with hieroglyphic inscriptions, and with the strange pictures of gods and
goddesses. . . . . On rolls of papyrus, which seem to defy the ravages of time,
we have even fragments of what may be called the sacred books of the Egyptians;
yet, though much has been deciphered in the ancient records of that mysterious
race, the mainspring of the religion of Egypt and the original intention of its
ceremonial worship are far from being fully disclosed to us."* Here again
the mysterious hieroglyphic documents remain, but the keys by which alone they
become intelligible have disappeared.
Nevertheless,
having found that "there is a natural connection between language and
religion"; and, secondly, that there was a common Aryan religion before
the separation of the Aryan race; a common Semitic religion before the
separation of the Semitic race; and a common Turanian religion before the
separation of the Chinese and the other tribes belonging to the Turanian class;
having, in fact, only discovered "three ancient centres of religion"
and "three centres of language," and though as entirely ignorant of
those primitive religions and languages, as of their origin, the professor does
not hesitate to declare "that a truly historical basis for a scientific
treatment of those principal religions of the world has been gained!"
A
"scientific treatment" of a subject is no guarantee for its
"historical basis"; and with such scarcity of data on hand, no
philologist, even among the most eminent, is justified in giving out his own
conclusions for historical facts. No doubt, the eminent Orientalist has proved
thoroughly to the world's satisfaction, that according to Grimm's law of
phonetic rules, Odin and Buddha are two different personages, quite distinct
from each other, and he has shown it scientifically. When, however, he takes
the opportunity of saying in the same breath that Odin "was worshipped as
the supreme deity during a period long anterior to the age of the Veda and of
Homer" (Compar. Theol., p. 318), he has not the slightest "historical
basis" for it. He makes history and fact subservient to his
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So little acquainted are our greatest Egyptologists with the funerary rites of
the Egyptians and the outward marks of the difference of sexes made on the
mummies, that it has led to the most ludicrous mistakes. Only a year or two
since, one of that kind was discovered at Boulaq, Cairo. The mummy of what had
been considered the wife of an unimportant Pharaoh, has turned out, thanks to
an inscription found on an amulet hung on his neck, to be that of Sesostris --
the greatest King of Egypt!
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[[Vol.
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own
conclusions, which may be very "scientific," in the sight of Oriental
scholars, but yet very wide of the mark of actual truth. The conflicting views
on the subject of chronology, in the case of the Vedas, of the various eminent
philologists and Orientalists, from Martin Haug down to Mr. Max Muller himself,
are an evident proof that the statement has no historical basis to stand upon,
"internal evidence" being very often a jack-o'lantern, instead of a
safe beacon to follow. Nor has the Science of modern Comparative Mythology any
better proof to show, that those learned writers, who have insisted for the
last century or so that there must have been "fragments of a primeval
revelation, granted to the ancestors of the whole race of mankind . . . .
preserved in the temples of Greece and Italy," were entirely wrong. For
this is what all the Eastern Initiates and Pundits have been proclaiming to the
world from time to time. While a prominent Cinghalese priest assured the writer
that it was well known that the most important Buddhist tracts belonging to the
sacred canon were stored away in countries and places inaccessible to the
European pundits, the late Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, the greatest Sanskritist
of his day in India, assured some members of the Theosophical Society of the
same fact with regard to ancient Brahmanical works. When told that Professor
Max Muller had declared to the audiences of his "Lectures" that the
theory . . . . "that there was a primeval preternatural revelation granted
to the fathers of the human race, finds but few supporters at present," --
the holy and learned man laughed. His answer was suggestive. "If Mr. Moksh
Mooller, as he pronounced the name, were a Brahmin, and came with me, I might
take him to a gupta cave (a secret crypt) near Okhee Math, in the Himalayas,
where he would soon find out that what crossed the Kalapani (the black waters
of the ocean) from India to Europe were only the bits of rejected copies of
some passages from our sacred books. There was a "primeval
revelation," and it still exists; nor will it ever be lost to the world,
but will reappear; though the Mlechchhas will of course have to wait."
Questioned
further on this point, he would say no more. This was at Meerut, in 1880.
No
doubt the mystification played, in the last century at Calcutta, by the
Brahmins upon Colonel Wilford and Sir William Jones was a cruel one. But it had
been well deserved, and no one was more to be blamed
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[[Vol.
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in
that affair than the Missionaries and Colonel Wilford themselves. The former,
on the testimony of Sir William Jones himself (see Asiat. Res., Vol. I., p.
272), were silly enough to maintain that "the Hindus were even now almost
Christians, because their Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesa were no other than the
Christian trinity."* It was a good lesson. It made the Oriental scholars
doubly cautious; but perchance it has also made some of them too shy, and
caused, in its reaction, the pendulum of foregone conclusions to swing too much
the other way. For "that first supply on the Brahmanical market,"
made for Colonel Wilford, has now created an evident necessity and desire in
the Orientalists to declare nearly every archaic Sanskrit manuscript so modern
as to give to the missionaries full justification for availing themselves of
the opportunity. That they do so and to the full extent of their mental powers,
is shown by the absurd attempts of late to prove that the whole Puranic story
about Chrishna was plagiarized by the Brahmins from the Bible! But the facts
cited by the Oxford Professor in his Lectures on the "Science of
Religion," concerning the now famous interpolations, for the benefit, and
later on to the sorrow, of Col. Wilford, do not at all interfere with the
conclusions to which one who studies the Secret Doctrine must unavoidably come.
For, if the results show that neither the New nor even the Old Testament
borrowed anything from the more ancient religion of the Brahmans and Buddhists,
it does not follow that the Jews have not borrowed all they knew from the
Chaldean records, the latter being mutilated later on by Eusebius. As to the
Chaldeans, they assuredly got their primitive learning from the Brahmans, for
Rawlinson shows an undeniably Vedic influence in the early mythology of
Babylon; and Col. Vans Kennedy has long since justly declared that Babylonia
was, from her origin, the seat of Sanskrit and Brahman learning. But all such
proofs must lose their value, in the presence of the latest theory worked out
by Prof. Max Muller. What it is everyone knows. The code of phonetic laws has
now become a universal solvent for every identification and
"connection" between
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Max Muller's "Introduction to the Science of Religion." Lecture
On False Analogies in comparative Theology, pp. 288 and 296 et seq. This
relates to the clever forgery (on leaves inserted in old Puranic MSS.), in
correct and archaic Sanskrit, of all that the Pundits of Col. Wilford had heard
from him about Adam and Abraham, Noah and his three sons, etc., etc
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
gods of many nations. Thus, though the Mother of Mercury (Budha, Thot-Hermes,
etc.), was Maia, the mother of Buddha (Gautama), also Maya, and the mother of
Jesus, likewise Maya (illusion, for Mary is Mare, the Sea, the great illusion
symbolically) -- yet these three characters have no connection, nor can they
have any, since Bopp, has "laid down his code of phonetic laws."
In
their efforts to collect together the many skeins of unwritten history, it is a
bold step for our Orientalists to take, to deny, a priori, everything that does
not dovetail with their special conclusions. Thus, while new discoveries are
daily made of great arts and sciences having existed far back in the night of
time, even the knowledge of writing is refused to some of the most ancient
nations, and they are credited with barbarism instead of culture. Yet the
traces of an immense civilization, even in Central Asia, are still to be found.
This civilization is undeniably prehistoric. And how can there be civilization
without a literature, in some form, without annals or chronicles? Common sense
alone ought to supplement the broken links in the history of departed nations.
The gigantic, unbroken wall of the mountains that hem in the whole table-land
of Tibet, from the upper course of the river Khuan-Khe down to the Kara-Korum
hills, witnessed a civilization during millenniums of years, and would have
strange secrets to tell mankind. The Eastern and Central portions of those
regions -- the Nan-Schayn and the Altyne-taga -- were once upon a time covered
with cities that could well vie with Babylon. A whole geological period has
swept over the land, since those cities breathed their last, as the mounds of
shifting sand, and the sterile and now dead soil of the immense central plains
of the basin of Tarim testify. The borderlands alone are superficially known to
the traveller. Within those table-lands of sand there is water, and fresh oases
are found blooming there, wherein no European foot has ever yet ventured, or
trodden the now treacherous soil. Among these verdant oases there are some
which are entirely inaccessible even to the native profane traveller.
Hurricanes may "tear up the sands and sweep whole plains away," they
are powerless to destroy that which is beyond their reach. Built deep in the
bowels of the earth, the subterranean stores are secure; and as their entrances
are concealed in such oases, there is little fear that any one should discover
them, even should several armies invade the sandy wastes where --
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"Not
a pool, not a bush, not a house is seen,
And
the mountain-range forms a rugged screen
Round
the parch'd flats of the dry, dry desert. . . . ."
But
there is no need to send the reader across the desert, when the same proofs of
ancient civilization are found even in comparatively populated regions of the
same country. The oasis of Tchertchen, for instance, situated about 4,000 feet
above the level of the river Tchertchen-D'arya, is surrounded with the ruins of
archaic towns and cities in every direction. There, some 3,000 human beings
represent the relics of about a hundred extinct nations and races -- the very
names of which are now unknown to our ethnologists. An anthropologist would
feel more than embarrassed to class, divide and subdivide them; the more so, as
the respective descendants of all these antediluvian races and tribes know as
little of their own forefathers themselves, as if they had fallen from the moon.
When questioned about their origin, they reply that they know not whence their
fathers had come, but had heard that their first (or earliest) men were ruled
by the great genii of these deserts. This may be put down to ignorance and
superstition, yet in view of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine, the answer
may be based upon primeval tradition. Alone, the tribe of Khoorassan claims to
have come from what is now known as Afghanistan, long before the days of
Alexander, and brings legendary lore to that effect as corroboration. The
Russian traveller, Colonel (now General) Prjevalsky, found quite close to the
oasis of Tchertchen, the ruins of two enormous cities, the oldest of which was,
according to local tradition, ruined 3,000 years ago by a hero and giant; and
the other by the Mongolians in the tenth century of our era. "The
emplacement of the two cities is now covered, owing to shifting sands and the
desert wind, with strange and heterogeneous relics; with broken china and
kitchen utensils and human bones. The natives often find copper and gold coins,
melted silver, ingots, diamonds, and turquoises, and what is the most
remarkable -- broken glass. . . . ." "Coffins of some undecaying
wood, or material, also, within which beautifully preserved embalmed bodies are
found. . . . . The male mummies are all extremely tall powerfully built men
with long waving hair. . . . . A vault was found with twelve dead men sitting
in it. Another time, in a separate coffin, a young girl was discovered by us.
Her eyes were closed with golden discs, and the jaws held firm by a golden
circlet running from under the chin across the top of the head. Clad in a
narrow
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woollen
garment, her bosom was covered with golden stars, the feet being left
naked." (From a lecture by N. M. Prjevalsky.) To this, the famous
traveller adds that all along their way on the river Tchertchen they heard
legends about twenty-three towns buried ages ago by the shifting sands of the
deserts. The same tradition exists on the Lob-nor and in the oasis of Kerya.
The
traces of such civilization, and these and like traditions, give us the right
to credit other legendary lore warranted by well educated and learned natives
of India and Mongolia, when they speak of immense libraries reclaimed from the
sand, together with various reliques of ancient MAGIC lore, which have all been
safely stowed away.
To
recapitulate. The Secret Doctrine was the universally diffused religion of the
ancient and prehistoric world. Proofs of its diffusion, authentic records of
its history, a complete chain of documents, showing its character and presence
in every land, together with the teaching of all its great adepts, exist to this
day in the secret crypts of libraries belonging to the Occult Fraternity.
This
statement is rendered more credible by a consideration of the following facts:
the tradition of the thousands of ancient parchments saved when the Alexandrian
library was destroyed; the thousands of Sanskrit works which disappeared in
India in the reign of Akbar; the universal tradition in China and Japan that
the true old texts with the commentaries, which alone make them comprehensible
-- amounting to many thousands of volumes -- have long passed out of the reach
of profane hands; the disappearance of the vast sacred and occult literature of
Babylon; the loss of those keys which alone could solve the thousand riddles of
the Egyptian hieroglyphic records; the tradition in India that the real secret
commentaries which alone make the Veda intelligible, though no longer visible
to profane eyes, still remain for the initiate, hidden in secret caves and
crypts; and an identical belief among the Buddhists, with regard to their secret
books.
The
Occultists assert that all these exist, safe from Western spoliating hands, to
re-appear in some more enlightened age, for which in the words of the late
Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, "the Mlechchhas (outcasts, savages, those beyond
the pale of Aryan civilization) will have to wait."
For
it is not the fault of the initiates that these documents are now
"lost" to the profane; nor was their policy dictated by selfishness,
or
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any
desire to monopolise the life-giving sacred lore. There were portions of the
Secret Science that for incalculable ages had to remain concealed from the
profane gaze. But this was because to impart to the unprepared multitude
secrets of such tremendous importance, was equivalent to giving a child a
lighted candle in a powder magazine.
The
answer to a question which has frequently arisen in the minds of students, when
meeting with statements such as this, may be outlined here.
"We
can understand," they say, "the necessity for concealing from the
herd such secrets as the Vril, or the rock-destroying force, discovered by J.
W. Keely, of Philadelphia, but we cannot understand how any danger could arise
from the revelation of such a purely philosophic doctrine, as, e.g., the
evolution of the planetary chains."
The
danger was this: Doctrines such as the planetary chain, or the seven races, at
once give a clue to the seven-fold nature of man, for each principle is
correlated to a plane, a planet, and a race; and the human principles are, on
every plane, correlated to seven-fold occult forces -- those of the higher
planes being of tremendous power. So that any septenary division at once gives
a clue to tremendous occult powers, the abuse of which would cause incalculable
evil to humanity. A clue, which is, perhaps, no clue to the present generation
-- especially the Westerns -- protected as they are by their very blindness and
ignorant materialistic disbelief in the occult; but a clue which would,
nevertheless, have been very real in the early centuries of the Christian era,
to people fully convinced of the reality of occultism, and entering a cycle of
degradation, which made them rife for abuse of occult powers and sorcery of the
worst description.
The
documents were concealed, it is true, but the knowledge itself and its actual
existence had never been made a secret of by the Hierophants of the Temple,
wherein MYSTERIES have ever been made a discipline and stimulus to virtue. This
is very old news, and was repeatedly made known by the great adepts, from
Pythagoras and Plato down to the Neoplatonists. It was the new religion of the
Nazarenes that wrought a change for the worse -- in the policy of centuries.
Moreover,
there is a well-known fact, a very curious one, corroborated to the writer by a
reverend gentleman attached for years to a Russian Embassy -- namely, that
there are several documents in the St. Peters-
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burg
Imperial Libraries to show that, even so late as during the days when
Freemasonry, and Secret Societies of Mystics flourished unimpeded in Russia,
i.e., at the end of the last and the beginning of the present century, more
than one Russian Mystic travelled to Tibet via the Ural mountains in search of
knowledge and initiation in the unknown crypts of Central Asia. And more than
one returned years later, with a rich store of such information as could never
have been given him anywhere in Europe. Several cases could be cited, and
well-known names brought forward, but for the fact that such publicity might
annoy the surviving relatives of the said late Initiates. Let any one look over
the Annals and History of Freemasonry in the archives of the Russian
metropolis, and he will assure himself of the fact stated.
This
is a corroboration of that which has been stated many times before, and,
unfortunately, too indiscreetly. Instead of benefiting humanity, the virulent
charges of deliberate invention and imposture with a purpose thrown at those
who asserted but a truthful, if even a little known fact, have only generated
bad Karma for the slanderers. But now the mischief is done, and truth should no
longer be denied, whatever the consequences. Is it a new religion, we are
asked? By no means; it is not a religion, nor is its philosophy new; for, as
already stated, it is as old as thinking man. Its tenets are not now published
for the first time, but have been cautiously given out to, and taught by, more
than one European Initiate -- especially by the late Ragon.
More
than one great scholar has stated that there never was a religious founder,
whether Aryan, Semitic or Turanian, who had invented a new religion, or
revealed a new truth. These founders were all transmitters, not original
teachers. They were the authors of new forms and interpretations, while the
truths upon which the latter were based were as old as mankind. Selecting one
or more of those grand verities -- actualities visible only to the eye of the
real Sage and Seer -- out of the many orally revealed to man in the beginning,
preserved and perpetuated in the adyta of the temples through initiation,
during the MYSTERIES and by personal transmission -- they revealed these truths
to the masses. Thus every nation received in its turn some of the said truths,
under the veil of its own local and special symbolism; which, as time went on,
developed into a more or less philosophical cultus, a Pantheon in mythical
disguise. Therefore is Confucius, a very ancient
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legislator
in historical chronology, though a very modern Sage in the World's History, shown
by Dr. Legge* -- who calls him "emphatically a transmitter, not a
maker" -- as saying: "I only hand on: I cannot create new things. I
believe in the ancients and therefore I love them."** (Quoted in
"Science of Religions" by Max Muller.)
The
writer loves them too, and therefore believes in the ancients, and the modern
heirs to their Wisdom. And believing in both, she now transmits that which she
has received and learnt herself to all those who will accept it. As to those
who may reject her testimony, -- i.e., the great majority -- she will bear them
no malice, for they will be as right in their way in denying, as she is right
in hers in affirming, since they look at TRUTH from two entirely different
stand-points. Agreeably with the rules of critical scholarship, the Orientalist
has to reject a priori whatever evidence he cannot fully verify for himself.
And how can a Western scholar accept on hearsay that which he knows nothing
about? Indeed, that which is given in these volumes is selected from oral, as
much as from written teachings. This first instalment of the esoteric doctrines
is based upon Stanzas, which are the records of a people unknown to ethnology;
it is claimed that they are written in a tongue absent from the nomenclature of
languages and dialects with which philology is acquainted; they are said to
emanate from a source (Occultism) repudiated by science; and, finally, they are
offered through an agency, incessantly discredited before the world by all
those who hate unwelcome truths, or have some special hobby of their own to
defend. Therefore, the rejection of these teachings may be expected, and must
be accepted beforehand. No one styling himself a "scholar," in
whatever department of exact science, will be permitted to regard these teachings
seriously. They will be derided and rejected a priori in this century; but only
in this one. For in the twentieth century of our era scholars will begin to
recognize that the Secret Doctrine has neither been invented nor exaggerated,
but, on the contrary, simply outlined; and finally, that its teachings antedate
the Vedas.*** Have not the latter been derided, rejected, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Lun Yu (§ I a) Schott. "Chinesische Literatur," p. 7.
**
"Life of Confucius," p. 96.
***
This is no pretension to prophecy, but simply a statement based on the
knowledge of facts. Every century an attempt is being made to show the world
that Occultism [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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called
"a modern forgery" even so recently as fifty years ago? Was not
Sanskrit proclaimed at one time the progeny of, and a dialect derived from, the
Greek, according to Lempriere and other scholars? About 1820, Prof. Max Muller
tells us, the sacred books of the Brahmans, of the Magians, and of the
Buddhists, "were all but unknown, their very existence was doubted, and
there was not a single scholar who could have translated a line of the Veda . .
. of the Zend Avesta, or . . . of the Buddhist Tripitaka, and now the Vedas are
proved to be the work of the highest antiquity whose 'preservation amounts
almost to a marvel' (Lecture on the Vedas).
The
same will be said of the Secret Archaic Doctrine, when proofs are given of its
undeniable existence and records. But it will take centuries before much more
is given from it. Speaking of the keys to the Zodiacal mysteries as being
almost lost to the world, it was remarked by the writer in "Isis
Unveiled" some ten years ago that: "The said key must be turned seven
times before the whole system is divulged. We will give it but one turn, and
thereby allow the profane one glimpse into the mystery. Happy he, who understands
the whole!"
The
same may be said of the whole Esoteric system. One turn of the key, and no
more, was given in "Isis." Much more is explained in these volumes.
In those days the writer hardly knew the language in which the work was
written, and the disclosure of many things, freely spoken about now, was
forbidden. In Century the Twentieth some disciple more informed, and far better
fitted, may be sent by the Masters of Wisdom to give final and irrefutable
proofs that there exists a Science called Gupta-Vidya; and that, like the
once-mysterious sources of the Nile, the source of all religions and
philosophies now known to the world has been for many ages forgotten and lost
to men, but is at last found.
Such
a work as this has to be introduced with no simple Preface, but with a volume
rather; one that would give facts, not mere disquisitions, since the SECRET
DOCTRINE is not a treatise, or a series of vague theories, but contains all
that can be given out to the world in this century.
It
would be worse than useless to publish in these pages even those
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] is no vain superstition. Once the door permitted
to be kept a little ajar, it will be opened wider with every new century. The
times are ripe for a more serious knowledge than hitherto permitted, though
still very limited, so far.
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[[Vol.
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portions
of the esoteric teachings that have now escaped from confinement, unless the
genuineness and authenticity -- at any rate, the probability -- of the
existence of such teachings was first established. Such statements as will now
be made, have to be shown warranted by various authorities: those of ancient
philosophers, classics and even certain learned Church Fathers, some of whom
knew these doctrines because they had studied them, had seen and read works
written upon them; and some of whom had even been personally initiated into the
ancient Mysteries, during the performance of which the arcane doctrines were
allegorically enacted. The writer will have to give historical and trustworthy
names, and to cite well-known authors, ancient and modern, of recognized ability,
good judgment, and truthfulness, as also to name some of the famous proficients
in the secret arts and science, along with the mysteries of the latter, as they
are divulged, or, rather, partially presented before the public in their
strange archaic form.
How
is this to be done? What is the best way for achieving such an object? was the
ever-recurring question. To make our plan clearer, an illustration may be
attempted. When a tourist coming from a well-explored country, suddenly reaches
the borderland of a terra incognita, hedged in, and shut out from view by a
formidable barrier of impassable rocks, he may still refuse to acknowledge
himself baffled in his exploratory plans. Ingress beyond is forbidden. But, if
he cannot visit the mysterious region personally, he may still find a means of
examining it from as short a distance as can be arrived at. Helped by his
knowledge of landscapes left behind him, he can get a general and pretty
correct idea of the transmural view, if he will only climb to the loftiest
summit of the altitudes in front of him. Once there, he can gaze at it, at his
leisure, comparing that which he dimly perceives with that which he has just
left below, now that he is, thanks to his efforts, beyond the line of the mists
and the cloud-capped cliffs.
Such
a point of preliminary observation, for those who would like to get a more
correct understanding of the mysteries of the pre-archaic periods given in the
texts, cannot be offered to them in these two volumes. But if the reader has patience,
and would glance at the present state of beliefs and creeds in Europe, compare
and check it with what is known to history of the ages directly preceding and
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following
the Christian era, then he will find all this in Volume III. of this work.
In
that volume a brief recapitulation will be made of all the principal adepts
known to history, and the downfall of the mysteries will be described; after
which began the disappearance and final and systematic elimination from the
memory of men of the real nature of initiation and the Sacred Science. From
that time its teachings became Occult, and Magic sailed but too often under the
venerable but frequently misleading name of Hermetic philosophy. As real
Occultism had been prevalent among the Mystics during the centuries that
preceded our era, so Magic, or rather Sorcery, with its Occult Arts, followed
the beginning of Christianity.
However
great and zealous the fanatical efforts, during those early centuries, to
obliterate every trace of the mental and intellectual labour of the Pagans, it
was a failure; but the same spirit of the dark demon of bigotry and intolerance
has perverted systematically and ever since, every bright page written in the
pre-Christian periods. Even in her uncertain records, history has preserved
enough of that which has survived to throw an impartial light upon the whole.
Let, then, the reader tarry a little while with the writer, on the spot of
observation selected. He is asked to give all his attention to that millennium
which divided the pre-Christian and the post-Christian periods, by the year ONE
of the Nativity. This event -- whether historically correct or not -- has
nevertheless been made to serve as a first signal for the erection of manifold
bulwarks against any possible return of, or even a glimpse into, the hated
religions of the Past; hated and dreaded -- because throwing such a vivid light
on the new and intentionally veiled interpretation of what is now known as the
"New Dispensation."
However
superhuman the efforts of the early Christian fathers to obliterate the Secret
Doctrine from the very memory of man, they all failed. Truth can never be
killed; hence the failure to sweep away entirely from the face of the earth
every vestige of that ancient Wisdom, and to shackle and gag every witness who
testified to it. Let one only think of the thousands, and perhaps millions, of
MSS. burnt; of monuments, with their too indiscreet inscriptions and pictorial
symbols, pulverised to dust; of the bands of early hermits and ascetics roaming
about among the ruined cities of Upper and Lower Egypt, in desert and
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mountain,
valleys and highlands, seeking for and eager to destroy every obelisk and
pillar, scroll or parchment they could lay their hands on, if it only bore the
symbol of the tau, or any other sign borrowed and appropriated by the new
faith; and he will then see plainly how it is that so little has remained of
the records of the Past. Verily, the fiendish spirits of fanaticism, of early
and mediaeval Christianity and of Islam, have from the first loved to dwell in
darkness and ignorance; and both have made
"--------------
the sun like blood, the earth a tomb,
The
tomb a hell, and hell itself a murkier gloom!"
Both
creeds have won their proselytes at the point of the sword; both have built
their churches on heaven-kissing hecatombs of human victims. Over the gateway
of Century I. of our era, the ominous words "the KARMA OF ISRAEL,"
fatally glowed. Over the portals of our own, the future seer may discern other
words, that will point to the Karma for cunningly made-up HISTORY, for events
purposely perverted, and for great characters slandered by posterity, mangled
out of recognition, between the two cars of Jagannatha -- Bigotry and
Materialism; one accepting too much, the other denying all. Wise is he who holds
to the golden mid-point, who believes in the eternal justice of things. Says
Faigi Diwan, the "witness to the wonderful speeches of a free-thinker who
belongs to a thousand sects": "In the assembly of the day of
resurrection, when past things shall be forgiven, the sins of the Ka'bah will
be forgiven for the sake of the dust of Christian churches." To this,
Professor Max Muller replies: "The sins of Islam are as worthless as the
dust of Christianity. On the day of resurrection both Muhammadans and Christians
will see the vanity of their religious doctrines. Men fight about religion on
earth -- in heaven they shall find out that there is only one true religion --
the worship of God's SPIRIT."*
In
other words -- "THERE IS NO RELIGION (OR LAW) HIGHER THAN TRUTH" --
"SATYAT NASTI PARO DHARMAH" -- the motto of the Maharajah of Benares,
adopted by the Theosophical Society.
As
already said in the Preface, the Secret Doctrine is not a version of "Isis
Unveiled" -- as originally intended. It is a volume explanatory of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Lectures on the Science of Religion," by F. Max Muller, p. 257.
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[[Vol.
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it
rather, and, though entirely independent of the earlier work, an indispensable
corollary to it. Much of what was in Isis could hardly be understood by
theosophists in those days. The Secret Doctrine will now throw light on many a
problem left unsolved in the first work, especially on the opening pages, which
have never been understood.
Concerned
simply with the philosophies within our historical times and the respective
symbolism of the fallen nations, only a hurried glance could be thrown at the
panorama of Occultism in the two volumes of Isis. In the present work, detailed
Cosmogony and the evolution of the four races that preceded our Fifth race
Humanity are given, and now two large volumes explain that which was stated on
the first page of ISIS UNVEILED alone, and in a few allusions scattered hither
and thither throughout that work. Nor could the vast catalogue of the Archaic
Sciences be attempted in the present volumes, before we have disposed of such
tremendous problems as Cosmic and Planetary Evolution, and the gradual
development of the mysterious Humanities and races that preceded our
"Adamic" Humanity. Therefore, the present attempt to elucidate some
mysteries of the Esoteric philosophy has, in truth, nothing to do with the
earlier work. As an instance, the writer must be allowed to illustrate what is
said.
Volume
I. of "Isis" begins with a reference to "an old book" --
"So
very old that our modern antiquarians might ponder over its pages an indefinite
time, and still not quite agree as to the nature of the fabric upon which it is
written. It is the only original copy now in existence. The most ancient Hebrew
document on occult learning -- the Siphrah Dzeniouta -- was compiled from it,
and that at a time when the former was already considered in the light of a
literary relic. One of its illustrations represents the Divine Essence
emanating from ADAM* like a luminous arc proceeding to form a circle; and then,
having attained the highest point of its circumference, the ineffable glory
bends back again, and returns to earth, bringing a higher type of humanity in
its vortex. As it approaches nearer and nearer to our planet, the Emanation
becomes more and more shadowy, until upon touching the ground it is as black as
night."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The name is used in the sense of the Greek word [[anthropos]].
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The
"very old Book" is the original work from which the many volumes of
Kiu-ti were compiled. Not only this latter and the Siphrah Dzeniouta but even
the Sepher Jezirah,* the work attributed by the Hebrew Kabalists to their
Patriarch Abraham (!), the book of Shu-king, China's primitive Bible, the
sacred volumes of the Egyptian Thoth-Hermes, the Puranas in India, and the
Chaldean Book of Numbers and the Pentateuch itself, are all derived from that
one small parent volume. Tradition says, that it was taken down in Senzar, the
secret sacerdotal tongue, from the words of the Divine Beings, who dictated it
to the sons of Light, in Central Asia, at the very beginning of the 5th (our)
race; for there was a time when its language (the Sen-zar) was known to the Initiates
of every nation, when the forefathers of the Toltec understood it as easily as
the inhabitants of the lost Atlantis, who inherited it, in their turn, from the
sages of the 3rd Race, the Manushis, who learnt it direct from the Devas of the
2nd and 1st Races. The "illustration" spoken of in "Isis"
relates to the evolution of these Races and of our 4th and 5th Race Humanity in
the Vaivasvata Manvantara or "Round"; each Round being composed of
the Yugas of the seven periods of Humanity; four of which are now passed in our
life cycle, the middle point of the 5th being nearly reached. The illustration
is symbolical, as every one can well understand, and covers the ground from the
beginning. The old book, having described Cosmic Evolution and explained the
origin of everything on earth, including physical man, after giving the true
history of the races from the First down to the Fifth (our) race, goes no
further. It stops short at the beginning of the Kali Yuga just 4989 years ago
at the death of Krishna, the bright "Sun-god," the once living hero
and reformer.
But
there exists another book. None of its possessors regard it as very ancient, as
it was born with, and is only as old as the Black Age,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Rabbi Jehoshua Ben Chananea, who died about A.D. 72, openly declared that he
had performed "miracles" by means of the Book of Sepher Jezireh, and
challenged every sceptic. Franck, quoting from the Babylonian Talmud, names two
other thaumaturgists, Rabbis Chanina and Oshoi. (See "Jerusalem Talmud,
Sanhedrin," c. 7, etc.; and "Franck," pp. 55, 56.) Many of the
Mediaeval Occultists, Alchemists, and Kabalists claimed the same; and even the
late modern Magus, Eliphas Levi, publicly asserts it in print in his books on
Magic.
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[[Vol.
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namely,
about 5,000 years. In about nine years hence, the first cycle of the first five
millenniums, that began with the great cycle of the Kali-Yuga, will end. And
then the last prophecy contained in that book (the first volume of the
prophetic record for the Black Age) will be accomplished. We have not long to
wait, and many of us will witness the Dawn of the New Cycle, at the end of
which not a few accounts will be settled and squared between the races. Volume
II. of the Prophecies is nearly ready, having been in preparation since the
time of Buddha's grand successor, Sankaracharya.
One
more important point must be noticed, one that stands foremost in the series of
proofs given of the existence of one primeval, universal Wisdom -- at any rate
for the Christian Kabalists and students. The teachings were, at least,
partially known to several of the Fathers of the Church. It is maintained, on
purely historical grounds, that Origen, Synesius, and even Clemens
Alexandrinus, had been themselves initiated into the mysteries before adding to
the Neo-Platonism of the Alexandrian school, that of the Gnostics, under the
Christian veil. More than this, some of the doctrines of the Secret schools --
though by no means all -- were preserved in the Vatican, and have since become
part and parcel of the mysteries, in the shape of disfigured additions made to
the original Christian programme by the Latin Church. Such is the now
materialised dogma of the Immaculate Conception. This accounts for the great
persecutions set on foot by the Roman Catholic Church against Occultism,
Masonry, and heterodox mysticism generally.
The
days of Constantine were the last turning-point in history, the period of the
Supreme struggle that ended in the Western world throttling the old religions
in favour of the new one, built on their bodies. From thence the vista into the
far distant Past, beyond the "Deluge" and the Garden of Eden, began
to be forcibly and relentlessly closed by every fair and unfair means against
the indiscreet gaze of posterity. Every issue was blocked up, every record that
hands could be laid upon, destroyed. Yet there remains enough, even among such
mutilated records, to warrant us in saying that there is in them every possible
evidence of the actual existence of a Parent Doctrine. Fragments have survived
geological and political cataclysms to tell the story; and every survival shows
evidence that the now Secret Wisdom was once the
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one
fountain head, the ever-flowing perennial source, at which were fed all its streamlets
-- the later religions of all nations -- from the first down to the last. This
period, beginning with Buddha and Pythagoras at the one end and the
Neo-Platonists and Gnostics at the other, is the only focus left in History
wherein converge for the last time the bright rays of light streaming from the
aeons of time gone by, unobscured by the hand of bigotry and fanaticism.
This
accounts for the necessity under which the writer has laboured to be ever
explaining the facts given from the hoariest Past by evidence gathered from the
historical period. No other means was at hand, at the risk even of being once
more charged with a lack of method and system. The public must be made
acquainted with the efforts of many World-adepts, of initiated poets, writers,
and classics of every age, to preserve in the records of Humanity the Knowledge
of the existence, at least, of such a philosophy, if not actually of its
tenets. The Initiates of 1888 would indeed remain incomprehensible and ever a
seemingly impossible myth, were not like Initiates shown to have lived in every
other age of history. This could be done only by naming Chapter and Verse where
may be found mention of these great characters, who were preceded and followed
by a long and interminable line of other famous Antediluvian and Post-diluvian
Masters in the arts. Thus only could be shown, on semi-traditional and
semi-historical authority, that knowledge of the Occult and the powers it
confers on man, are not altogether fictions, but that they are as old as the
world itself.
To
my judges, past and future, therefore -- whether they are serious literary
critics, or those howling dervishes in literature who judge a book according to
the popularity or unpopularity of the author's name, who, hardly glancing at
its contents, fasten like lethal bacilli on the weakest points of the body -- I
have nothing to say. Nor shall I condescend to notice those crack-brained
slanderers -- fortunately very few in number -- who, hoping to attract public
attention by throwing discredit on every writer whose name is better known than
their own, foam and bark at their very shadows. These, having first maintained
for years that the doctrines taught in the Theosophist, and which culminated in
"Esoteric Buddhism," had been all invented by the present writer,
have finally turned round, and denounced "Isis Unveiled" and the rest
as a plagiarism from Eliphas Levi (!), Paracelsus (!!), and, mirabile
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] xlvi INTRODUCTORY.
dictu,
Buddhism and Brahmanism (!!!) As well charge Renan with having stolen his Vie
de Jesus from the Gospels, and Max Muller his "Sacred Books of the
East" or his "Chips" from the philosophies of the Brahmins and
Gautama, the Buddha. But to the public in general and the readers of the
"Secret Doctrine" I may repeat what I have stated all along, and
which I now clothe in the words of Montaigne: Gentlemen, "I HAVE HERE MADE
ONLY A NOSEGAY OF CULLED FLOWERS, AND HAVE BROUGHT NOTHING OF MY OWN BUT THE
STRING THAT TIES THEM."
Pull
the "string" to pieces and cut it up in shreds, if you will. As for
the nosegay of FACTS -- you will never be able to make away with these. You can
only ignore them, and no more.
We
may close with a parting word concerning this Volume I. In an INTRODUCTION
prefacing a Part dealing chiefly with Cosmogony, certain subjects brought
forward might be deemed out of place, but one more consideration added to those
already given have led me to touch upon them. Every reader will inevitably
judge the statements made from the stand-point of his own knowledge,
experience, and consciousness, based on what he has already learnt. This fact
the writer is constantly obliged to bear in mind: hence, also the frequent
references in this first Book to matters which, properly speaking, belong to a
later part of the work, but which could not be passed by in silence, lest the
reader should look down on this work as a fairy tale indeed -- a fiction of
some modern brain.
Thus,
the Past shall help to realise the PRESENT, and the latter to better appreciate
the PAST. The errors of the day must be explained and swept away, yet it is
more than probable -- and in the present case it amounts to certitude -- that
once more the testimony of long ages and of history will fail to impress anyone
but the very intuitional -- which is equal to saying the very few. But in this
as in all like cases, the true and the faithful may console themselves by
presenting the sceptical modern Sadducee with the mathematical proof and
memorial of his obdurate obstinacy and bigotry. There still exists somewhere in
the archives of the French Academy, the famous law of probabilities worked out
by an algebraical process for the benefit of sceptics by certain mathematicians.
It runs thus: If two persons give their evidence to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] xlvii INTRODUCTORY.
a
fact, and thus impart to it each of them 5/6 of certitude; that fact will have
then 35/36 of certitude; i.e., its probability will bear to its improbability
the ratio of 35 to 1. If three such evidences are joined together the certitude
will become 215/216. The agreement of ten persons giving each 1/2 of certitude
will produce 1023/1024, etc., etc. The Occultist may remain satisfied, and care
for no more.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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[[blank]]
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[[Vol.
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PROEM.
-------
PAGES
FROM A PRE-HISTORIC PERIOD.
AN
Archaic Manuscript -- a collection of palm leaves made impermeable to water,
fire, and air, by some specific unknown process -- is before the writer's eye.
On the first page is an immaculate white disk within a dull black ground. On
the following page, the same disk, but with a central point. The first, the
student knows to represent Kosmos in Eternity, before the re-awakening of still
slumbering Energy, the emanation of the Word in later systems. The point in the
hitherto immaculate Disk, Space and Eternity in Pralaya, denotes the dawn of
differentiation. It is the Point in the Mundane Egg (see Part II., "The
Mundane Egg"), the germ within the latter which will become the Universe,
the ALL, the boundless, periodical Kosmos, this germ being latent and active,
periodically and by turns. The one circle is divine Unity, from which all
proceeds, whither all returns. Its circumference -- a forcibly limited symbol,
in view of the limitation of the human mind -- indicates the abstract, ever
incognisable PRESENCE, and its plane, the Universal Soul, although the two are
one. Only the face of the Disk being white and the ground all around black,
shows clearly that its plane is the only knowledge, dim and hazy though it
still is, that is attainable by man. It is on this plane that the Manvantaric
manifestations begin; for it is in this SOUL that slumbers, during the Pralaya,
the Divine Thought,* wherein lies concealed the plan of every future Cosmogony and
Theogony.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is hardly necessary to remind the reader once more that the term
"Divine Thought," like that of "Universal Mind," must not
be regarded as even vaguely shadowing forth an intellectual process akin to
that exhibited by man. The "Unconscious," according to von Hartmann,
arrived at the vast creative, or rather Evolutionary Plan, "by a
clairvoyant wisdom superior to all consciousness," which in the Vedantic
language would mean absolute Wisdom. Only those who realise how far Intuition
soars above the tardy processes of ratiocinative thought can form the faintest
conception of [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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It
is the ONE LIFE, eternal, invisible, yet Omnipresent, without beginning or end,
yet periodical in its regular manifestations, between which periods reigns the
dark mystery of non-Being; unconscious, yet absolute Consciousness;
unrealisable, yet the one self-existing reality; truly, "a chaos to the
sense, a Kosmos to the reason." Its one absolute attribute, which is
ITSELF, eternal, ceaseless Motion, is called in esoteric parlance the
"Great Breath,"* which is the perpetual motion of the universe, in
the sense of limitless, ever-present SPACE. That which is motionless cannot be
Divine. But then there is nothing in fact and reality absolutely motionless
within the universal soul.
Almost
five centuries B.C. Leucippus, the instructor of Democritus, maintained that
Space was filled eternally with atoms actuated by a ceaseless motion, the
latter generating in due course of time, when those atoms aggregated, rotatory
motion, through mutual collisions producing lateral movements. Epicurus and
Lucretius taught the same, only adding to the lateral motion of the atoms the
idea of affinity -- an occult teaching.
From
the beginning of man's inheritance, from the first appearance of the architects
of the globe he lives in, the unrevealed Deity was recognised and considered
under its only philosophical aspect -- universal motion, the thrill of the
creative Breath in Nature. Occultism sums up the "One Existence"
thus: "Deity is an arcane, living (or moving) FIRE, and the eternal
witnesses to this unseen Presence are Light, Heat, Moisture," -- this
trinity including, and being the cause of, every
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] that absolute Wisdom which transcends the ideas
of Time and Space. Mind, as we know it, is resolvable into states of
consciousness, of varying duration, intensity, complexity, etc. -- all, in the
ultimate, resting on sensation, which is again Maya. Sensation, again,
necessarily postulates limitation. The personal God of orthodox Theism
perceives, thinks, and is affected by emotion; he repents and feels
"fierce anger." But the notion of such mental states clearly involves
the unthinkable postulate of the externality of the exciting stimuli, to say
nothing of the impossibility of ascribing changelessness to a Being whose
emotions fluctuate with events in the worlds he presides over. The conceptions
of a Personal God as changeless and infinite are thus unpsychological and, what
is worse, unphilosophical.
*
Plato proves himself an Initiate, when saying in Cratylus that [[theos]] is
derived from the verb [[theein]], "to move," "to run," as
the first astronomers who observed the motions of the heavenly bodies called the
planets [[theoi]], the gods. (See Book II., "Symbolism of the Cross and
Circle.") Later, the word produced another term, [[aletheia]] -- "the
breath of God."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 3 PROEM.
phenomenon
in Nature.* Intra-Cosmic motion is eternal and ceaseless; cosmic motion (the
visible, or that which is subject to perception) is finite and periodical. As
an eternal abstraction it is the EVER-PRESENT; as a manifestation, it is finite
both in the coming direction and the opposite, the two being the alpha and
omega of successive reconstructions. Kosmos -- the NOUMENON -- has nought to do
with the causal relations of the phenomenal World. It is only with reference to
the intra-cosmic soul, the ideal Kosmos in the immutable Divine Thought, that
we may say: "It never had a beginning nor will it have an end." With
regard to its body or Cosmic organization, though it cannot be said that it had
a first, or will ever have a last construction, yet at each new Manvantara, its
organization may be regarded as the first and the last of its kind, as it
evolutes every time on a higher plane . . . .
A
few years ago only, it was stated that:--
"The
esoteric doctrine teaches, like Buddhism and Brahminism, and even the Kabala,
that the one infinite and unknown Essence exists from all eternity, and in
regular and harmonious successions is either passive or active. In the poetical
phraseology of Manu these conditions are called the "Days" and the "Nights"
of Brahma. The latter is either "awake" or "asleep." The
Svabhavikas, or philosophers of the oldest school of Buddhism (which still
exists in Nepaul), speculate only upon the active condition of this
"Essence," which they call Svabhavat, and deem it foolish to theorise
upon the abstract and "unknowable" power in its passive condition.
Hence they are called atheists by both Christian theologians and modern
scientists, for neither of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nominalists, arguing with Berkeley that "it is impossible . . . to form
the abstract idea of motion distinct from the body moving" ("Prin. of
Human Knowledge," Introd., par. 10), may put the question, "What is
that body, the producer of that motion? Is it a substance? Then you are
believers in a Personal God?" etc., etc. This will be answered farther on,
in the Addendum to this Book; meanwhile, we claim our rights of
Conceptionalists as against Roscelini's materialistic views of Realism and
Nominalism. "Has science," says one of its ablest advocates, Edward
Clodd, "revealed anything that weakens or opposes itself to the ancient
words in which the Essence of all religion, past, present, and to come, is
given; to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly before thy God?"
Provided we connote by the word God, not the crude anthropomorphism which is
still the backbone of our current theology, but the symbolic conception of that
which is Life and Motion of the Universe, to know which in physical order is to
know time past, present, and to come, in the existence of successions of
phenomena; to know which, in the moral, is to know what has been, is, and will
be, within human consciousness. (See "Science and the Emotions." A
Discourse delivered at South Place Chapel, Finsbury, London, Dec. 27th, 1885.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 4 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
two
are able to understand the profound logic of their philosophy. The former will
allow of no other God than the personified secondary powers which have worked
out the visible universe, and which became with them the anthropomorphic God of
the Christians -- the male Jehovah, roaring amid thunder and lightning. In its
turn, rationalistic science greets the Buddhists and the Svabhavikas as the
"positivists" of the archaic ages. If we take a one-sided view of the
philosophy of the latter, our materialists may be right in their own way. The
Buddhists maintained that there is no Creator, but an infinitude of creative
powers, which collectively form the one eternal substance, the essence of which
is inscrutable -- hence not a subject for speculation for any true philosopher.
Socrates invariably refused to argue upon the mystery of universal being, yet
no one would ever have thought of charging him with atheism, except those who
were bent upon his destruction. Upon inaugurating an active period, says the
Secret Doctrine, an expansion of this Divine essence from without inwardly and
from within outwardly, occurs in obedience to eternal and immutable law, and
the phenomenal or visible universe is the ultimate result of the long chain of
cosmical forces thus progressively set in motion. In like manner, when the
passive condition is resumed, a contraction of the Divine essence takes place,
and the previous work of creation is gradually and progressively undone. The
visible universe becomes disintegrated, its material dispersed; and 'darkness'
solitary and alone, broods once more over the face of the 'deep.' To use a
Metaphor from the Secret Books, which will convey the idea still more clearly,
an out-breathing of the 'unknown essence' produces the world; and an inhalation
causes it to disappear. This process has been going on from all eternity, and
our present universe is but one of an infinite series, which had no beginning
and will have no end." -- (See "Isis Unveiled"; also "The
Days and Nights of Brahma" in Part II.)
This
passage will be explained, as far as it is possible, in the present work.
Though, as it now stands, it contains nothing new to the Orientalist, its
esoteric interpretation may contain a good deal which has hitherto remained
entirely unknown to the Western student.
The
first illustration being a plain disc [[diagram]] the second one in the Archaic
symbol shows [[diagram]], a disc with a point in it -- the first
differentiation in the periodical manifestations of the ever-eternal nature,
sexless and infinite "Aditi in THAT" (Rig Veda), the point in the
disc, or potential Space within abstract Space. In its third stage the point is
transformed into a diameter, thus [[diagram]] It now symbolises a divine
immaculate Mother-Nature within the all-embracing absolute Infinitude.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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When
the diameter line is crossed by a vertical one [[diagram]], it becomes the
mundane cross. Humanity has reached its third root-race; it is the sign for the
origin of human life to begin. When the circumference disappears and leaves
only the [[diagram]] it is a sign that the fall of man into matter is
accomplished, and the FOURTH race begins. The Cross within a circle symbolises
pure Pantheism; when the Cross was left uninscribed, it became phallic. It had
the same and yet other meanings as a TAU inscribed within a circle [[diagram]]
or as a "Thor's hammer," the Jaina cross, so-called, or simply
Svastica within a circle [[diagram]]
By
the third symbol -- the circle divided in two by the horizontal line of the diameter
-- the first manifestation of creative (still passive, because feminine) Nature
was meant. The first shadowy perception of man connected with procreation is
feminine, because man knows his mother more than his father. Hence female
deities were more sacred than the male. Nature is therefore feminine, and, to a
degree, objective and tangible, and the spirit Principle which fructifies it is
concealed. By adding to the circle with the horizontal line in it, a
perpendicular line, the tau was formed -- [[diagram]] -- the oldest form of the
letter. It was the glyph of the third root-race to the day of its symbolical
Fall -- i.e., when the separation of sexes by natural evolution took place --
when the figure became [[diagram]], the circle, or sexless life modified or
separated -- a double glyph or symbol. With the races of our Fifth Race it
became in symbology the sacr', and in Hebrew n'cabvah, of the first-formed
races;* then it changed into the Egyptian [[diagram]] (emblem of life), and
still later into the sign of Venus, [[diagram]] Then comes the Svastica (Thor's
hammer, or the "Hermetic Cross" now), entirely separated from its
Circle, thus becoming purely phallic. The esoteric symbol of Kali Yuga is the
five-pointed star reversed, thus [[diagram]] -- the sign of human sorcery, with
its two points (horns) turned heavenward, a position every
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See that suggestive work, "The Source of Measures," where the author
explains the real meaning of the word "sacr'," from which
"sacred," "sacrament," are derived, which have now become
synonyms of "holiness," though purely phallic!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 6 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Occultist
will recognise as one of the "left-hand," and used in ceremonial
magic.*
It
is hoped that during the perusal of this work the erroneous ideas of the public
in general with regard to Pantheism will be modified. It is wrong and unjust to
regard the Buddhists and Advaitee Occultists as atheists. If not all of them
philosophers, they are, at any rate, all logicians, their objections and
arguments being based on strict reasoning. Indeed, if the Parabrahmam of the
Hindus may be taken as a representative of the hidden and nameless deities of
other nations, this absolute Principle will be found to be the prototype from
which all the others were copied. Parabrahm is not "God," because It
is not a God. "It is that which is supreme, and not supreme
(paravara)," explains Mandukya Upanishad (2.28). IT is "Supreme"
as CAUSE, not supreme as effect. Parabrahm is simply, as a "Secondless
Reality," the all-inclusive Kosmos -- or, rather, the infinite Cosmic
Space -- in the highest spiritual sense, of course. Brahma (neuter) being the
unchanging, pure, free, undecaying supreme Root, "the ONE true Existence,
Paramarthika," and the absolute Chit and Chaitanya (intelligence,
consciousness) cannot be a cogniser, "for THAT can have no subject of
cognition." Can the flame be called the essence of Fire? This Essence is
"the LIFE and LIGHT of the Universe, the visible fire and flame are
destruction, death, and evil." "Fire and Flame destroy the body of an
Arhat, their essence makes him immortal." (Bodhi-mur, Book II.) "The
knowledge of the absolute Spirit, like the effulgence of the sun, or like heat
in fire, is naught else than the absolute Essence itself," says
Sankaracharya. IT -- is "the Spirit of the Fire," not fire itself;
therefore, "the attributes of the latter, heat or flame, are not the
attributes of the Spirit, but of that of which that Spirit is the unconscious
cause." Is not the above sentence the true key-note of later Rosicrucian
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are told by the Western mathematicians and some American Kabalists, that in
the Kabala also "the value of the Jehovah name is that of the diameter of
a circle." Add to this the fact that Jehovah is the third Sephiroth,
Binah, a feminine word, and you have the key to the mystery. By certain
Kabalistic transformations this name, androgynous in the first chapters of
Genesis, becomes in its transformations entirely masculine, Cainite and
phallic. The fact of choosing a deity among the pagan gods and making of it a
special national God, to call upon it as the "One living God," the
"God of Gods," and then proclaim this worship Monotheistic, does not
change it into the ONE Principle whose "Unity admits not of
multiplication, change, or form," especially in the case of a priapic deity,
as Jehovah now demonstrated to be.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 7 PROEM.
philosophy?
Parabrahm is, in short, the collective aggregate of Kosmos in its infinity and
eternity, the "THAT" and "THIS" to which distributive
aggregates can not be applied.* "In the beginning THIS was the Self, one
only" (Aitareya Upanishad); the great Sankaracharya, explains that
"THIS" referred to the Universe (Jagat); the sense of the words,
"In the beginning," meaning before the reproduction of the phenomenal
Universe.
Therefore,
when the Pantheists echo the Upanishads, which state, as in the Secret
Doctrine, that "this" cannot create, they do not deny a Creator, or
rather a collective aggregate of creators, but only refuse, very logically, to
attribute "creation" and especially formation, something finite to an
Infinite Principle. With them, Parabrahmam is a passive because an Absolute
Cause, the unconditioned Mukta. It is only limited Omniscience and Omnipotence that
are refused to the latter, because these are still attributes (as reflected in
man's perceptions); and because Parabrahm, being the "Supreme ALL,"
the ever invisible spirit and Soul of Nature, changeless and eternal, can have
no attributes; absoluteness very naturally precluding any idea of the finite or
conditioned from being connected with it. And if the Vedantin postulates
attributes as belonging simply to its emanation, calling it "Iswara plus
Maya," and Avidya (Agnosticism and Nescience rather than ignorance), it is
difficult to find any Atheism in this conception.** Since there can be neither
two INFINITES nor two ABSOLUTES in a Universe supposed to be Boundless, this
Self-Existence can hardly be conceived of as creating personally. In the sense
and perceptions of finite "Beings," THAT is Non-"being," in
the sense that it is the one BE-NESS; for, in this ALL lies concealed its
coeternal and coeval emanation or inherent radiation, which, upon becoming
periodically Brahma (the male-female Potency) becomes or expands itself into
the manifested Universe. Narayana moving on the (abstract) waters of Space, is
transformed into the Waters of concrete substance moved by him, who now becomes
the manifested WORD or Logos.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Vedanta Sara," by Major G. A. Jacob; as also "The Aphorisms
of S'andilya," translated by Cowell, p. 42.
**
Nevertheless, prejudiced and rather fanatical Christian Orientalists would like
to prove this pure Atheism. For proof of this, see about Major Jacob's
"Vedanta Sara." Yet, the whole Antiquity echoes this Vedantic
thought:--
"Omnis
enim per se divom natura necesse est
Immortali
aevo summa cum pace fruatur."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 8 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
orthodox Brahmins, those who rise the most against the Pantheists and
Adwaitees, calling them Atheists, are forced, if Manu has any authority in this
matter, to accept the death of Brahma, the creator, at the expiration of every
"Age" of this (creative) deity (100 Divine years -- a period which in
our years requires fifteen figures to express it). Yet, no philosopher among
them will view this "death" in any other sense than as a temporary
disappearance from the manifested plane of existence, or as a periodical rest.
The
Occultists are, therefore, at one with the Adwaita Vedantin philosophers as to
the above tenet. They show the impossibility of accepting on philosophical
grounds the idea of the absolute ALL creating or even evolving the "Golden
Egg," into which it is said to enter in order to transform itself into
Brahma -- the Creator, who expands himself later into gods and all the visible Universe.
They say that Absolute Unity cannot pass to infinity; for infinity presupposes
the limitless extension of something, and the duration of that
"something"; and the One All is like Space -- which is its only
mental and physical representation on this Earth, or our plane of existence --
neither an object of, nor a subject to, perception. If one could suppose the
Eternal Infinite All, the Omnipresent Unity, instead of being in Eternity,
becoming through periodical manifestation a manifold Universe or a multiple
personality, that Unity would cease to be one. Locke's idea that "pure
Space is capable of neither resistance nor Motion" -- is incorrect. Space
is neither a "limitless void," nor a "conditioned fulness,"
but both: being, on the plane of absolute abstraction, the ever-incognisable
Deity, which is void only to finite minds,* and on that of mayavic perception,
the Plenum, the absolute Container of all that is, whether manifested or
unmanifested: it is, therefore, that ABSOLUTE ALL. There is no difference
between the Christian Apostle's "In Him we live and move and have our
being," and the Hindu Rishi's "The Universe lives in, proceeds from,
and will
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The very names of the two chief deities, Brahma and Vishnu, ought to have long
ago suggested their esoteric meanings. For the root of one, Brahmam, or Brahm,
is derived by some from the word Brih, "to grow" or "to
expand" (see Calcutta Review, vol. lxvi., p. 14); and of the other, Vishnu,
from the root Vis, "to pervade," to enter in the nature of the
essence; Brahma-Vishnu being this infinite SPACE, of which the gods, the
Rishis, the Manus, and all in this universe are simply the potencies,
Vibhutayah.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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return
to, Brahma (Brahma)": for Brahma (neuter), the unmanifested, is that
Universe in abscondito, and Brahma, the manifested, is the Logos, made
male-female* in the symbolical orthodox dogmas. The God of the Apostle-Initiate
and of the Rishi being both the Unseen and the Visible SPACE. Space is called
in the esoteric symbolism "the Seven-Skinned Eternal Mother-Father."
It is composed from its undifferentiated to its differentiated surface of seven
layers.
"What
is that which was, is, and will be, whether there is a Universe or not; whether
there be gods or none?" asks the esoteric Senzar Catechism. And the answer
made is -- SPACE.
It
is not the One Unknown ever-present God in Nature, or Nature in abscondito,
that is rejected, but the God of human dogma and his humanized
"Word." In his infinite conceit and inherent pride and vanity, man
shaped it himself with his sacrilegious hand out of the material he found in
his own small brain-fabric, and forced it upon mankind as a direct revelation
from the one unrevealed SPACE.** The Occultist
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Manu's account of Brahma separating his body into male and female, the
latter the female Vach, in whom he creates Viraj, and compare this with the
esotericism of Chapters II., III., and IV. of Genesis.
**
Occultism is indeed in the air at the close of this our century. Among many
other works recently published, we would recommend one especially to students
of theoretical Occultism who would not venture beyond the realm of our special
human plane. It is called "New Aspects of Life and Religion," by
Henry Pratt, M.D. It is full of esoteric dogmas and philosophy, the latter
rather limited, in the concluding chapters, by what seems to be a spirit of
conditioned positivism. Nevertheless, what is said of Space as "the
Unknown First Cause," merits quotation. "This unknown something, thus
recognised as, and identified with, the primary embodiment of Simple Unity, is
invisible and impalpable" -- (abstract space, granted); "and because
invisible and impalpable, therefore incognisable. And this incognisability has
led to the error of supposing it to be a simple void, a mere receptive capacity.
But, even viewed as an absolute void, space must be admitted to be either
Self-existent, infinite, and eternal, or to have had a first cause outside,
behind, and beyond itself.
"And
yet could such a cause be found and defined, this would only lead to the transferring
thereto of the attributes otherwise accruing to space, and thus merely throw
the difficulty of origination a step farther back, without gaining additional
light as to primary causation." (p. 5.)
This
is precisely what has been done by the believers in an anthropomorphic Creator,
an extracosmic, instead of an intracosmic God. Many -- most of Mr. Pratt's
subjects, we may say -- are old Kabalistic ideas and theories which he presents
in quite a new garb: "New Aspects" of the Occult in Nature, indeed.
Space, however, viewed as a "Substantial Unity" -- the "living
Source of Life" -- is as the "Un- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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accepts
revelation as coming from divine yet still finite Beings, the manifested lives,
never from the Unmanifestable ONE LIFE; from those entities, called Primordial
Man, Dhyani-Buddhas, or Dhyan-Chohans, the "Rishi-Prajapati" of the
Hindus, the Elohim or "Sons of God," the Planetary Spirits of all
nations, who have become Gods for men. He also regards the Adi-Sakti -- the
direct emanation of Mulaprakriti, the eternal Root of THAT, and the female
aspect of the Creative Cause Brahma, in her A'kasic form of the Universal Soul
-- as philosophically a Maya, and cause of human Maya. But this view does not
prevent him from believing in its existence so long as it lasts, to wit, for
one Mahamanvantara; nor from applying Akasa, the radiation of Mulaprakriti,* to
practical purposes, connected as the World-Soul is with all natural phenomena,
known or unknown to science.
The
oldest religions of the world -- exoterically, for the esoteric root or
foundation is one -- are the Indian, the Mazdean, and the Egyptian. Then comes
the Chaldean, the outcome of these -- entirely lost to the world now, except in
its disfigured Sabeanism as at present rendered by the archaeologists; then,
passing over a number of religions that will be mentioned later, comes the
Jewish, esoterically, as in the Kabala, following in the line of Babylonian
Magism; exoterically, as in Genesis and the Pentateuch, a collection of
allegorical legends. Read by the light of the Zohar, the initial four chapters
of Genesis are the fragment
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] known Causeless Cause," is the oldest dogma
in Occultism, millenniums earlier than the Pater-AEther of the Greeks and
Latins. So are the "Force and Matter, as Potencies of Space, inseparable,
and the Unknown revealers of the Unknown." They are all found in Aryan
philosophy personified by Visvakarman, Indra, Vishnu, etc., etc. Still they are
expressed very philosophically, and under many unusual aspects, in the work
referred to.
*
In contradistinction to the manifested universe of matter, the term
Mulaprakriti (from Mula, "the root," and prakriti,
"nature"), or the unmanifested primordial matter -- called by Western
alchemists Adam's Earth -- is applied by the Vedantins to Parabrahmam. Matter
is dual in religious metaphysics, and septenary in esoteric teachings, like
everything else in the universe. As Mulaprakriti, it is undifferentiated and
eternal; as Vyakta, it becomes differentiated and conditioned, according to Svetasvatara
Upanishad, I. 8, and Devi Bhagavata Purana. The author of the Four Lectures on
the Bhagavad Gita, says, in speaking of Mulaprakriti: "From its (the
Logos') objective standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti. . . .
Of course this Mulaprakriti is material to it, as any material object is
material to us. . . . Parabrahmam is an unconditioned and absolute reality, and
Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil thrown over it." (Theosophist, Vol. VIII.,
p. 304.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 11 PROEM.
of
a highly philosophical page in the World's Cosmogony. (See Book III., Gupta
Vidya and the Zohar.) Left in their symbolical disguise, they are a nursery
tale, an ugly thorn in the side of science and logic, an evident effect of
Karma. To have let them serve as a prologue to Christianity was a cruel revenge
on the part of the Rabbis, who knew better what their Pentateuch meant. It was
a silent protest against their spoliation, and the Jews have certainly now the
better of their traditional persecutors. The above-named exoteric creeds will
be explained in the light of the Universal doctrine as we proceed with it.
The
Occult Catechism contains the following questions and answers:
"What
is it that ever is?" "Space, the eternal Anupadaka."* "What
is it that ever was?" "The Germ in the Root." "What is it
that is ever coming and going?" "The Great Breath." "Then,
there are three Eternals?" "No, the three are one. That which ever is
is one, that which ever was is one, that which is ever being and becoming is
also one: and this is Space."
"Explain,
oh Lanoo (disciple)." -- "The One is an unbroken Circle (ring) with
no circumference, for it is nowhere and everywhere; the One is the boundless
plane of the Circle, manifesting a diameter only during the manvantaric
periods; the One is the indivisible point found nowhere, perceived everywhere
during those periods; it is the Vertical and the Horizontal, the Father and the
Mother, the summit and base of the Father, the two extremities of the Mother,
reaching in reality nowhere, for the One is the Ring as also the rings that are
within that Ring. Light in darkness and darkness in light: the 'Breath which is
eternal.' It proceeds from without inwardly, when it is everywhere, and from
within outwardly, when it is nowhere -- (i.e., maya,** one of the centres***).
It expands and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Meaning "parentless" -- see farther on.
**
Esoteric philosophy, regarding as Maya (or the illusion of ignorance) every
finite thing, must necessarily view in the same light every intra-Cosmic planet
and body, as being something organised, hence finite. The expression,
therefore, "it proceeds from without inwardly, etc." refers in the
first portion of the sentence to the dawn of the Mahamanvantaric period, or the
great re-evolution after one of the complete periodical dissolutions of every
compound form in Nature (from planet to molecule) into its ultimate essence or
element; and in its second portion, to the partial or local manvantara, which
may be a solar or even a planetary one.
***
By "centre," a centre of energy or a Cosmic focus is meant; when the
so-called "Creation," or formation of a planet, is accomplished by
that force which is designated by the Occultists LIFE and by Science
"energy," then the process takes place [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
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[[Vol.
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contracts
(exhalation and inhalation). When it expands the mother diffuses and scatters;
when it contracts, the mother draws back and ingathers. This produces the
periods of Evolution and Dissolution, Manwantara and Pralaya. The Germ is
invisible and fiery; the Root (the plane of the circle) is cool; but during
Evolution and Manwantara her garment is cold and radiant. Hot Breath is the
Father who devours the progeny of the many-faced Element (heterogeneous); and
leaves the single-faced ones (homogeneous). Cool Breath is the Mother, who
conceives, forms, brings forth, and receives them back into her bosom, to
reform them at the Dawn (of the Day of Brahma, or Manvantara). . . . ."
For
clearer understanding on the part of the general reader, it must be stated that
Occult Science recognises Seven Cosmical Elements -- four entirely physical,
and the fifth (Ether) semi-material, as it will become visible in the air
towards the end of our Fourth Round, to reign supreme over the others during
the whole of the Fifth. The remaining two are as yet absolutely beyond the
range of human perception. These latter will, however, appear as presentments
during the 6th and 7th Races of this Round, and will become known in the 6th
and 7th Rounds respectively.* These seven elements with their numberless
Sub-Elements
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] from within outwardly, every atom being said to
contain in itself creative energy of the divine breath. Hence, whereas after an
absolute pralaya, or when the pre-existing material consists but of ONE
Element, and BREATH "is everywhere," the latter acts from without
inwardly: after a minor pralaya, everything having remained in statu quo -- in
a refrigerated state, so to say, like the moon -- at the first flutter of
manvantara, the planet or planets begin their resurrection to life from within
outwardly.
*
It is curious to notice how, in the evolutionary cycles of ideas, ancient
thought seems to be reflected in modern speculation. Had Mr. Herbert Spencer
read and studied ancient Hindu philosophers when he wrote a certain passage in
his "First Principles" (p. 482), or is it an independent flash of
inner perception that made him say half correctly, half incorrectly,
"motion as well as matter, being fixed in quantity (?), it would seem that
the change in the distribution of Matter which Motion effects, coming to a
limit in whichever direction it is carried (?), the indestructible Motion thereupon
necessitates a reverse distribution. Apparently, the universally co-existent
forces of attraction and repulsion which, as we have seen, necessitate rhythm
in all minor changes throughout the Universe, also necessitate rhythm in the
totality of its changes -- produce now an immeasurable period during which the
attracting forces predominating, cause universal concentration, and then an
immeasurable period, during which the repulsive forces predominating, cause
universal diffusion -- alternate eras of Evolution and dissolution."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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far
more numerous than those known to Science) are simply conditional modifications
and aspects of the ONE and only Element. This latter is not Ether,* not even
A'kasa but the Source of these. The Fifth Element, now advocated quite freely
by Science, is not the Ether hypothesised by Sir Isaac Newton -- although he
calls it by that name, having associated it in his mind probably with the
AEther, "Father-Mother" of Antiquity. As Newton intuitionally says,
"Nature is a perpetual circulatory worker, generating fluids out of
solids, fixed things out of volatile, and volatile out of fixed, subtile out of
gross, and gross out of subtile. . . . . Thus, perhaps, may all things be
originated from Ether," (Hypoth, 1675).
The
reader has to bear in mind that the Stanzas given treat only of the Cosmogony
of our own planetary System and what is visible around it, after a Solar
Pralaya. The secret teachings with regard to the Evolution of the Universal
Kosmos cannot be given, since they could not be understood by the highest minds
in this age, and there seem to be very few Initiates, even among the greatest,
who are allowed to speculate upon this subject. Moreover the Teachers say
openly that not even the highest Dhyani-Chohans have ever penetrated the
mysteries beyond those boundaries that separate the milliards of Solar systems
from the "Central Sun," as it is called. Therefore, that which is
given, relates only to our visible Kosmos, after a "Night of Brahma."
Before
the reader proceeds to the consideration of the Stanzas from the Book of Dzyan
which form the basis of the present work, it is absolutely necessary that he
should be made acquainted with the few fundamental conceptions which underlie
and pervade the entire system of thought to which his attention is invited.
These basic ideas are few in number, and on their clear apprehension depends
the understanding of all that follows; therefore no apology is required for
asking the reader to make himself familiar with them first, before entering on
the perusal of the work itself.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whatever the views of physical Science upon the subject, Occult Science has
been teaching for ages that A'kasa -- of which Ether is the grossest form --
the fifth universal Cosmic Principle (to which corresponds and from which
proceeds human Manas) is, cosmically, a radiant, cool, diathermanous plastic
matter, creative in its physical nature, correlative in its grossest aspects
and portions, immutable in its higher principles. In the former condition it is
called the Sub-Root; and in conjunction with radiant heat, it recalls
"dead worlds to life." In its higher aspect it is the Soul of the
World; in its lower -- the DESTROYER.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
Secret Doctrine establishes three fundamental propositions:--
(a)
An Omnipresent, Eternal, Boundless, and Immutable PRINCIPLE on which all
speculation is impossible, since it transcends the power of human conception
and could only be dwarfed by any human expression or similitude. It is beyond
the range and reach of thought -- in the words of Mandukya, "unthinkable
and unspeakable."
To
render these ideas clearer to the general reader, let him set out with the
postulate that there is one absolute Reality which antecedes all manifested,
conditioned, being. This Infinite and Eternal Cause -- dimly formulated in the
"Unconscious" and "Unknowable" of current European
philosophy -- is the rootless root of "all that was, is, or ever shall
be." It is of course devoid of all attributes and is essentially without
any relation to manifested, finite Being. It is "Be-ness" rather than
Being (in Sanskrit, Sat), and is beyond all thought or speculation.
This
"Be-ness" is symbolised in the Secret Doctrine under two aspects. On
the one hand, absolute abstract Space, representing bare subjectivity, the one
thing which no human mind can either exclude from any conception, or conceive
of by itself. On the other, absolute Abstract Motion representing Unconditioned
Consciousness. Even our Western thinkers have shown that Consciousness is
inconceivable to us apart from change, and motion best symbolises change, its
essential characteristic. This latter aspect of the one Reality, is also
symbolised by the term "The Great Breath," a symbol sufficiently
graphic to need no further elucidation. Thus, then, the first fundamental axiom
of the Secret Doctrine is this metaphysical ONE ABSOLUTE -- BE-NESS --
symbolised by finite intelligence as the theological Trinity.
It
may, however, assist the student if a few further explanations are given here.
Herbert
Spencer has of late so far modified his Agnosticism, as to assert that the
nature of the "First Cause,"* which the Occultist more logically
derives from the "Causeless Cause," the "Eternal," and the
"Unknowable," may be essentially the same as that of the
Consciousness which wells up within us: in short, that the impersonal reality
pervading
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "first" presupposes necessarily something which is the
"first brought forth, the first in time, space, and rank" -- and
therefore finite and conditioned. The "first" [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Kosmos is the pure noumenon of thought. This advance on his part brings him
very near to the esoteric and Vedantin tenet.*
Parabrahm
(the One Reality, the Absolute) is the field of Absolute Consciousness, i.e., that
Essence which is out of all relation to conditioned existence, and of which
conscious existence is a conditioned symbol. But once that we pass in thought
from this (to us) Absolute Negation, duality supervenes in the contrast of
Spirit (or consciousness) and Matter, Subject and Object.
Spirit
(or Consciousness) and Matter are, however, to be regarded, not as independent
realities, but as the two facets or aspects of the Absolute (Parabrahm), which
constitute the basis of conditioned Being whether subjective or objective.
Considering
this metaphysical triad as the Root from which proceeds all manifestation, the
great Breath assumes the character of precosmic Ideation. It is the fons et
origo of force and of all individual consciousness, and supplies the guiding
intelligence in the vast scheme of cosmic Evolution. On the other hand,
precosmic root-substance (Mulaprakriti) is that aspect of the Absolute which
underlies all the objective planes of Nature.
Just
as pre-Cosmic Ideation is the root of all individual consciousness, so
pre-Cosmic Substance is the substratum of matter in the various grades of its
differentiation.
Hence
it will be apparent that the contrast of these two aspects of the Absolute is
essential to the existence of the "Manifested Universe." Apart from
Cosmic Substance, Cosmic Ideation could not manifest as individual
consciousness, since it is only through a vehicle** of matter that
consciousness wells up as "I am I," a physical basis being necessary
to focus a ray of the Universal Mind at a certain stage of complexity. Again,
apart from Cosmic Ideation, Cosmic Substance would remain an empty abstraction,
and no emergence of consciousness could ensue.
The
"Manifested Universe," therefore, is pervaded by duality, which is,
as it were, the very essence of its EX-istence as "manifestation."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] cannot be the absolute, for it is a
manifestation. Therefore, Eastern Occultism calls the Abstract All the
"Causeless One Cause," the "Rootless Root," and limits the
"First Cause" to the Logos, in the sense that Plato gives to this
term.
*
See Mr. Subba Row's four able lectures on the Bhagavad Gita,
"Theosophist," February, 1887.
**
Called in Sanskrit: "Upadhi."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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But
just as the opposite poles of subject and object, spirit and matter, are but
aspects of the One Unity in which they are synthesized, so, in the manifested
Universe, there is "that" which links spirit to matter, subject to
object.
This
something, at present unknown to Western speculation, is called by the
occultists Fohat. It is the "bridge" by which the "Ideas"
existing in the "Divine Thought" are impressed on Cosmic substance as
the "laws of Nature." Fohat is thus the dynamic energy of Cosmic
Ideation; or, regarded from the other side, it is the intelligent medium, the
guiding power of all manifestation, the "Thought Divine" transmitted
and made manifest through the Dhyan Chohans,* the Architects of the visible
World. Thus from Spirit, or Cosmic Ideation, comes our consciousness; from
Cosmic Substance the several vehicles in which that consciousness is
individualised and attains to self -- or reflective -- consciousness; while
Fohat, in its various manifestations, is the mysterious link between Mind and
Matter, the animating principle electrifying every atom into life.
The
following summary will afford a clearer idea to the reader.
(1.)
The ABSOLUTE; the Parabrahm of the Vedantins or the one Reality, SAT, which is,
as Hegel says, both Absolute Being and Non-Being.
(2.)
The first manifestation, the impersonal, and, in philosophy, unmanifested
Logos, the precursor of the "manifested." This is the "First
Cause," the "Unconscious" of European Pantheists.
(3.)
Spirit-matter, LIFE; the "Spirit of the Universe," the Purusha and
Prakriti, or the second Logos.
(4.)
Cosmic Ideation, MAHAT or Intelligence, the Universal World-Soul; the Cosmic
Noumenon of Matter, the basis of the intelligent operations in and of Nature,
also called MAHA-BUDDHI.
The
ONE REALITY; its dual aspects in the conditioned Universe.
Further,
the Secret Doctrine affirms:--
(b.)
The Eternity of the Universe in toto as a boundless plane; periodically
"the playground of numberless Universes incessantly manifesting and
disappearing," called "the manifesting stars," and the
"sparks of Eternity." "The Eternity of the Pilgrim"** is
like a wink
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Called by Christian theology: Archangels, Seraphs, etc., etc.
**
"Pilgrim" is the appellation given to our Monad (the two in one)
during its cycle of incarnations. It is the only immortal and eternal principle
in us, being an indivisible part of the integral whole -- the Universal Spirit,
from which it emanates, and into which it is absorbed at the end of the cycle.
When it is said to emanate from the one [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
the Eye of Self-Existence (Book of Dzyan.) "The appearance and
disappearance of Worlds is like a regular tidal ebb of flux and reflux."
(See Part II., "Days and Nights of Brahma.")
This
second assertion of the Secret Doctrine is the absolute universality of that
law of periodicity, of flux and reflux, ebb and flow, which physical science
has observed and recorded in all departments of nature. An alternation such as
that of Day and Night, Life and Death, Sleeping and Waking, is a fact so
common, so perfectly universal and without exception, that it is easy to
comprehend that in it we see one of the absolutely fundamental laws of the
universe.
Moreover,
the Secret Doctrine teaches:--
(c)
The fundamental identity of all Souls with the Universal Over-Soul, the latter
being itself an aspect of the Unknown Root; and the obligatory pilgrimage for
every Soul -- a spark of the former -- through the Cycle of Incarnation (or
"Necessity") in accordance with Cyclic and Karmic law, during the
whole term. In other words, no purely spiritual Buddhi (divine Soul) can have
an independent (conscious) existence before the spark which issued from the
pure Essence of the Universal Sixth principle, -- or the OVER-SOUL, -- has (a)
passed through every elemental form of the phenomenal world of that Manvantara,
and (b) acquired individuality, first by natural impulse, and then by
self-induced and self-devised efforts (checked by its Karma), thus ascending
through all the degrees of intelligence, from the lowest to the highest Manas,
from mineral and plant, up to the holiest archangel (Dhyani-Buddha). The
pivotal doctrine of the Esoteric philosophy admits no privileges or special
gifts in man, save those won by his own Ego through personal effort and merit
throughout a long series of metempsychoses and reincarnations. This is why the
Hindus say that the Universe is Brahma and Brahmâ, for Brahma is in every atom
of the universe, the six principles in Nature being all the outcome -- the
variously differentiated aspects -- of the SEVENTH and ONE, the only reality in
the Universe whether Cosmical or micro-cosmical; and also why the permutations
(psychic, spiritual and physical), on the plane of manifestation and form, of
the sixth (Brahmâ the vehicle of Brahma) are viewed by metaphysical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] spirit, an awkward and incorrect expression has
to be used, for lack of appropriate words in English. The Vedantins call it
Sutratma (Thread-Soul), but their explanation, too, differs somewhat from that
of the occultists; to explain which difference, however, is left to the
Vedantins themselves.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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antiphrasis
as illusive and Mayavic. For although the root of every atom individually and
of every form collectively, is that seventh principle or the one Reality,
still, in its manifested phenomenal and temporary appearance, it is no better
than an evanescent illusion of our senses. (See, for clearer definition,
Addendum "Gods, Monads and Atoms," and also "Theophania,"
"Bodhisatvas and Reincarnation," etc., etc.)
In
its absoluteness, the One Principle under its two aspects (of Parabrahmam and
Mulaprakriti) is sexless, unconditioned and eternal. Its periodical
(manvantaric) emanation -- or primal radiation -- is also One, androgynous and
phenomenally finite. When the radiation radiates in its turn, all its
radiations are also androgynous, to become male and female principles in their
lower aspects. After Pralaya, whether the great or the minor Pralaya (the
latter leaving the worlds in statu quo*), the first that re-awakes to active
life is the plastic A'kasa, Father-Mother, the Spirit and Soul of Ether, or the
plane on the surface of the Circle. Space is called the "Mother"
before its Cosmic activity, and Father-Mother at the first stage of re-awakening.
(See Comments, Stanza II.) In the Kabala it is also Father-Mother-Son. But
whereas in the Eastern doctrine, these are the Seventh Principle of the
manifested Universe, or its "Atma-Buddhi-Manas" (Spirit, Soul,
Intelligence), the triad branching off and dividing into the seven cosmical and
seven human principles, in the Western Kabala of the Christian mystics it is
the Triad or Trinity, and with their occultists, the male-female Jehovah,
Jah-Havah. In this lies the whole difference between the esoteric and the Christian
trinities. The Mystics and the Philosophers, the Eastern and Western
Pantheists, synthesize their pregenetic triad in the pure divine abstraction.
The orthodox, anthropomorphize it. Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara -- the
three hypostases of the manifesting "Spirit of the Supreme Spirit"
(by which title Prithivi -- the Earth -- greets Vishnu in his first Avatar) --
are the purely metaphysical abstract qualities of formation, preservation, and
destruction, and are the three divine Avasthas (lit. hypostases) of that which
"does
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is not the physical organisms that remain in statu quo, least of all their
psychical principles, during the great Cosmic or even Solar pralayas, but only
their Akasic or astral "photographs." But during the minor pralayas,
once over-taken by the "Night," the planets remain intact, though
dead, as a huge animal, caught and embedded in the polar ice, remains the same
for ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 19 PROEM.
not
perish with created things" (or Achyuta, a name of Vishnu); whereas the
orthodox Christian separates his personal creative Deity into the three
personages of the Trinity, and admits of no higher Deity. The latter, in
Occultism, is the abstract Triangle; with the orthodox, the perfect Cube. The
creative god or the aggregate gods are regarded by the Eastern philosopher as
Bhrantidarsanatah -- "false apprehension," something "conceived
of, by reason of erroneous appearances, as a material form," and explained
as arising from the illusive conception of the Egotistic personal and human
Soul (lower fifth principle). It is beautifully expressed in a new translation
of Vishnu Purana. "That Brahma in its totality has essentially the aspect
of Prakriti, both evolved and unevolved (Mulaprakriti), and also the aspect of
Spirit and the aspect of Time. Spirit, O twice born, is the leading aspect of
the Supreme Brahma.* The next is a twofold aspect, -- Prakriti, both evolved
and unevolved, and is the time last." Kronos is shown in the Orphic
theogony as being also a generated god or agent.
At
this stage of the re-awakening of the Universe, the sacred symbolism represents
it as a perfect Circle with the (root) point in the Centre. This sign was
universal, therefore we find it in the Kabala also. The Western Kabala,
however, now in the hands of Christian mystics, ignores it altogether, though
it is plainly shown in the Zohar. These sectarians begin at the end, and show
as the symbol of pregenetic Kosmos this sign [[diagram]], calling it "the
Union of the Rose and Cross," the great mystery of occult generation, from
whence the name -- Rosicrucians (Rose Cross)!
As
may be judged, however, from the most important, as the best known of the
Rosicrucians' symbols, there is one which has never been hitherto understood
even by modern mystics. It is that of the "Pelican" tearing open its
breast to feed its seven little ones -- the real creed of the Brothers of the Rosie-Cross
and a direct outcome from the Eastern
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus Spencer, who, nevertheless, like Schopenhauer and von Hartmann, only
reflects an aspect of the old esoteric philosophers, and hence lands his
readers on the bleak shore of Agnostic despair -- reverently formulates the
grand mystery; "that which persists unchanging in quantity, but ever
changing in form, under these sensible appearances which the Universe presents
to us, is an unknown and unknowable power, which we are obliged to recognise as
without limit in Space and without beginning or end in time." It is only
daring Theology -- never Science or philosophy -- which seeks to gauge the
Infinite and unveil the Fathomless and Unknowable.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Secret
Doctrine. Brahma (neuter) is called Kalahansa, meaning, as explained by Western
Orientalists, the Eternal Swan or goose (see Stanza III., Comment. 8), and so
is Brahma, the Creator. A great mistake is thus brought under notice; it is
Brahma (neuter) who ought to be referred to as Hansa-vahana (He who uses the
swan as his Vehicle) and not Brahma the Creator, who is the real Kalahansa,
while Brahma (neuter) is hamsa, and "A-hamsa," as will be explained
in the Commentary. Let it be understood that the terms Brahma and Parabrahmam
are not used here because they belong to our Esoteric nomenclature, but simply
because they are more familiar to the students in the West. Both are the
perfect equivalents of our one, three, and seven vowelled terms, which stand
for the ONE ALL, and the One "All in all."
Such
are the basic conceptions on which the Secret Doctrine rests.
It
would not be in place here to enter upon any defence or proof of their inherent
reasonableness; nor can I pause to show how they are, in fact, contained --
though too often under a misleading guise -- in every system of thought or
philosophy worthy of the name.
Once
that the reader has gained a clear comprehension of them and realised the light
which they throw on every problem of life, they will need no further
justification in his eyes, because their truth will be to him as evident as the
sun in heaven. I pass on, therefore, to the subject matter of the Stanzas as
given in this volume, adding a skeleton outline of them, in the hope of thereby
rendering the task of the student more easy, by placing before him in a few
words the general conception therein explained.
Stanza
I. The history of cosmic evolution, as traced in the Stanzas, is, so to say,
the abstract algebraical formula of that Evolution. Hence the student must not
expect to find there an account of all the stages and transformations which
intervene between the first beginnings of "Universal" evolution and
our present state. To give such an account would be as impossible as it would
be incomprehensible to men who cannot even grasp the nature of the plane of
existence next to that to which, for the moment, their consciousness is
limited.
The
Stanzas, therefore, give an abstract formula which can be applied, mutatis
mutandis, to all evolution: to that of our tiny earth, to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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that
of the chain of planets of which that earth forms one, to the solar Universe to
which that chain belongs, and so on, in an ascending scale, till the mind reels
and is exhausted in the effort.
The
seven Stanzas given in this volume represent the seven terms of this abstract
formula. They refer to, and describe the seven great stages of the evolutionary
process, which are spoken of in the Puranas as the "Seven Creations,"
and in the Bible as the "Days" of Creation.
---------------------
The
First Stanza describes the state of the ONE ALL during Pralaya, before the
first flutter of re-awakening manifestation.
A
moment's thought shows that such a state can only be symbolised; to describe it
is impossible. Nor can it be symbolised except in negatives; for, since it is
the state of Absoluteness per se, it can possess none of those specific
attributes which serve us to describe objects in positive terms. Hence that
state can only be suggested by the negatives of all those most abstract
attributes which men feel rather than conceive, as the remotest limits
attainable by their power of conception.
The
stage described in Stanza II. is, to a western mind, so nearly identical with that
mentioned in the first Stanza, that to express the idea of its difference would
require a treatise in itself. Hence it must be left to the intuition and the
higher faculties of the reader to grasp, as far as he can, the meaning of the
allegorical phrases used. Indeed it must be remembered that all these Stanzas
appeal to the inner faculties rather than to the ordinary comprehension of the
physical brain.
Stanza
III. describes the Re-awakening of the Universe to life after Pralaya. It
depicts the emergence of the "Monads" from their state of absorption
within the ONE; the earliest and highest stage in the formation of
"Worlds," the term Monad being one which may apply equally to the
vastest Solar System or the tiniest atom.
Stanza
IV. shows the differentiation of the "Germ" of the Universe
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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into
the septenary hierarchy of conscious Divine Powers, who are the active
manifestations of the One Supreme Energy. They are the framers, shapers, and
ultimately the creators of all the manifested Universe, in the only sense in
which the name "Creator" is intelligible; they inform and guide it;
they are the intelligent Beings who adjust and control evolution, embodying in
themselves those manifestations of the ONE LAW, which we know as "The Laws
of Nature."
Generically,
they are known as the Dhyan Chohans, though each of the various groups has its
own designation in the Secret Doctrine.
This
stage of evolution is spoken of in Hindu mythology as the "Creation"
of the Gods.
In
Stanza V. the process of world-formation is described:--- First, diffused
Cosmic Matter, then the fiery "whirlwind," the first stage in the
formation of a nebula. That nebula condenses, and after passing through various
transformations, forms a Solar Universe, a planetary chain, or a single planet,
as the case may be.
The
subsequent stages in the formation of a "World" are indicated in
Stanza VI., which brings the evolution of such a world down to its fourth great
period, corresponding to the period in which we are now living.
Stanza
VII. continues the history, tracing the descent of life down to the appearance
of Man; and thus closes the first Book of the Secret Doctrine.
The
development of "Man" from his first appearance on this earth in this
Round to the state in which we now find him will form the subject of Book II.
---------------------
NOTE.
The
Stanzas which form the thesis of every section are given throughout in their modern
translated version, as it would be worse
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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than
useless to make the subject still more difficult by introducing the archaic phraseology
of the original, with its puzzling style and words. Extracts are given from the
Chinese Thibetan and Sanskrit translations of the original Senzar Commentaries
and Glosses on the Book of DZYAN -- these being now rendered for the first time
into a European language. It is almost unnecessary to state that only portions
of the seven Stanzas are here given. Were they published complete they would
remain incomprehensible to all save the few higher occultists. Nor is there any
need to assure the reader that, no more than most of the profane, does the
writer, or rather the humble recorder, understand those forbidden passages. To
facilitate the reading, and to avoid the too frequent reference to foot-notes,
it was thought best to blend together texts and glosses, using the Sanskrit and
Tibetan proper names whenever those cannot be avoided, in preference to giving
the originals. The more so as the said terms are all accepted synonyms, the
former only being used between a Master and his chelas (or disciples).
Thus,
were one to translate into English, using only the substantives and technical
terms as employed in one of the Tibetan and Senzar versions, Verse I would read
as follows:--- "Tho-ag in Zhi-gyu slept seven Khorlo. Zodmanas zhiba. All
Nyug bosom. Konch-hog not; Thyan-Kam not; Lha-Chohan not; Tenbrel Chugnyi not;
Dharmakaya ceased; Tgenchang not become; Barnang and Ssa in Ngovonyidj; alone
Tho-og Yinsin in night of Sun-chan and Yong-grub (Parinishpanna), &c.,
&c.," which would sound like pure Abracadabra.
As
this work is written for the instruction of students of Occultism, and not for
the benefit of philologists, we may well avoid such foreign terms wherever it
is possible to do so. The untranslateable terms alone, incomprehensible unless
explained in their meanings, are left, but all such terms are rendered in their
Sanskrit form. Needless to remind the reader that these are, in almost every
case, the late developments of the later language, and pertain to the Fifth
Root-Race. Sanskrit, as now known, was not spoken by the Atlanteans, and most
of the philosophical terms used in the systems of the India of the
post-Mahabharatan period are not found in the Vedas, nor are they to be met
with in the original Stanzas, but only their equivalents. The reader who is not
a Theosophist, is once more invited to regard all that which follows as a fairy
tale, if he likes; at best as one of the yet unproven speculations of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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dreamers;
and, at the worst, as an additional hypothesis to the many Scientific
hypotheses past, present and future, some exploded, others still lingering. It
is not in any sense worse than are many of the so called Scientific theories;
and it is in every case more philosophical and probable.
In
view of the abundant comments and explanations required, the references to the
footnotes are given in the usual way, while the sentences to be commented upon
are marked with figures. Additional matter will be found in the Chapters on
Symbolism forming Part II., as well as in Part III., these being often more
full of information than the text.
---------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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PART
I.
COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
---------------------
SEVEN
STANZAS TRANSLATED WITH COMMENTARIES
FROM
THE
SECRET
BOOK OF DZYAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Nor
Aught nor Nought existed; yon bright sky
Was
not, nor heaven's broad roof outstretched above.
What
covered all? what sheltered? what concealed?
Was
it the water's fathomless abyss?
There
was not death -- yet there was nought immortal,
There
was no confine betwixt day and night;
The
only One breathed breathless by itself,
Other
than It there nothing since has been.
Darkness
there was, and all at first was veiled
In
gloom profound -- an ocean without light --
The
germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst
forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
.
. . . . . . .
Who
knows the secret? who proclaimed it here?
Whence,
whence this manifold creation sprang?
The
Gods themselves came later into being --
Who
knows from whence this great creation sprang?
That,
whence all this great creation came,
Whether
Its will created or was mute,
The
Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He
knows it -- or perchance even He knows not."
"Gazing
into eternity . . .
Ere
the foundations of the earth were laid,
.
. . . .
Thou
wert. And when the subterranean flame
Shall
burst its prison and devour the frame . . .
Thou
shalt be still as Thou wert before
And
knew no change, when time shall be no more.
Oh!
endless thought, divine ETERNITY."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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COSMIC
EVOLUTION.
In
Seven Stanzas translated from the Book of Dzyan.
---------------------
STANZA
I.
1.
THE ETERNAL PARENT WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES HAD SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN
FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES.
2.
TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION.
3.
UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI TO CONTAIN IT.
4.
THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS WERE NOT. THE GREAT CAUSES OF MISERY WERE NOT, FOR
THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET ENSNARED BY THEM.
5.
DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL, FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE ONCE
MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL, AND HIS
PILGRIMAGE THEREON.
6.
THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE, AND THE
UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA, TO BE
OUTBREATHED BY THAT WHICH IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS.
7.
THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH; THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND THE
INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING -- THE ONE BEING.
8.
ALONE THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN
DREAMLESS SLEEP; AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT
THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE OPENED EYE OF THE DANGMA.
9.
BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE WAS IN PARAMARTHA AND
THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
II.
1.
. . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN? . . . IN
THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI PARANISHPANNA. THE PRODUCERS OF FORM FROM
NO-FORM -- THE ROOT OF THE WORLD -- THE DEVAMATRI AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE
BLISS OF NON-BEING.
2.
. . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO, THERE WAS NEITHER
SILENCE NOR SOUND; NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS ETERNAL BREATH, WHICH KNOWS ITSELF
NOT.
3.
THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM; THE
MATRIPADMA HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN.
4.
HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL, AS THREE
INTO FOUR, INTO THE LAP OF MAYA.
5.
THE SEVEN SONS WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS
FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT; AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS.
6.
THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL CONCEALED
IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM. . . .
-------
STANZA
III.
1.
. . . THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE.
THE MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT, LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS.
2.
THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING THE WHOLE UNIVERSE AND
THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT BREATHES OVER THE
SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE. . .
3.
DARKNESS RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY INTO THE MOTHER-DEEP.
THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN EGG, THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO
THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD-EGG.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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4.
THEN THE THREE FALL INTO THE FOUR. THE RADIANT ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE,
SEVEN OUTSIDE. THE LUMINOUS EGG, WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE, CURDLES AND SPREADS
IN MILK-WHITE CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE
DEPTHS OF THE OCEAN OF LIFE.
5.
THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO IS
ONE.
6.
THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY, AND THE OCEAN
WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE, AND HEAT, AND MOTION. DARKNESS VANISHED AND
WAS NO MORE; IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE AND WATER, OR
FATHER AND MOTHER.
7.
BEHOLD, OH LANOO! THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT
GLORY: BRIGHT SPACE SON OF DARK SPACE, WHICH EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE
GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO THE YOUNGER, THE * * * HE SHINES FORTH AS THE
SON; HE IS THE BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM; THE ONE IS FOUR, AND FOUR TAKES
TO ITSELF THREE,** AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA, IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN
WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA (OR THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES). BEHOLD HIM LIFTING
THE VEIL AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT THE ABOVE, AND LEAVES
THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE PLACES FOR THE SHINING
ONES, AND TURNS THE UPPER INTO A SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED
INTO THE GREAT WATERS.
8.
WHERE WAS THE GERM AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE FLAME
THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT, THE
WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER.
9.
LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH YIELDS
WATER: THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER.
10.
FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT -- THE LIGHT OF
THE ONE DARKNESS -- AND THE LOWER ONE TO ITS SHADOWY END, MATTER; AND THIS WEB
IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE IN ONE, WHICH IS SVABHAVAT.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
**
In the English translation from the Sanskrit the numbers are given in that
language, Eka, Chatur, etc., etc. It was thought best to give them in English.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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11.
IT EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS WHEN THE BREATH OF THE
MOTHER TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS DISSOCIATE AND SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR
MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE GREAT DAY, AND RE-BECOME ONE WITH HER; WHEN IT
IS COOLING IT BECOMES RADIANT, AND THE SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR
OWN SELVES AND HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE.
12.
THEN SVABHAVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH IS A PART OF THE WEB.
REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN
TURN A WORLD.
-------
STANZA
IV.
1.
. . . LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS -- THE SONS OF THE
FIRE. LEARN, THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST, FOR ALL IS ONE: NUMBER ISSUED
FROM NO NUMBER.
2.
LEARN WHAT WE WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE WHO ARE BORN FROM THE
PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNT FROM OUR FATHERS. . . .
3.
FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT -- THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS -- SPRUNG IN SPACE
THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES; THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX, AND THE FIVE. THEN THE
THREE, THE ONE, THE FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE -- THE TWICE SEVEN THE SUM TOTAL.
AND THESE ARE THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE
NUMBERS, THE ARUPA, THE RUPA, AND THE FORCE OF DIVINE MAN -- THE SUM TOTAL. AND
FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED ANIMALS, AND THE
MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS WITHIN THE HOLY FOUR.
4.
THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE -- THE DIVINE MOTHER OF THE SEVEN. THE SPARKS OF
THE SEVEN ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, THE SECOND, THE
THIRD, THE FOURTH, THE FIFTH, THE SIXTH, AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN. THESE
"SPARKS" ARE CALLED SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS;
FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL NIDANA -- THE OEAOHOO, WHICH IS:
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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5.
"DARKNESS" THE BOUNDLESS, OR THE NO-NUMBER, ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT:--
I.
THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE.
II.
THE VOICE OF THE LORD SVABHAVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.
III.
THE "FORMLESS SQUARE."
AND
THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE [[diagram]] ARE THE SACRED FOUR; AND THE TEN
ARE THE ARUPA UNIVERSE. THEN COME THE "SONS," THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE
ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT-MAKER.
6.
THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE. THE REJECTED
SON IS ONE. THE "SON-SUNS" ARE COUNTLESS.
-------
STANZA
V.
1.
THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE
IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND.
2.
THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL. THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT, THE SWIFT
SON OF THE DIVINE SONS WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA, RUNS CIRCULAR ERRANDS. FOHAT
IS THE STEED AND THE THOUGHT IS THE RIDER. HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE
FIERY CLOUDS; TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN
REGIONS ABOVE, AND THE SEVEN BELOW. HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE
INNUMERABLE SPARKS, AND JOINS THEM.
3.
HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE
SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN THEIR RADIANT
DWELLINGS, AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX
DIRECTIONS OF SPACE, AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE -- THE CENTRAL WHEEL.
4.
FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIXTH TO THE SEVENTH -- THE CROWN; AN
ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE, AND THE LIPIKA IN THE MIDDLE
WHEEL, THEY SAY: THIS IS GOOD, THE
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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FIRST
DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST IS NOW THE SECOND. THEN THE "DIVINE
ARUPA" REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYA LOKA, THE FIRST GARMENT OF THE ANUPADAKA.
5.
FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES AND BUILDS A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE
SQUARE, FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES AND THEIR ARMIES.
6.
THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE, THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE,
AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG. IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT" FOR
THOSE WHO DESCEND AND ASCEND. ALSO FOR THOSE WHO DURING THE KALPA ARE
PROGRESSING TOWARDS THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US." THUS WERE FORMED THE
RUPA AND THE ARUPA: FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS; FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN, SEVEN
TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE WHEELS WATCH THE RING. . . . .
-------
STANZA
VI.
1.
BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE -- KWAN-YIN -- THE
"TRIPLE" OF KWAN-SHAI-YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN-YIN-TIEN, FOHAT, THE
BREATH OF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH, FROM THE
LOWER ABYSS, THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN-TCHANG AND THE SEVEN ELEMENTS:*
2.
THE SWIFT AND RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN LAYA CENTRES, AGAINST WHICH NONE
WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY "BE-WITH-US," AND SEATS THE UNIVERSE ON
THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS SURROUNDING TSIEN-TCHAN WITH THE ELEMENTARY GERMS.
3.
OF THE SEVEN -- FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX CONCEALED, TWO MANIFESTED, FIVE
CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED, FOUR CONCEALED; FOUR PRODUCED, THREE HIDDEN; FOUR
AND ONE TSAN REVEALED, TWO AND ONE HALF CONCEALED; SIX TO BE MANIFESTED, ONE
LAID ASIDE. LASTLY, SEVEN SMALL WHEELS REVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE
OTHER.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Verse 1 of Stanza VI. is of a far later date than the other Stanzas, though
still very ancient. The old text of this verse, having names entirely unknown
to the Orientalists would give no clue to the student.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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4.
HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS, PLACING THEM ON THE
IMPERISHABLE CENTRES.
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. THUS
ACTS FOHAT FROM ONE TWILIGHT TO THE OTHER, DURING SEVEN ETERNITIES.
5.
AT THE FOURTH, THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD REFUSES --
TWO OBEY.
THE
CURSE IS PRONOUNCED; THEY WILL BE BORN ON THE FOURTH, SUFFER AND CAUSE
SUFFERING; THIS IS THE FIRST WAR.
6.
THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARDS AND UPWARDS. . . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN FILLED
THE WHOLE. THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND THE DESTROYERS,
AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND RE-APPEARING CONTINUOUSLY.
7.
MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, LANOO, IF THOU WOULDEST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY
SMALL WHEEL. ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER. REACH THE FOURTH "FRUIT"
OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA, AND THOU SHALT
COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE . . . . .
-------
STANZA
VII.
1.
BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE.
FIRST
THE DIVINE, THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT; THEN THE SPIRITUAL; THE THREE FROM THE
ONE, THE FOUR FROM THE ONE, AND THE FIVE FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE FIVE, AND
THE SEVEN. THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD, THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD; THE
"MIND-BORN" SONS OF THE FIRST LORD; THE SHINING SEVEN.
IT
IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, OH LANOO. THEY, WHO WATCH OVER THEE, AND THY
MOTHER EARTH.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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2.
THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES
THE LAST ATOM OF FORM. THROUGH THE COUNTLESS RAYS PROCEEDS THE LIFE-RAY, THE
ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY JEWELS.
3.
WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO, THE THREEFOLD APPEARS, AND THE THREE ARE ONE; AND IT
IS OUR THREAD, OH LANOO, THE HEART OF THE MAN-PLANT CALLED SAPTASARMA.
4.
IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES; THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS. THE
WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME SHOT OUT BY THE
SEVEN -- THEIR FLAME -- THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE MOON REFLECTED IN THE
RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF EARTH.
5.
THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS
THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA. IT STOPS IN THE FIRST, AND IS A METAL AND A
STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND AND BEHOLD -- A PLANT; THE PLANT WHIRLS
THROUGH SEVEN CHANGES AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL. FROM THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES
OF THESE, MANU, THE THINKER IS FORMED. WHO FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES, AND THE
ONE LIFE. WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVE-FOLD LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY?
FISH, SIN, AND SOMA. . . . .
6.
FROM THE FIRST-BORN THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT WATCHER AND HIS SHADOW
BECOMES MORE STRONG AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE. THE MORNING SUN-LIGHT HAS
CHANGED INTO NOON-DAY GLORY. . . . .
7.
THIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL, SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. THOU ART MYSELF, MY
IMAGE, AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU ART MY VAHAN TO
THE DAY, "BE WITH US," WHEN THOU SHALT RE-BECOME MYSELF AND OTHERS,
THYSELF AND ME. THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED THEIR FIRST CLOTHING, DESCEND
ON RADIANT EARTH AND REIGN OVER MEN -- WHO ARE THEMSELVES. . . .
Thus
ends this portion of the archaic narrative, dark, confused, almost
incomprehensible. An attempt will now be made to throw light into this
darkness, to make sense out of this apparent NON-SENSE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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COMMENTARIES
ON
THE SEVEN STANZAS AND THEIR TERMS, ACCORDING TO THEIR NUMERATION, IN STANZAS
AND SLOKAS.
STANZA
I.
1.
"THE ETERNAL PARENT (Space), WRAPPED IN HER EVER INVISIBLE ROBES, HAD
SLUMBERED ONCE AGAIN FOR SEVEN ETERNITIES (a)."
The
"Parent Space" is the eternal, ever present cause of all -- the
incomprehensible DEITY, whose "invisible robes" are the mystic root
of all matter, and of the Universe. Space is the one eternal thing that we can
most easily imagine, immovable in its abstraction and uninfluenced by either
the presence or absence in it of an objective Universe. It is without
dimension, in every sense, and self-existent. Spirit is the first
differentiation from THAT, the causeless cause of both Spirit and Matter. It
is, as taught in the esoteric catechism, neither limitless void, nor
conditioned fulness, but both. It was and ever will be. (See Proem pp. 2 et seq.)
Thus,
the "Robes" stand for the noumenon of undifferentiated Cosmic Matter.
It is not matter as we know it, but the spiritual essence of matter, and is
co-eternal and even one with Space in its abstract sense. Root-nature is also
the source of the subtile invisible properties in visible matter. It is the
Soul, so to say, of the ONE infinite Spirit. The Hindus call it Mulaprakriti,
and say that it is the primordial substance, which is the basis of the Upadhi
or vehicle of every phenomenon, whether physical, mental or psychic. It is the
source from which Akasa radiates.
(a)
By the Seven "Eternities," aeons or periods are meant. The word
"Eternity," as understood in Christian theology, has no meaning to
the Asiatic ear, except in its application to the ONE existence; nor is
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
term sempiternity, the eternal only in futurity, anything better than a
misnomer.* Such words do not and cannot exist in philosophical metaphysics, and
were unknown till the advent of ecclesiastical Christianity. The Seven
Eternities meant are the seven periods, or a period answering in its duration
to the seven periods, of a Manvantara, and extending throughout a Maha-Kalpa or
the "Great Age" -- 100 years of Brahma -- making a total of
311,040,000,000,000 of years; each year of Brahma being composed of 360
"days," and of the same number of "nights" of Brahma
(reckoning by the Chandrayana or lunar year); and a "Day of Brahma"
consisting of 4,320,000,000 of mortal years. These "Eternities"
belong to the most secret calculations, in which, in order to arrive at the
true total, every figure must be 7x (7 to the power of x); x varying according
to the nature of the cycle in the subjective or real world; and every figure or
number relating to, or representing all the different cycles from the greatest
to the smallest -- in the objective or unreal world -- must necessarily be
multiples of seven. The key to this cannot be given, for herein lies the
mystery of esoteric calculations, and for the purposes of ordinary calculation
it has no sense. "The number seven," says the Kabala, "is the
great number of the Divine Mysteries;" number ten is that of all human knowledge
(Pythagorean decade); 1,000 is the number ten to the third power, and therefore
the number 7,000 is also symbolical. In the Secret Doctrine the figure and
number 4 are the male symbol only on the highest plane of abstraction; on the
plane of matter the 3 is the masculine and the 4 the female: the upright and
the horizontal in the fourth stage of symbolism, when the symbols became the
glyphs of the generative powers on the physical plane.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
2.
TIME WAS NOT, FOR IT LAY ASLEEP IN THE INFINITE BOSOM OF DURATION (a).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is stated in Book II., ch. viii., of Vishnu Purana: "By immortality is
meant existence to the end of the Kalpa;" and Wilson, the translator,
remarks in a footnote: "This, according to the Vedas, is all that is to be
understood of the immortality (or eternity) of the gods; they perish at the end
of universal dissolution (or Pralaya)." And Esoteric philosophy says: They
"perish" not, but are re-absorbed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(a)
Time is only an illusion produced by the succession of our states of consciousness
as we travel through eternal duration, and it does not exist where no
consciousness exists in which the illusion can be produced; but "lies
asleep." The present is only a mathematical line which divides that part
of eternal duration which we call the future, from that part which we call the
past. Nothing on earth has real duration, for nothing remains without change --
or the same -- for the billionth part of a second; and the sensation we have of
the actuality of the division of "time" known as the present, comes
from the blurring of that momentary glimpse, or succession of glimpses, of
things that our senses give us, as those things pass from the region of ideals
which we call the future, to the region of memories that we name the past. In the
same way we experience a sensation of duration in the case of the instantaneous
electric spark, by reason of the blurred and continuing impression on the
retina. The real person or thing does not consist solely of what is seen at any
particular moment, but is composed of the sum of all its various and changing
conditions from its appearance in the material form to its disappearance from
the earth. It is these "sum-totals" that exist from eternity in the
"future," and pass by degrees through matter, to exist for eternity
in the "past." No one could say that a bar of metal dropped into the
sea came into existence as it left the air, and ceased to exist as it entered
the water, and that the bar itself consisted only of that cross-section thereof
which at any given moment coincided with the mathematical plane that separates,
and, at the same time, joins, the atmosphere and the ocean. Even so of persons
and things, which, dropping out of the to-be into the has-been, out of the
future into the past -- present momentarily to our senses a cross-section, as
it were, of their total selves, as they pass through time and space (as matter)
on their way from one eternity to another: and these two constitute that
"duration" in which alone anything has true existence, were our
senses but able to cognize it there.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
3.
. . . UNIVERSAL MIND WAS NOT, FOR THERE WERE NO AH-HI (celestial beings) TO
CONTAIN (hence to manifest) IT (a).
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[[Vol.
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(a)
Mind is a name given to the sum of the states of Consciousness grouped under
Thought, Will, and Feeling. During deep sleep, ideation ceases on the physical
plane, and memory is in abeyance; thus for the time-being "Mind is
not," because the organ, through which the Ego manifests ideation and
memory on the material plane, has temporarily ceased to function. A noumenon
can become a phenomenon on any plane of existence only by manifesting on that
plane through an appropriate basis or vehicle; and during the long night of
rest called Pralaya, when all the existences are dissolved, the "UNIVERSAL
MIND" remains as a permanent possibility of mental action, or as that
abstract absolute thought, of which mind is the concrete relative
manifestation. The AH-HI (Dhyan-Chohans) are the collective hosts of spiritual
beings -- the Angelic Hosts of Christianity, the Elohim and
"Messengers" of the Jews -- who are the vehicle for the manifestation
of the divine or universal thought and will. They are the Intelligent Forces
that give to and enact in Nature her "laws," while themselves acting
according to laws imposed upon them in a similar manner by still higher Powers;
but they are not "the personifications" of the powers of Nature, as
erroneously thought. This hierarchy of spiritual Beings, through which the
Universal Mind comes into action, is like an army -- a "Host," truly
-- by means of which the fighting power of a nation manifests itself, and which
is composed of army corps, divisions, brigades, regiments, and so forth, each
with its separate individuality or life, and its limited freedom of action and
limited responsibilities; each contained in a larger individuality, to which
its own interests are subservient, and each containing lesser individualities
in itself.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
4.
THE SEVEN WAYS TO BLISS (Moksha* or Nirvana) WERE NOT (a). THE GREAT CAUSES OF
MISERY (Nidana** and Maya) WERE NOT, FOR THERE WAS NO ONE TO PRODUCE AND GET
ENSNARED BY THEM (b).
(a)
There are seven "Paths" or "Ways" to the bliss of
Non-Exist-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nippang in China; Neibban in Burmah; or Moksha in India.
**
The "12" Nidanas (in Tibetan Ten-brel chug-nyi) the chief causes of
existence, effects generated by a concatenation of causes produced (see
Comment. II).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ence,
which is absolute Being, Existence, and Consciousness. They were not, because
the Universe was, so far, empty, and existed only in the Divine Thought. For it
is . . .
(b)
The twelve Nidanas or causes of being. Each is the effect of its antecedent
cause, and a cause, in its turn, to its successor; the sum total of the Nidanas
being based on the four truths, a doctrine especially characteristic of the
Hinayana System.* They belong to the theory of the stream of catenated law
which produces merit and demerit, and finally brings Karma into full sway. It
is based upon the great truth that re-incarnation is to be dreaded, as
existence in this world only entails upon man suffering, misery and pain; Death
itself being unable to deliver man from it, since death is merely the door
through which he passes to another life on earth after a little rest on its
threshold -- Devachan. The Hinayana System, or School of the "Little
Vehicle," is of very ancient growth; while the Mahayana is of a later
period, having originated after the death of Buddha. Yet the tenets of the
latter are as old as the hills that have contained such schools from time
immemorial, and the Hinayana and Mahayana Schools (the latter, that of the
"Great Vehicle") both teach the same doctrine in reality. Yana, or
Vehicle (in Sanskrit, Vahan) is a mystic expression, both "vehicles"
inculcating that man may escape the sufferings of rebirths and even the false
bliss of Devachan, by obtaining Wisdom and Knowledge, which alone can dispel
the Fruits of Illusion and Ignorance.
Maya
or illusion is an element which enters into all finite things, for everything
that exists has only a relative, not an absolute, reality, since the appearance
which the hidden noumenon assumes for any observer depends upon his power of cognition.
To the untrained eye of the savage, a painting is at first an unmeaning
confusion of streaks and daubs of color, while an educated eye sees instantly a
face or a landscape. Nothing is permanent except the one hidden absolute
existence which contains in itself the noumena of all realities. The existences
belonging to every plane of being, up to the highest Dhyan-Chohans, are, in
degree, of the nature of shadows cast by a magic lantern on a colourless
screen; but all things are relatively real, for the cogniser is also a
reflection, and the things cognised are therefore as real to him as himself.
Whatever reality things possess must be looked for in them
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Wassilief on Buddhism, pp. 97-950.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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before
or after they have passed like a flash through the material world; but we
cannot cognise any such existence directly, so long as we have
sense-instruments which bring only material existence into the field of our
consciousness. Whatever plane our consciousness may be acting in, both we and
the things belonging to that plane are, for the time being, our only realities.
As we rise in the scale of development we perceive that during the stages
through which we have passed we mistook shadows for realities, and the upward
progress of the Ego is a series of progressive awakenings, each advance
bringing with it the idea that now, at last, we have reached
"reality;" but only when we shall have reached the absolute
Consciousness, and blended our own with it, shall we be free from the delusions
produced by Maya.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
5.
DARKNESS ALONE FILLED THE BOUNDLESS ALL (a), FOR FATHER, MOTHER AND SON WERE
ONCE MORE ONE, AND THE SON HAD NOT AWAKENED YET FOR THE NEW WHEEL* AND HIS
PILGRIMAGE THEREON (b).
(a)
"Darkness is Father-Mother: light their son," says an old Eastern
proverb. Light is inconceivable except as coming from some source which is the
cause of it; and as, in the instance of primordial light, that source is
unknown, though as strongly demanded by reason and logic, therefore it is
called "Darkness" by us, from an intellectual point of view. As to
borrowed or secondary light, whatever its source, it can be but of a temporary
mayavic character. Darkness, then, is the eternal
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
That which is called "wheel" is the symbolical expression for a world
or globe, which shows that the ancients were aware that our Earth was a
revolving globe, not a motionless square as some Christian Fathers taught. The
"Great Wheel" is the whole duration of our Cycle of being, or Maha
Kalpa, i.e., the whole revolution of our special chain of seven planets or
Spheres from beginning to end; the "Small Wheels" meaning the Rounds,
of which there are also Seven.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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matrix
in which the sources of light appear and disappear. Nothing is added to
darkness to make of it light, or to light to make it darkness, on this our
plane. They are interchangeable, and scientifically light is but a mode of
darkness and vice versa. Yet both are phenomena of the same noumenon -- which
is absolute darkness to the scientific mind, and but a gray twilight to the
perception of the average mystic, though to that of the spiritual eye of the
Initiate it is absolute light. How far we discern the light that shines in
darkness depends upon our powers of vision. What is light to us is darkness to
certain insects, and the eye of the clairvoyant sees illumination where the
normal eye perceives only blackness. When the whole universe was plunged in
sleep -- had returned to its one primordial element -- there was neither centre
of luminosity, nor eye to perceive light, and darkness necessarily filled the
boundless all.
(b)
The Father-Mother are the male and female principles in root-nature, the
opposite poles that manifest in all things on every plane of Kosmos, or Spirit
and Substance, in a less allegorical aspect, the resultant of which is the
Universe, or the Son. They are "once more One" when in "The Night
of Brahma," during Pralaya, all in the objective Universe has returned to
its one primal and eternal cause, to reappear at the following Dawn -- as it
does periodically. "Karana" -- eternal cause -- was alone. To put it
more plainly: Karana is alone during the "Nights of Brahma." The
previous objective Universe has dissolved into its one primal and eternal
cause, and is, so to say, held in solution in space, to differentiate again and
crystallize out anew at the following Manvantaric dawn, which is the commencement
of a new "Day" or new activity of Brahma -- the symbol of the
Universe. In esoteric parlance, Brahma is Father-Mother-Son, or Spirit, Soul
and Body at once; each personage being symbolical of an attribute, and each
attribute or quality being a graduated efflux of Divine Breath in its cyclic
differentiation, involutionary and evolutionary. In the cosmicophysical sense,
it is the Universe, the planetary chain and the earth; in the purely spiritual,
the Unknown Deity, Planetary Spirit, and Man -- the Son of the two, the
creature of Spirit and Matter, and a manifestation of them in his periodical
appearances on Earth during the "wheels," or the Manvantaras. -- (See
Part II. §: "Days and Nights of Brahma.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
I. -- Continued.
6.
THE SEVEN SUBLIME LORDS AND THE SEVEN TRUTHS HAD CEASED TO BE (a), AND THE
UNIVERSE, THE SON OF NECESSITY, WAS IMMERSED IN PARANISHPANNA (b) (absolute
perfection, Paranirvana, which is Yong-Grub) TO BE OUT-BREATHED BY THAT WHICH
IS AND YET IS NOT. NAUGHT WAS (c).
(a)
The seven sublime lords are the Seven Creative Spirits, the Dhyan-Chohans, who
correspond to the Hebrew Elohim. It is the same hierarchy of Archangels to
which St. Michael, St. Gabriel, and others belong, in the Christian theogony.
Only while St. Michael, for instance, is allowed in dogmatic Latin theology to
watch over all the promontories and gulfs, in the Esoteric System, the Dhyanis
watch successively over one of the Rounds and the great Root-races of our
planetary chain. They are, moreover, said to send their Bhodisatvas, the human
correspondents of the Dhyani-Buddhas (of whom vide infra) during every Round
and Race. Out of the Seven Truths and Revelations, or rather revealed secrets,
four only have been handed to us, as we are still in the Fourth Round, and the
world also has only had four Buddhas, so far. This is a very complicated
question, and will receive more ample treatment later on.
So
far "There are only Four Truths, and Four Vedas" -- say the Hindus
and Buddhists. For a similar reason Irenaeus insisted on the necessity of Four
Gospels. But as every new Root-race at the head of a Round must have its
revelation and revealers, the next Round will bring the Fifth, the following
the Sixth, and so on.
(b)
"Paranishpanna" is the absolute perfection to which all existences
attain at the close of a great period of activity, or Maha-Manvantara, and in
which they rest during the succeeding period of repose. In Tibetan it is called
Yong-Grub. Up to the day of the Yogacharya school the true nature of
Paranirvana was taught publicly, but since then it has become entirely
esoteric; hence so many contradictory interpretations of it. It is only a true
Idealist who can understand it. Everything has to be viewed as ideal, with the
exception of Paranirvana, by him who would comprehend that state, and acquire a
knowledge of how Non Ego, Voidness, and Darkness are Three in One and alone
Self-existent and perfect. It is absolute, however, only in a relative
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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sense,
for it must give room to still further absolute perfection, according to a
higher standard of excellence in the following period of activity -- just as a
perfect flower must cease to be a perfect flower and die, in order to grow into
a perfect fruit, -- if a somewhat Irish mode of expression may be permitted.
The
Secret Doctrine teaches the progressive development of everything, worlds as
well as atoms; and this stupendous development has neither conceivable
beginning nor imaginable end. Our "Universe" is only one of an
infinite number of Universes, all of them "Sons of Necessity,"
because links in the great Cosmic chain of Universes, each one standing in the
relation of an effect as regards its predecessor, and being a cause as regards
its successor.
The
appearance and disappearance of the Universe are pictured as an outbreathing
and inbreathing of "the Great Breath," which is eternal, and which,
being Motion, is one of the three aspects of the Absolute -- Abstract Space and
Duration being the other two. When the "Great Breath" is projected,
it is called the Divine Breath, and is regarded as the breathing of the
Unknowable Deity -- the One Existence -- which breathes out a thought, as it
were, which becomes the Kosmos. (See "Isis Unveiled.") So also is it
when the Divine Breath is inspired again the Universe disappears into the bosom
of "the Great Mother," who then sleeps "wrapped in her invisible
robes."
(c)
By "that which is and yet is not" is meant the Great Breath itself,
which we can only speak of as absolute existence, but cannot picture to our imagination
as any form of existence that we can distinguish from Non-existence. The three
periods -- the Present, the Past, and the Future -- are in the esoteric
philosophy a compound time; for the three are a composite number only in
relation to the phenomenal plane, but in the realm of noumena have no abstract
validity. As said in the Scriptures: "The Past time is the Present time,
as also the Future, which, though it has not come into existence, still
is"; according to a precept in the Prasanga Madhyamika teaching, whose
dogmas have been known ever since it broke away from the purely esoteric
schools.* Our ideas, in short, on duration and time are all derived from our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Dzungarian "Mani Kumbum," the "Book of the 10,000
Precepts." Also consult Wassilief's "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327
and 357, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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sensations
according to the laws of Association. Inextricably bound up with the relativity
of human knowledge, they nevertheless can have no existence except in the
experience of the individual ego, and perish when its evolutionary march
dispels the Maya of phenomenal existence. What is Time, for instance, but the
panoramic succession of our states of consciousness? In the words of a Master,
"I feel irritated at having to use these three clumsy words -- Past,
Present, and Future -- miserable concepts of the objective phases of the subjective
whole, they are about as ill-adapted for the purpose as an axe for fine
carving." One has to acquire Paramartha lest one should become too easy a
prey to Samvriti -- is a philosophical axiom.*
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
7.
THE CAUSES OF EXISTENCE HAD BEEN DONE AWAY WITH (a); THE VISIBLE THAT WAS, AND
THE INVISIBLE THAT IS, RESTED IN ETERNAL NON-BEING, THE ONE BEING (b).
(a)
"The Causes of Existence" mean not only the physical causes known to
science, but the metaphysical causes, the chief of which is the desire to
exist, an outcome of Nidana and Maya. This desire for a sentient life shows
itself in everything, from an atom to a sun, and is a reflection of the Divine
Thought propelled into objective existence, into a law that the Universe should
exist. According to esoteric teaching, the real cause of that supposed desire,
and of all existence, remains for ever hidden, and its first emanations are the
most complete abstractions mind can conceive. These abstractions must of
necessity be postulated as the cause of the material Universe which presents
itself to the senses and intellect; and they underlie the secondary and
subordinate powers of Nature, which, anthropomorphized, have been worshipped as
God and gods by the common herd of every age. It is impossible to conceive
anything without a cause; the attempt to do so makes the mind a blank.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In clearer words: "One has to acquire true Self-Consciousness in order to
understand Samvriti, or the 'origin of delusion.'" Paramartha is the
synonym of the Sanskrit term Svasam-vedana, or "the reflection which
analyses itself." There is a difference in the interpretation of the
meaning of "Paramartha" between the Yogacharyas and the Madhyamikas,
neither of whom, however, explain the real and true esoteric sense of the
expression. See further, sloka No. 9.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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This
is virtually the condition to which the mind must come at last when we try to
trace back the chain of causes and effects, but both science and religion jump
to this condition of blankness much more quickly than is necessary; for they
ignore the metaphysical abstractions which are the only conceivable cause of
physical concretions. These abstractions become more and more concrete as they
approach our plane of existence, until finally they phenomenalise in the form
of the material Universe, by a process of conversion of metaphysics into
physics, analogous to that by which steam can be condensed into water, and the
water frozen into ice.
(b)
The idea of Eternal Non-Being, which is the One Being, will appear a paradox to
anyone who does not remember that we limit our ideas of being to our present
consciousness of existence; making it a specific, instead of a generic term. An
unborn infant, could it think in our acceptation of that term, would
necessarily limit its conception of being, in a similar manner, to the
intrauterine life which alone it knows; and were it to endeavour to express to
its consciousness the idea of life after birth (death to it), it would, in the
absence of data to go upon, and of faculties to comprehend such data, probably
express that life as "Non-Being which is Real Being." In our case the
One Being is the noumenon of all the noumena which we know must underlie
phenomena, and give them whatever shadow of reality they possess, but which we have
not the senses or the intellect to cognize at present. The impalpable atoms of
gold scattered through the substance of a ton of auriferous quartz may be
imperceptible to the naked eye of the miner, yet he knows that they are not
only present there but that they alone give his quartz any appreciable value;
and this relation of the gold to the quartz may faintly shadow forth that of
the noumenon to the phenomenon. But the miner knows what the gold will look
like when extracted from the quartz, whereas the common mortal can form no
conception of the reality of things separated from the Maya which veils them,
and in which they are hidden. Alone the Initiate, rich with the lore acquired
by numberless generations of his predecessors, directs the "Eye of Dangma"
toward the essence of things in which no Maya can have any influence. It is
here that the teachings of esoteric philosophy in relation to the Nidanas and
the Four Truths become of the greatest importance; but they are secret.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
I. -- Continued.
8.
ALONE, THE ONE FORM OF EXISTENCE STRETCHED BOUNDLESS, INFINITE, CAUSELESS, IN
DREAMLESS SLEEP (a); AND LIFE PULSATED UNCONSCIOUS IN UNIVERSAL SPACE, THROUGHOUT
THAT ALL-PRESENCE WHICH IS SENSED BY THE "OPENED EYE"* OF THE DANGMA
(b).**
(a)
The tendency of modern thought is to recur to the archaic idea of a homogeneous
basis for apparently widely different things -- heterogeneity developed from
homogeneity. Biologists are now searching for their homogeneous protoplasm and
chemists for their protyle, while science is looking for the force of which
electricity, magnetism, heat, and so forth, are the differentiations. The
Secret Doctrine carries this idea into the region of metaphysics and postulates
a "One Form of Existence" as the basis and source of all things. But
perhaps the phrase, the "One Form of Existence," is not altogether
correct. The Sanskrit word is Prabhavapyaya, "the place, or rather plane,
whence emerges the origination, and into which is the resolution of all
things," says a commentator. It is not the "Mother of the
World," as translated by Wilson (see Book I., Vishnu Purana); for Jagad
Yoni (as shown by FitzEdward Hall) is scarcely so much "the Mother of the
World" or "the Womb of the World" as the "Material Cause of
the Universe." The Puranic Commentators explain it by Karana --
"Cause" -- but the Esoteric philosophy, by the ideal spirit of that
cause. It is, in its secondary stage, the Svabhavat of the Buddhist
philosopher, the eternal cause and effect, omnipresent yet abstract, the
self-existent plastic Essence and the root of all things, viewed in the same
dual light as the Vedantin views his Parabrahm and Mulaprakriti, the one under
two aspects. It seems indeed extraordinary to find great scholars speculating
on the possibility of the Vedanta, and the Uttara-Mimansa especially, having
been "evoked by the teachings of the Buddhists,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In India it is called "The Eye of Siva," but beyond the great range
it is known as "Dangma's opened eye" in esoteric phraseology.
**
Dangma means a purified soul, one who has become a Jivanmukta, the highest
adept, or rather a Mahatma so-called. His "opened eye" is the inner
spiritual eye of the seer, and the faculty which manifests through it is not
clairvoyance as ordinarily understood, i.e., the power of seeing at a distance,
but rather the faculty of spiritual intuition, through which direct and certain
knowledge is obtainable. This faculty is intimately connected with the
"third eye," which mythological tradition ascribes to certain races
of men. Fuller explanations will be found in Book II.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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whereas,
it is on the contrary Buddhism (of Gautama, the Buddha) that was
"evoked" and entirely upreared on the tenets of the Secret Doctrine,
of which a partial sketch is here attempted, and on which, also, the Upanishads
are made to rest.* The above, according to the teachings of Sri
Sankaracharya,** is undeniable.
(b)
Dreamless sleep is one of the seven states of consciousness known in Oriental
esotericism. In each of these states a different portion of the mind comes into
action; or as a Vedantin would express it, the individual is conscious in a
different plane of his being. The term "dreamless sleep," in this
case is applied allegorically to the Universe to express a condition somewhat analogous
to that state of consciousness in man, which, not being remembered in a waking
state, seems a blank, just as the sleep of the mesmerised subject seems to him
an unconscious blank when he returns to his normal condition, although he has
been talking and acting as a conscious individual would.
-------
STANZA
I. -- Continued.
9.
BUT WHERE WAS THE DANGMA WHEN THE ALAYA OF THE UNIVERSE (Soul as the basis of
all, Anima Mundi) WAS IN PARAMARTHA (a) (Absolute Being and Consciousness which
are Absolute Non-Being and Unconsciousness) AND THE GREAT WHEEL WAS ANUPADAKA
(b)?
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And yet, one, claiming authority, namely, Sir Monier Williams, Boden Professor of
Sanskrit at Oxford, has just denied this fact. This is what he taught his
audience, on June the 4th, 1888, in his annual address before the Victoria
Institute of Great Britain: "Originally, Buddhism set its face against all
solitary asceticism . . . to attain sublime heights of knowledge. It had no
occult, no esoteric system of doctrine . . . withheld from ordinary men"
(!!) And, again: " . . . When Gautama Buddha began his career, the later
and lower form of Yoga seems to have been little known." And then,
contradicting himself, the learned lecturer forthwith informs his audience that
"We learn from Lalita-Vistara that various forms of bodily torture,
self-maceration, and austerity were common in Gautama's time." (!!) But
the lecturer seems quite unaware that this kind of torture and self-maceration
is precisely the lower form of Yoga, Hatha Yoga, which was "little
known" and yet so "common" in Gautama's time.
**
It is even argued that all the Six Darsanas (Schools of philosophy) show traces
of Buddha's influence, being either taken from Buddhism or due to Greek
teaching! (See Weber, Max Muller, etc.) We labour under the impression that
Colebrooke, "the highest authority" in such matters, had long ago
settled the question by showing, that "the Hindus were in this instance
the teachers, not the learners."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
(a)
Here we have before us the subject of centuries of scholastic disputations. The
two terms "Alaya" and "Paramartha" have been the causes of
dividing schools and splitting the truth into more different aspects than any
other mystic terms. Alaya is literally the "Soul of the World" or
Anima Mundi, the "Over-Soul" of Emerson, and according to esoteric
teaching it changes periodically its nature. Alaya, though eternal and
changeless in its inner essence on the planes which are unreachable by either
men or Cosmic Gods (Dhyani Buddhas), alters during the active life-period with
respect to the lower planes, ours included. During that time not only the
Dhyani-Buddhas are one with Alaya in Soul and Essence, but even the man strong
in the Yoga (mystic meditation) "is able to merge his soul with it"
(Aryasanga, the Bumapa school). This is not Nirvana, but a condition next to
it. Hence the disagreement. Thus, while the Yogacharyas (of the Mahayana
school) say that Alaya is the personification of the Voidness, and yet Alaya
(Nyingpo and Tsang in Tibetan) is the basis of every visible and invisible
thing, and that, though it is eternal and immutable in its essence, it reflects
itself in every object of the Universe "like the moon in clear tranquil
water"; other schools dispute the statement. The same for Paramartha: the
Yogacharyas interpret the term as that which is also dependent upon other
things (paratantra); and the Madhyamikas say that Paramartha is limited to
Paranishpanna or absolute perfection; i.e., in the exposition of these
"two truths" (out of four), the former believe and maintain that (on
this plane, at any rate) there exists only Samvritisatya or relative truth; and
the latter teach the existence of Paramarthasatya, the "absolute
truth."* "No Arhat, oh mendicants, can reach absolute knowledge
before he becomes one with Paranirvana. Parikalpita and Paratantra are his two
great enemies" (Aphorisms of the Bodhisattvas). Parikalpita (in Tibetan
Kun-ttag) is error, made by those unable to realize the emptiness and
illusionary nature of all; who believe something to exist which does not --
e.g., the Non-Ego. And
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Paramartha" is self-consciousness in Sanskrit, Svasamvedana, or the
"self-analysing reflection" -- from two words, parama (above
everything) and artha (comprehension), Satya meaning absolute true being, or
Esse. In Tibetan Paramarthasatya is Dondampaidenpa. The opposite of this
absolute reality, or actuality, is Samvritisatya -- the relative truth only --
"Samvriti" meaning "false conception" and being the origin
of illusion, Maya; in Tibetan Kundzabchi-denpa, "illusion-creating
appearance."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 49 ALAYA, THE UNIVERSAL SOUL.
Paratantra
is that, whatever it is, which exists only through a dependent or causal
connexion, and which has to disappear as soon as the cause from which it
proceeds is removed -- e.g., the light of a wick. Destroy or extinguish it, and
light disappears.
Esoteric
philosophy teaches that everything lives and is conscious, but not that all
life and consciousness are similar to those of human or even animal beings.
Life we look upon as "the one form of existence," manifesting in what
is called matter; or, as in man, what, incorrectly separating them, we name Spirit,
Soul and Matter. Matter is the vehicle for the manifestation of soul on this
plane of existence, and soul is the vehicle on a higher plane for the
manifestation of spirit, and these three are a trinity synthesized by Life,
which pervades them all. The idea of universal life is one of those ancient
conceptions which are returning to the human mind in this century, as a
consequence of its liberation from anthropomorphic theology. Science, it is
true, contents itself with tracing or postulating the signs of universal life,
and has not yet been bold enough even to whisper "Anima Mundi!" The
idea of "crystalline life," now familiar to science, would have been
scouted half a century ago. Botanists are now searching for the nerves of
plants; not that they suppose that plants can feel or think as animals do, but
because they believe that some structure, bearing the same relation
functionally to plant life that nerves bear to animal life, is necessary to
explain vegetable growth and nutrition. It hardly seems possible that science
can disguise from itself much longer, by the mere use of terms such as
"force" and "energy," the fact that things that have life
are living things, whether they be atoms or planets.
But
what is the belief of the inner esoteric Schools? the reader may ask. What are
the doctrines taught on this subject by the Esoteric "Buddhists"?
With them "Alaya" has a double and even a triple meaning. In the
Yogacharya system of the contemplative Mahayana school, Alaya is both the
Universal Soul (Anima Mundi) and the Self of a progressed adept. "He who
is strong in the Yoga can introduce at will his Alaya by means of meditation
into the true Nature of Existence." The "Alaya has an absolute
eternal existence," says Aryasanga -- the rival of Nagarjuna.* In one
sense it is Pradhana; which
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Aryasanga was a pre-Christian Adept and founder of a Buddhist esoteric school,
though Csoma di Koros places him, for some reasons of his own, in the seventh
century [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
explained in Vishnu Purana as: "that which is the unevolved cause, is emphatically
called by the most eminent sages Pradhana, original base, which is subtile
Prakriti, viz., that which is eternal, and which at once is (or comprehends)
what is and what is not, or is mere process." "Prakriti,"
however, is an incorrect word, and Alaya would explain it better; for Prakriti
is not the "uncognizable Brahma."* It is a mistake of those who know
nothing of the Universality of the Occult doctrines from the very cradle of the
human races, and especially so of those scholars who reject the very idea of a
"primordial revelation," to teach that the Anima Mundi, the One Life
or "Universal Soul," was made known only by Anaxagoras, or during his
age. This philosopher brought the teaching forward simply to oppose the too materialistic
conceptions on Cosmogony of Democritus, based on his exoteric theory of blindly
driven atoms. Anaxagoras of Clazomene was not its inventor but only its
propagator, as also was Plato. That which he called Mundane Intelligence, the
nous ([[nous]]), the principle that according to his views is absolutely
separated and free from matter and acts on design,** was called Motion, the ONE
LIFE, or Jivatma, ages before the year 500 B.C. in India. Only the Aryan
philosophers never endowed the principle, which with them is infinite, with the
finite "attribute" of "thinking."
This
leads the reader naturally to the "Supreme Spirit" of Hegel and the
German Transcendentalists as a contrast that it may be useful to point out. The
schools of Schelling and Fichte have diverged widely from the primitive archaic
conception of an ABSOLUTE principle, and have mirrored only an aspect of the
basic idea of the Vedanta. Even the "Absoluter Geist" shadowed forth
by von Hartman in his pessimistic philosophy of the Unconscious, while it is,
perhaps, the closest approximation made by European speculation to the Hindu
Adwaitee Doctrines, similarly falls far short of the reality.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] A.D. There was another Aryasanga, who lived
during the first centuries of our era and the Hungarian scholar most probably
confuses the two.
*
"The indiscreet cause which is uniform, and both cause and effect, and
which those who are acquainted with first principles call Pradhana and
Prakriti, is the incognizable Brahma who was before all" (Vayu Purana);
i.e., Brahma does not put forth evolution itself or create, but only exhibits
various aspects of itself, one of which is Prakriti, an aspect of Pradhana.
**
Finite Self-consciousness, I mean. For how can the absolute attain it otherwise
than as simply an aspect, the highest of which known to us is human
consciousness?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 51 CAN THE FINITE CONCEIVE THE INFINITE?
According
to Hegel, the "Unconscious" would never have undertaken the vast and
laborious task of evolving the Universe, except in the hope of attaining clear
Self-consciousness. In this connection it is to be borne in mind that in
designating Spirit, which the European Pantheists use as equivalent to
Parabrahm, as unconscious, they do not attach to that expression of
"Spirit" -- one employed in the absence of a better to symbolise a
profound mystery -- the connotation it usually bears.
The
"Absolute Consciousness," they tell us, "behind" phenomena,
which is only termed unconsciousness in the absence of any element of
personality, transcends human conception. Man, unable to form one concept
except in terms of empirical phenomena, is powerless from the very constitution
of his being to raise the veil that shrouds the majesty of the Absolute. Only
the liberated Spirit is able to faintly realise the nature of the source whence
it sprung and whither it must eventually return. . . . As the highest Dhyan
Chohan, however, can but bow in ignorance before the awful mystery of Absolute
Being; and since, even in that culmination of conscious existence -- "the
merging of the individual in the universal consciousness" -- to use a phrase
of Fichte's -- the Finite cannot conceive the Infinite, nor can it apply to it
its own standard of mental experiences, how can it be said that the
"Unconscious" and the Absolute can have even an instinctive impulse
or hope of attaining clear self-consciousness?* A Vedantin would never admit
this Hegelian idea; and the Occultist would say that it applies perfectly to
the awakened MAHAT, the Universal Mind already projected into the phenomenal
world as the first aspect of the changeless ABSOLUTE, but never to the latter.
"Spirit and Matter, or Purusha and Prakriti are but the two primeval
aspects of the One and Secondless," we are taught.
The
matter-moving Nous, the animating Soul, immanent in every atom, manifested in
man, latent in the stone, has different degrees of power; and this pantheistic
idea of a general Spirit-Soul pervading all Nature is the oldest of all the
philosophical notions. Nor was the Archaeus a discovery of Paracelsus nor of
his pupil Van Helmont; for it is again the same Archaeus or "Father-Ether,"
-- the manifested basis
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Schwegler's "Handbook of the History of Philosophy" in Sterling's
translation, p. 28.
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[[Vol.
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and
source of the innumerable phenomena of life -- localised. The whole series of
the numberless speculations of this kind are but variations on this theme, the key-note
of which was struck in this primeval Revelation. (See Part II.,
"Primordial Substance.")
(b)
The term Anupadaka, "parentless," or without progenitors, is a
mystical designation having several meanings in the philosophy. By this name
celestial beings, the Dhyan-Chohans or Dhyani-Buddhas, are generally meant. But
as these correspond mystically to the human Buddhas and Bodhisattwas, known as
the "Manushi (or human) Buddhas," the latter are also designated
"Anupadaka," once that their whole personality is merged in their
compound sixth and seventh principles -- or Atma-Buddhi, and that they have
become the "diamond-souled" (Vajra-sattvas),* the full Mahatmas. The
"Concealed Lord" (Sangbai Dag-po), "the one merged with the absolute,"
can have no parents since he is Self-existent, and one with the Universal
Spirit (Svayambhu),** the Svabhavat in the highest aspect. The mystery in the
hierarchy of the Anupadaka is great, its apex being the universal Spirit-Soul,
and the lower rung the Manushi-Buddha; and even every Soul-endowed man is an
Anupadaka in a latent state. Hence, when speaking of the Universe in its
formless, eternal, or absolute condition, before it was fashioned by the
"Builders" -- the expression, "the Universe was Anupadaka."
(See Part II., "Primordial Substance.")
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vajra -- diamond-holder. In Tibetan Dorjesempa; sempa meaning the soul, its
adamantine quality referring to its indestructibility in the hereafter. The
explanation with regard to the "Anupadaka" given in the Kala Chakra,
the first in the Gyu(t) division of the Kanjur, is half esoteric. It has misled
the Orientalists into erroneous speculations with respect to the Dhyani-Buddhas
and their earthly correspondencies, the Manushi-Buddhas. The real tenet is
hinted at in a subsequent Volume, (see "The Mystery about Buddha"),
and will be more fully explained in its proper place.
**
To quote Hegel again, who with Schelling practically accepted the Pantheistic
conception of periodical Avatars (special incarnations of the World-Spirit in
Man, as seen in the case of all the great religious reformers) . . . .
"the essence of man is spirit . . . . only by stripping himself of his
finiteness and surrendering himself to pure self-consciousness does he attain
the truth. Christ-man, as man in whom the Unity of God-man (identity of the
individual with the Universal consciousness as taught by the Vedantins and some
Adwaitees) appeared, has, in his death and history generally, himself presented
the eternal history of Spirit -- a history which every man has to accomplish in
himself, in order to exist as Spirit." -- Philosophy of History. Sibree's
English translation, p. 340.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 53 THE STATE OF PARANIRVANA.
STANZA
II.
COMMENTARY.
1.
. . . . WHERE WERE THE BUILDERS, THE LUMINOUS SONS OF MANVANTARIC DAWN (a)? . .
. . IN THE UNKNOWN DARKNESS IN THEIR AH-HI (Chohanic, Dhyani-Buddhic)
PARANISHPANNA, THE PRODUCERS OF FORM (rupa) FROM NO-FORM (arupa), THE ROOT OF
THE WORLD -- THE DEVAMATRI* AND SVABHAVAT, RESTED IN THE BLISS OF NON-BEING
(b).
(a)
The "Builders," the "Sons of Manvantaric Dawn," are the
real creators of the Universe; and in this doctrine, which deals only with our
Planetary System, they, as the architects of the latter, are also called the
"Watchers" of the Seven Spheres, which exoterically are the Seven
planets, and esoterically the seven earths or spheres (planets) of our chain
also. The opening sentence of Stanza I., when mentioning "Seven
Eternities," is made to apply both to the Maha-Kalpa or "the (great)
Age of Brahma," as well as to the Solar pralaya and subsequent
resurrection of our Planetary System on a higher plane. There are many kinds of
pralaya (dissolution of a thing visible), as will be shown elsewhere.
(b)
Paranishpanna, remember, is the summum bonum, the Absolute, hence the same as
Paranirvana. Besides being the final state it is that condition of subjectivity
which has no relation to anything but the one absolute truth (Para-marthasatya)
on its plane. It is that state which leads one to appreciate correctly the full
meaning of Non-Being, which, as explained, is absolute Being. Sooner or later,
all that now seemingly exists, will be in reality and actually in the state of
Paranishpanna. But there is a great difference between conscious and
unconscious "being." The condition of Paranishpanna, without
Paramartha, the Self-analys-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
"Mother
of the Gods," Aditi, or Cosmic Space. In the Zohar, she is called Sephira
the Mother of the Sephiroth, and Shekinah in her primordial form, in
abscondito.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
ing
consciousness (Svasamvedana), is no bliss, but simply extinction (for Seven
Eternities). Thus, an iron ball placed under the scorching rays of the sun will
get heated through, but will not feel or appreciate the warmth, while a man
will. It is only "with a mind clear and undarkened by personality, and an
assimilation of the merit of manifold existences devoted to being in its
collectivity (the whole living and sentient Universe)," that one gets rid
of personal existence, merging into, becoming one with, the Absolute,* and
continuing in full possession of Paramartha.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
2.
. . . . WHERE WAS SILENCE? WHERE WERE THE EARS TO SENSE IT? NO! THERE WAS
NEITHER SILENCE, NOR SOUND (a). NAUGHT SAVE CEASELESS, ETERNAL BREATH (Motion)
WHICH KNOWS ITSELF NOT (b).
(a)
The idea that things can cease to exist and still BE, is a fundamental one in
Eastern psychology. Under this apparent contradiction in terms, there rests a
fact of Nature to realise which in the mind, rather than to argue about words,
is the important thing. A familiar instance of a similar paradox is afforded by
chemical combination. The question whether Hydrogen and Oxygen cease to exist,
when they combine to form water, is still a moot one, some arguing that since
they are found again when the water is decomposed they must be there all the
while; others contending that as they actually turn into something totally
different they must cease to exist as themselves for the time being; but
neither side is able to form the faintest conception of the real condition of a
thing, which has become something else and yet has not ceased to be itself.
Existence as water may be said to be, for Oxygen and Hydrogen, a state of
Non-being which is "more real being" than their existence as gases;
and it may faintly symbolise the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence Non-being is "ABSOLUTE Being," in esoteric philosophy. In the
tenets of the latter even Adi-Budha (first or primeval wisdom) is, while
manifested, in one sense an illusion, Maya, since all the gods, including
Brahma, have to die at the end of the "Age of Brahma"; the
abstraction called Parabrahm alone -- whether we call it Ensoph, or Herbert Spencer's
Unknowable -- being "the One Absolute" Reality. The One secondless
Existence is ADWAITA, "Without a Second," and all the rest is Maya,
teaches the Adwaita philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 55 THE ABSOLUTE KNOWS ITSELF NOT.
condition
of the Universe when it goes to sleep, or ceases to be, during the "Nights
of Brahma" -- to awaken or reappear again, when the dawn of the new
Manvantara recalls it to what we call existence.
(b)
The "Breath" of the One Existence is used in its application only to
the spiritual aspect of Cosmogony by Archaic esotericism; otherwise, it is
replaced by its equivalent in the material plane -- Motion. The One Eternal
Element, or element-containing Vehicle, is Space, dimensionless in every sense;
co-existent with which are -- endless duration, primordial (hence
indestructible) matter, and motion -- absolute "perpetual motion"
which is the "breath" of the "One" Element. This breath, as
seen, can never cease, not even during the Pralayic eternities. (See
"Chaos, Theos, Kosmos," in Part II.)
But
the "Breath of the One Existence" does not, all the same, apply to
the One Causeless Cause or the "All Be-ness" (in contradistinction to
All-Being, which is Brahma, or the Universe). Brahma (or Hari) the four-faced
god who, after lifting the Earth out of the waters, "accomplished the
Creation," is held to be only the instrumental, and not, as clearly
implied, the ideal Cause. No Orientalist, so far, seems to have thoroughly
comprehended the real sense of the verses in the Purana, that treat of
"creation."
Therein
Brahma is the cause of the potencies that are to be generated subsequently for
the work of "creation." When a translator says, "And from him
proceed the potencies to be created, after they had become the real
cause": "and from IT proceed the potencies that will create as they
become the real cause" (on the material plane) would perhaps be more
correct? Save that one (causeless) ideal cause there is no other to which the
universe can be referred. "Worthiest of ascetics! through its potency --
i.e., through the potency of that cause -- every created thing comes by its
inherent or proper nature." If, in the Vedanta and Nyaya, nimitta is the
efficient cause, as contrasted with upadana, the material cause, (and in the
Sankhya, pradhana implies the functions of both); in the Esoteric philosophy,
which reconciles all these systems, and the nearest exponent of which is the
Vedanta as expounded by the Advaita Vedantists, none but the upadana can be
speculated upon; that which is in the minds of the Vaishnavas (the
Vasishta-dvaita) as the ideal in contradistinction to the real -- or Parabrahm
and Isvara -- can find no room in published speculations, since
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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that
ideal even is a misnomer, when applied to that of which no human reason, even
that of an adept, can conceive.
To
know itself or oneself, necessitates consciousness and perception (both limited
faculties in relation to any subject except Parabrahm), to be cognized. Hence
the "Eternal Breath which knows itself not." Infinity cannot
comprehend Finiteness. The Boundless can have no relation to the bounded and
the conditioned. In the occult teachings, the Unknown and the Unknowable MOVER,
or the Self-Existing, is the absolute divine Essence. And thus being Absolute
Consciousness, and Absolute Motion -- to the limited senses of those who
describe this indescribable -- it is unconsciousness and immoveableness.
Concrete consciousness cannot be predicated of abstract Consciousness, any more
than the quality wet can be predicated of water -- wetness being its own
attribute and the cause of the wet quality in other things. Consciousness
implies limitations and qualifications; something to be conscious of, and
someone to be conscious of it. But Absolute Consciousness contains the
cognizer, the thing cognized and the cognition, all three in itself and all
three one. No man is conscious of more than that portion of his knowledge that
happens to have been recalled to his mind at any particular time, yet such is
the poverty of language that we have no term to distinguish the knowledge not
actively thought of, from knowledge we are unable to recall to memory. To
forget is synonymous with not to remember. How much greater must be the
difficulty of finding terms to describe, and to distinguish between, abstract
metaphysical facts or differences. It must not be forgotten, also, that we give
names to things according to the appearances they assume for ourselves. We call
absolute consciousness "unconsciousness," because it seems to us that
it must necessarily be so, just as we call the Absolute, "Darkness,"
because to our finite understanding it appears quite impenetrable, yet we
recognize fully that our perception of such things does not do them justice. We
involuntarily distinguish in our minds, for instance, between unconscious absolute
consciousness, and unconsciousness, by secretly endowing the former with some
indefinite quality that corresponds, on a higher plane than our thoughts can
reach, with what we know as consciousness in ourselves. But this is not any
kind of consciousness that we can manage to distinguish from what appears to us
as unconsciousness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 57 THE GERM OF LIFE.
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
3.
THE HOUR HAD NOT YET STRUCK; THE RAY HAD NOT YET FLASHED INTO THE GERM (a); THE
MATRI-PADMA (mother lotus) HAD NOT YET SWOLLEN (b).*
(a)
The ray of the "Ever Darkness" becomes, as it is emitted, a ray of
effulgent light or life, and flashes into the "Germ" -- the point in
the Mundane Egg, represented by matter in its abstract sense. But the term
"Point" must not be understood as applying to any particular point in
Space, for a germ exists in the centre of every atom, and these collectively
form "the Germ;" or rather, as no atom can be made visible to our
physical eye, the collectivity of these (if the term can be applied to
something which is boundless and infinite) forms the noumenon of eternal and
indestructible matter.
(b)
One of the symbolical figures for the Dual creative power in Nature (matter and
force on the material plane) is Padma, the water-lily of India. The Lotus is
the product of heat (fire) and water (vapour or Ether); fire standing in every
philosophical and religious system as a representation of the Spirit of
Deity,** the active, male, generative principle; and Ether, or the Soul of
matter, the light of the fire, for the passive female principle from which
everything in this Universe emanated. Hence, Ether or Water is the Mother, and
Fire is the Father. Sir W. Jones (and before him archaic botany) showed that
the seeds of the Lotus contain -- even before they germinate -- perfectly
formed leaves, the miniature shape of what one day, as perfect plants, they
will become: nature thus giving us a specimen of the preformation of its production
. . . the seed of all phanerogamous plants bearing proper flowers containing an
embryo plantlet ready formed.*** (See Part II., "The Lotus Flower as an
Universal Symbol.") This explains the sentence "The Mother had not
yet swollen" -- the form being usually sacrificed to the inner or root
idea in Archaic symbology.
The
Lotus, or Padma, is, moreover, a very ancient and favourite
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An unpoetical term, yet still very graphic. (See foot-note to Stanza III.)
**
Even in Christianity. (See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine
Thought.")
***
Gross, "The Heathen Religion," p. 195.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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simile
for the Kosmos itself, and also for man. The popular reasons given are,
firstly, the fact just mentioned, that the Lotus-seed contains within itself a
perfect miniature of the future plant, which typifies the fact that the spiritual
prototypes of all things exist in the immaterial world before those things
become materialised on Earth. Secondly, the fact that the Lotus plant grows up
through the water, having its root in the Ilus, or mud, and spreading its
flower in the air above. The Lotus thus typifies the life of man and also that
of the Kosmos; for the Secret Doctrine teaches that the elements of both are
the same, and that both are developing in the same direction. The root of the
Lotus sunk in the mud represents material life, the stalk passing up through
the water typifies existence in the astral world, and the flower floating on
the water and opening to the sky is emblematical of spiritual being.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
4.
HER HEART HAD NOT YET OPENED FOR THE ONE RAY TO ENTER, THENCE TO FALL AS THREE
INTO FOUR IN THE LAP OF MAYA (a).
(a)
The Primordial Substance had not yet passed out of its precosmic latency into
differentiated objectivity, or even become the (to man, so far,) invisible
Protyle of Science. But, as the hour strikes and it becomes receptive of the
Fohatic impress of the Divine Thought (the Logos, or the male aspect of the
Anima Mundi, Alaya) -- its heart opens. It differentiates, and the THREE
(Father, Mother, Son) are transformed into four. Herein lies the origin of the
double mystery of the Trinity and the immaculate Conception. The first and
Fundamental dogma of Occultism is Universal Unity (or Homogeneity) under three
aspects. This led to a possible conception of Deity, which as an absolute unity
must remain forever incomprehensible to finite intellects. "If thou
wouldest believe in the Power which acts within the root of a plant, or imagine
the root concealed under the soil, thou hast to think of its stalk or trunk and
of its leaves and flowers. Thou canst not imagine that Power independently of
these objects. Life can be known only by the Tree of Life. . . ."
(Precepts for Yoga). The idea of Absolute Unity
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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would
be broken entirely in our conception, had we not something concrete before our
eyes to contain that Unity. And the deity being absolute, must be omnipresent,
hence not an atom but contains IT within itself. The roots, the trunk and its
many branches are three distinct objects, yet they are one tree. Say the
Kabalists: "The Deity is one, because It is infinite. It is triple,
because it is ever manifesting." This manifestation is triple in its aspects,
for it requires, as Aristotle has it, three principles for every natural body
to become objective: privation, form, and matter.* Privation meant in the mind
of the great philosopher that which the Occultists call the prototypes
impressed in the Astral Light -- the lowest plane and world of Anima Mundi. The
union of these three principles depends upon a fourth -- the LIFE which
radiates from the summits of the Unreachable, to become an universally diffused
Essence on the manifested planes of Existence. And this QUATERNARY (Father,
Mother, Son, as a UNITY, and a quaternary, as a living manifestation) has been
the means of leading to the very archaic Idea of Immaculate Conception, now
finally crystallized into a dogma of the Christian Church, which carnalized this
metaphysical idea beyond any common sense. For one has but to read the Kabala
and study its numerical methods of interpretation to find the origin of that
dogma. It is purely astronomical, mathematical, and pre-eminently metaphysical:
the Male element in Nature (personified by the male deities and Logoi -- Viraj,
or Brahma; Horus, or Osiris, etc., etc.) is born through, not from, an
immaculate source, personified by the "Mother"; because that Male
having a Mother cannot have a "Father" -- the abstract Deity being
sexless, and not even a Being but Be-ness, or Life itself. Let us render this
in the mathematical language of the author of "The Source of
Measures." Speaking of the "Measure of a Man" and his numerical
(Kabalistic) value, he writes that in Genesis, ch. iv., v. 1, "It is
called the 'Man even Jehovah'
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A Vedantin of the Visishtadwaita philosophy would say that, though the only
independent Reality, Parabrahmam is inseparable from his trinity. That He is
three, "Parabrahmam, Chit, and Achit," the last two being dependent
realities unable to exist separately; or, to make it clearer, Parabrahmam is
the SUBSTANCE -- changeless, eternal, and incognizable -- and Chit (Atma), and
Achit (Anatma) are its qualities, as form and colour are the qualities of any
object. The two are the garment, or body, or rather attribute (Sarira) of
Parabrahmam. But an Occultist would find much to say against this claim, and so
would the Adwaitee Vedantin.
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Measure,
and this is obtained in this way, viz.: 113 x 5 = 565, and the value 565 can be
placed under the form of expression 56.5 x 10 = 565. Here the Man-number 113
becomes a factor of 56.5 x 10, and the (Kabalistic) reading of this last
numbered expression is Jod, He, Vau, He, or Jehovah. . . . The expansion of 565
into 56.5 x 10 is purposed to show the emanation of the male (Jod) from the
female (Eva) principle; or, so to speak, the birth of a male element from an
immaculate source, in other words, an immaculate conception."
Thus
is repeated on Earth the mystery enacted, according to the Seers, on the divine
plane. The "Son" of the immaculate Celestial Virgin (or the
undifferentiated cosmic protyle, Matter in its infinitude) is born again on
Earth as the Son of the terrestrial Eve -- our mother Earth, and becomes
Humanity as a total -- past, present, and future -- for Jehovah or
Jod-he-vau-he is androgyne, or both male and female. Above, the Son is the
whole KOSMOS; below, he is MANKIND. The triad or triangle becomes Tetraktis,
the Sacred Pythagorean number, the perfect Square, and a 6-faced cube on Earth.
The Macroprosopus (the Great Face) is now Microprosopus (the lesser face); or,
as the Kabalists have it, the "Ancient of Days," descending on Adam
Kadmon whom he uses as his vehicle to manifest through, gets transformed into
Tetragrammaton. It is now in the "Lap of Maya," the Great Illusion,
and between itself and the Reality has the Astral Light, the great Deceiver of
man's limited senses, unless Knowledge through Paramarthasatya comes to the
rescue.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
5.
THE SEVEN (Sons) WERE NOT YET BORN FROM THE WEB OF LIGHT. DARKNESS ALONE WAS
FATHER-MOTHER, SVABHAVAT, AND SVABHAVAT WAS IN DARKNESS (a).
(a)
The Secret Doctrine, in the Stanzas given here, occupies itself chiefly, if not
entirely, with our Solar System, and especially with our planetary chain. The
"Seven Sons," therefore, are the creators of the latter. This
teaching will be explained more fully hereafter. (See Part II., "Theogony
of the Creative Gods.")
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[[Vol.
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Svabhavat,
the "Plastic Essence" that fills the Universe, is the root of all
things. Svabhavat is, so to say, the Buddhistic concrete aspect of the
abstraction called in Hindu philosophy Mulaprakriti. It is the body of the
Soul, and that which Ether would be to Akasa, the latter being the informing
principle of the former. Chinese mystics have made of it the synonym of
"being." In the Ekasloka-Shastra of Nagarjuna (the Lung-shu of China)
called by the Chinese the Yih-shu-lu-kia-lun, it is said that the original word
of Yeu is "Being" or "Subhava," "the Substance giving
substance to itself," also explained by him as meaning " without
action and with action," "the nature which has no nature of its
own." Subhava, from which Svabhavat, is composed of two words: Su
"fair," "handsome," "good"; Sva,
"self"; and bhava, "being" or "states of being."
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
6.
THESE TWO ARE THE GERM, AND THE GERM IS -- ONE. THE UNIVERSE WAS STILL
CONCEALED IN THE DIVINE THOUGHT AND THE DIVINE BOSOM.
The
"Divine Thought" does not imply the idea of a Divine thinker. The
Universe, not only past, present, and future -- which is a human and finite
idea expressed by finite thought -- but in its totality, the Sat (an
untranslateable term), the absolute being, with the Past and Future
crystallized in an eternal Present, is that Thought itself reflected in a
secondary or manifest cause. Brahma (neuter) as the Mysterium Magnum of
Paracelsus is an absolute mystery to the human mind. Brahma, the male-female,
its aspect and anthropomorphic reflection, is conceivable to the perceptions of
blind faith, though rejected by human intellect when it attains its majority.
(See Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought.")
Hence
the statement that during the prologue, so to say, of the drama of Creation, or
the beginning of cosmic evolution, the Universe or the "Son" lies
still concealed "in the Divine Thought," which had not yet penetrated
"into the Divine Bosom." This idea, note well, is at the root, and
forms the origin of all the allegories about the "Sons of God" born
of immaculate virgins.
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STANZA
III.
COMMENTARY.
1.
THE LAST VIBRATION OF THE SEVENTH ETERNITY THRILLS THROUGH INFINITUDE (a). THE
MOTHER SWELLS, EXPANDING FROM WITHIN WITHOUT LIKE THE BUD OF THE LOTUS (b).
(a)
The seemingly paradoxical use of the sentence "Seventh Eternity,"
thus dividing the indivisible, is sanctified in esoteric philosophy. The latter
divides boundless duration into unconditionally eternal and universal Time and
a conditioned one (Khandakala). One is the abstraction or noumenon of infinite
time (Kala); the other its phenomenon appearing periodically, as the effect of
Mahat (the Universal Intelligence limited by Manvantaric duration). With some
schools, Mahat is "the first-born" of Pradhana (undifferentiated
substance, or the periodical aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root of Nature), which
(Pradhana) is called Maya, the Illusion. In this respect, I believe, esoteric
teaching differs from the Vedantin doctrines of both the Adwaita and the
Visishtadwaita schools. For it says that, while Mulaprakriti, the noumenon, is
self-existing and without any origin -- is, in short, parentless, Anupadaka (as
one with Brahmam) -- Prakriti, its phenomenon, is periodical and no better than
a phantasm of the former, so Mahat, with the Occultists, the first-born of Gnana
(or gnosis) knowledge, wisdom or the Logos -- is a phantasm reflected from the
Absolute NIRGUNA (Parabrahm, the one reality, "devoid of attributes and
qualities"; see Upanishads); while with some Vedantins Mahat is a
manifestation of Prakriti, or Matter.
(b)
Therefore, the "last vibration of the Seventh Eternity" was
"fore-ordained" -- by no God in particular, but occurred in virtue of
the eternal and changeless LAW which causes the great periods of Activity and
Rest, called so graphically, and at the same time so poetically, the "Days
and Nights of Brahma." The expansion "from within without" of
the Mother, called elsewhere the "Waters of Space," "Universal
Matrix," etc., does not allude to an expansion from a small centre or
focus, but, without reference to size or limitation or area, means the
development of limitless subjectivity into as limitless objectivity. "The
ever (to us) invisible and immaterial Substance present in eternity, threw its
periodical shadow from its own plane into the lap
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[[Vol.
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of
Maya." It implies that this expansion, not being an increase in size --
for infinite extension admits of no enlargement -- was a change of condition.
It "expanded like the bud of the Lotus"; for the Lotus plant exists
not only as a miniature embryo in its seed (a physical characteristic), but its
prototype is present in an ideal form in the Astral Light from "Dawn"
to "Night" during the Manvantaric period, like everything else, as a
matter of fact, in this objective Universe; from man down to mite, from giant
trees down to the tiniest blades of grass.
All
this, teaches the hidden Science, is but the temporary reflection, the shadow
of the eternal ideal prototype in Divine Thought -- the word
"Eternal," note well again, standing here only in the sense of
"AEon," as lasting throughout the seemingly interminable, but still
limited cycle of activity, called by us Manvantara. For what is the real
esoteric meaning of Manvantara, or rather a Manu-Antara? It means,
esoterically, "between two Manus," of whom there are fourteen in
every "Day of Brahma," such a "Day" consisting of 1,000
aggregates of four ages, or 1,000 "Great Ages," Mahayugas. Let us now
analyse the word or name Manu. Orientalists and their Dictionaries tell us that
the term "Manu" is from the root Man, "to think"; hence
"the thinking man." But, esoterically, every Manu, as an
anthropomorphized patron of his special cycle (or Round), is but the
personified idea of the "Thought Divine" (as the Hermetic
"Pymander"); each of the Manus, therefore, being the special god, the
creator and fashioner of all that appears during his own respective cycle of
being or Manvantara. Fohat runs the Manus' (or Dhyan-Chohans') errands, and
causes the ideal prototypes to expand from within without -- viz., to cross
gradually, on a descending scale, all the planes from the noumenon to the
lowest phenomenon, to bloom finally on the last into full objectivity -- the
acme of illusion, or the grossest matter.
-------
STANZA
III. -- continued.
2.
THE VIBRATION SWEEPS ALONG, TOUCHING WITH ITS SWIFT WING (simultaneously) THE
WHOLE UNIVERSE, AND THE GERM THAT DWELLETH IN DARKNESS: THE DARKNESS THAT
BREATHES (moves) OVER THE SLUMBERING WATERS OF LIFE (a).
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(a)
The Pythagorean Monad is also said to dwell in solitude and darkness like the
"germ." The idea of the "breath" of Darkness moving over
"the slumbering Waters of life," which is primordial matter with the
latent Spirit in it, recalls the first chapter of Genesis. Its original is the
Brahminical Narayana (the mover on the Waters), who is the personification of
the eternal Breath of the unconscious All (or Parabrahm) of the Eastern
Occultists. The Waters of Life, or Chaos -- the female principle in symbolism
-- are the vacuum (to our mental sight) in which lie the latent Spirit and
Matter. This it was that made Democritus assert, after his instructor
Leucippus, that the primordial principles of all were atoms and a vacuum, in
the sense of space, but not of empty space, as "Nature abhors a
vacuum" according to the Peripatetics, and every ancient philosopher.
In
all Cosmogonies "Water" plays the same important part. It is the base
and source of material existence. Scientists, mistaking the word for the thing,
understood by water the definite chemical combination of oxygen and hydrogen,
thus giving a specific meaning to a term used by Occultists in a generic sense,
and which is used in Cosmogony with a metaphysical and mystical meaning. Ice is
not water, neither is steam, although all three have precisely the same
chemical composition.
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
2.
[[3.]] "DARKNESS" RADIATES LIGHT, AND LIGHT DROPS ONE SOLITARY RAY
INTO THE WATERS, INTO THE MOTHER DEEP. THE RAY SHOOTS THROUGH THE VIRGIN-EGG;
THE RAY CAUSES THE ETERNAL EGG TO THRILL, AND DROP THE NON-ETERNAL (periodical)
GERM, WHICH CONDENSES INTO THE WORLD EGG (a).
(a)
The solitary ray dropping into the mother deep may be taken as meaning Divine
Thought or Intelligence, impregnating chaos. This, however, occurs on the plane
of metaphysical abstraction, or rather the plane whereon that which we call a
metaphysical abstraction is a reality. The Virgin-egg being in one sense
abstract Egg-ness, or the power of becoming developed through fecundation, is
eternal and for ever the same. And just as the fecundation of an egg takes
place before it is dropped; so the non-eternal periodical germ which becomes
later in
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[[Vol.
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symbolism
the mundane egg, contains in itself, when it emerges from the said symbol,
"the promise and potency" of all the Universe. Though the idea per se
is, of course, an abstraction, a symbolical mode of expression, it is a symbol
truly, as it suggests the idea of infinity as an endless circle. It brings before
the mind's eye the picture of Kosmos emerging from and in boundless space, a
Universe as shoreless in magnitude if not as endless in its objective
manifestation. The simile of an egg also expresses the fact taught in Occultism
that the primordial form of everything manifested, from atom to globe, from man
to angel, is spheroidal, the sphere having been with all nations the emblem of
eternity and infinity -- a serpent swallowing its tail. To realize the meaning,
however, the sphere must be thought of as seen from its centre. The field of
vision or of thought is like a sphere whose radii proceed from one's self in
every direction, and extend out into space, opening up boundless vistas all
around. It is the symbolical circle of Pascal and the Kabalists, "whose
centre is everywhere and circumference nowhere," a conception which enters
into the compound idea of this emblem.
The
"Mundane Egg" is, perhaps, one of the most universally adopted
symbols, highly suggestive as it is, equally in the spiritual, physiological,
and cosmological sense. Therefore, it is found in every world-theogony, where
it is largely associated with the serpent symbol; the latter being everywhere,
in philosophy as in religious symbolism, an emblem of eternity, infinitude,
regeneration, and rejuvenation, as well as of wisdom. (See Part II. "Tree
and Serpent and Crocodile Worship.") The mystery of apparent
self-generation and evolution through its own creative power repeating in
miniature the process of Cosmic evolution in the egg, both being due to heat
and moisture under the efflux of the unseen creative spirit, justified fully
the selection of this graphic symbol. The "Virgin Egg" is the
microcosmic symbol of the macrocosmic prototype -- the "Virgin
Mother" -- Chaos or the Primeval Deep. The male Creator (under whatever
name) springs forth from the Virgin female, the immaculate root fructified by
the Ray. Who, if versed in astronomy and natural sciences, can fail to see its
suggestiveness? Cosmos as receptive Nature is an Egg fructified -- yet left
immaculate; once regarded as boundless, it could have no other representation
than a spheroid. The Golden Egg was surrounded by seven natural elements
(ether, fire, air, water), "four ready, three secret." It may be
found
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stated
in Vishnu Purana, where elements are translated "Envelopes" and a
secret one is added: "Aham-kara" (see Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Book
I., p. 40). The original text has no "Aham-kara;" it mentions seven
Elements without specifying the last three (see Part II. on "The Mundane
Egg").
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
4.
(Then) THE THREE (triangle) FALL INTO THE FOUR (quaternary). THE RADIANT
ESSENCE BECOMES SEVEN INSIDE, SEVEN OUTSIDE (a). THE LUMINOUS EGG
(Hiranyagarbha), WHICH IN ITSELF IS THREE (the triple hypostases of Brahma, or
Vishnu, the three "Avasthas"), CURDLES AND SPREADS IN MILK-WHITE
CURDS THROUGHOUT THE DEPTHS OF MOTHER, THE ROOT THAT GROWS IN THE OCEAN OF LIFE
(b).
The
use of geometrical figures and the frequent allusions to figures in all ancient
scriptures (see Puranas, Egyptian papyri, the "Book of the Dead" and
even the Bible) must be explained. In the "Book of Dzyan," as in the
Kabala, there are two kinds of numerals to be studied -- the figures, often
simple blinds, and the Sacred Numbers, the values of which are all known to the
Occultists through Initiation. The former is but a conventional glyph, the
latter is the basic symbol of all. That is to say, that one is purely physical,
the other purely metaphysical, the two standing in relation to each other as
matter stands to spirit -- the extreme poles of the ONE Substance.
As
Balzac, the unconscious Occultist of French literature, says somewhere, the
Number is to Mind the same as it is to matter: "an incomprehensible
agent;" (perhaps so to the profane, never to the Initiated mind). Number
is, as the great writer thought, an Entity, and, at the same time, a Breath
emanating from what he called God and what we call the ALL; the breath which
alone could organize the physical Kosmos, "where naught obtains its form
but through the Deity, which is an effect of Number." It is instructive to
quote Balzac's words upon this subject:--
"The
smallest as the most immense creations, are they not to be distinguished from
each other by their quantities, their qualities, their dimensions, their forces
and attributes, all begotten by the NUMBER? The infinitude of the Numbers is a
fact proven to our mind, but of which no proof can be physically
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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given.
The mathematician will tell us that the infinitude of the numbers exists but is
not to be demonstrated. God is a Number endowed with motion, which is felt but
not demonstrated. As Unity, it begins the Numbers, with which it has nothing in
common. . . . . The existence of the Number depends on Unity, which, without a
single Number, begets them all. . . . . What! unable either to measure the
first abstraction yielded to you by the Deity, or to get hold of it, you still
hope to subject to your measurements the mystery of the Secret Sciences which
emanate from that Deity? . . . . And what would you feel, were I to plunge you
into the abysses of MOTION, the Force which organizes the Number? What would
you think, were I to add that Motion and Number* are begotten by the WORD, the
Supreme Reason of the Seers and Prophets, who, in days of old, sensed the
mighty Breath of God, a witness to which is the Apocalypse?"
(b)
"The radiant essence curdled and spread throughout the depths" of
Space. From an astronomical point of view this is easy of explanation: it is
the "milky way," the world-stuff, or primordial matter in its first
form. It is more difficult, however, to explain it in a few words or even
lines, from the standpoint of Occult Science and Symbolism, as it is the most
complicated of glyphs. Herein are enshrined more than a dozen symbols. To begin
with, the whole pantheon of mysterious objects,** every one of them having some
definite Occult meaning, extracted from the allegorical "churning of the
ocean" by the Hindu gods. Besides Amrita, the water of life or
immortality, "Surabhi" the "cow of plenty," called
"the fountain of milk and curds," was extracted from this "Sea
of Milk." Hence the universal adoration of the cow and bull, one the
productive, the other the generative power in Nature: symbols connected with both
the Solar and the Cosmic deities. The specific properties, for occult purposes,
of the "fourteen precious things," being explained only at the fourth
Initiation, cannot be given here; but the following may be remarked. In the
"Satapatha Brahmana" it is stated that the churning of the
"Ocean of Milk" took place in the Satya Yug, the first age which
immediately followed the "Deluge." As, however, neither the Rig-Veda
nor
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Number, truly; but never MOTION. It is Motion which begets the Logos, the Word,
in occultism.
**
The "Fourteen precious things." The narrative or allegory is found in
the Satapatha Brahmana and others. The Japanese Secret Science of the Buddhist
Mystics, the Yamabooshi, has "seven precious things." We will speak
of them, hereafter.
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[[Vol.
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Manu
-- both preceding Vaivasvata's "deluge," that of the bulk of the
Fourth Race -- mention this deluge, it is evident that it is not the
"great" deluge, nor that which carried away Atlantis, nor even the
deluge of Noah, which is meant here. This "churning" relates to a
period before the earth's formation, and is in direct connection with that
other universal legend, the various and contradictory versions of which
culminated in the Christian dogma of the "War in Heaven," and the
fall of the Angels (see Book II., also Revelations chap. xii.). The Brahmanas,
reproached by the Orientalists with their versions on the same subjects, often
clashing with each other, are pre-eminently occult works, hence used purposely
as blinds. They were allowed to survive for public use and property only
because they were and are absolutely unintelligible to the masses. Otherwise
they would have disappeared from circulation as long ago as the days of Akbar.
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
5.
THE ROOT REMAINS, THE LIGHT REMAINS, THE CURDS REMAIN, AND STILL OEAOHOO (a) IS
ONE (b).
(a)
OEAOHOO is rendered "Father-Mother of the Gods" in the Commentaries,
or the SIX IN ONE, or the septenary root from which all proceeds. All depends
upon the accent given to these seven vowels, which may be pronounced as one,
three, or even seven syllables by adding an e after the letter "o."
This mystic name is given out, because without a thorough mastery of the triple
pronunciation it remains for ever ineffectual.
(b)
This refers to the Non-Separateness of all that lives and has its being,
whether in active or passive state. In one sense, Oeaohoo is the "Rootless
Root of All"; hence, one with Parabrahmam; in another sense it is a name
for the manifested ONE LIFE, the Eternal living Unity. The "Root"
means, as already explained, pure knowledge (Sattva),*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The original for Understanding is Sattva, which Sankara (acharya) renders
antahkarana. "Refined," he says, "by sacrifices and other
sanctifying operations." In the Katha, at p. 148, Sattva is said by Sankara
to mean buddhi -- a common use of the word. ("The BHAGAVATGITA with The
Sanatsugatiya and The Anugita," trans- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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eternal
(Nitya) unconditioned reality or SAT (Satya), whether we call it Parabrahmam or
Mulaprakriti, for these are the two aspects of the ONE. The "Light"
is the same Omnipresent Spiritual Ray, which has entered and now fecundated the
Divine Egg, and calls cosmic matter to begin its long series of
differentiations. The curds are the first differentiation, and probably refer
also to that cosmic matter which is supposed to be the origin of the
"Milky Way" -- the matter we know. This "matter," which,
according to the revelation received from the primeval Dhyani-Buddhas, is,
during the periodical sleep of the Universe, of the ultimate tenuity
conceivable to the eye of the perfect Bodhisatva -- this matter, radical and
cool, becomes, at the first reawakening of cosmic motion, scattered through
Space; appearing, when seen from the Earth, in clusters and lumps, like curds
in thin milk. These are the seeds of the future worlds, the
"Star-stuff."
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
6.
THE ROOT OF LIFE WAS IN EVERY DROP OF THE OCEAN OF IMMORTALITY (Amrita)* AND
THE OCEAN WAS RADIANT LIGHT, WHICH WAS FIRE AND HEAT AND MOTION. DARKNESS
VANISHED AND WAS NO MORE.** IT DISAPPEARED IN ITS OWN ESSENCE, THE BODY OF FIRE
AND WATER, OF FATHER AND MOTHER (a).
(a)
The essence of darkness being absolute light, Darkness is taken as the
appropriate allegorical representation of the condition of the Universe during
Pralaya, or the term of absolute rest, or non-being, as it appears to our
finite minds. The "fire," "heat," and "motion"
here spoken of, are, of course, not the fire, heat, and motion of physical
science, but the underlying abstractions, the noumena, or the soul, of the
essence of these material manifestations -- the "things in
themselves," which, as modern science confesses, entirely elude the
instru-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] lated by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A.; edited
by Max Muller.) Whatever meaning various schools may give the term, Sattva is
the name given among Occult students of the Aryasanga School to the dual Monad
or Atma-buddhi, and Atma-buddhi on this plane corresponds to Parabrahm and
Mulaprakriti on the higher plane.
*
Amrita is "immortality."
**
See Commentary No. 1 to this Stanza.
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[[Vol.
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ments
of the laboratory, and which even the mind cannot grasp, although it can
equally little avoid the conclusion that these underlying essences of things
must exist. Fire and Water, or Father* and Mother, may be taken here to mean
the divine Ray and Chaos. "Chaos, from this union with Spirit obtaining
sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the
first-born light)," says a fragment of Hermas. Damascius calls it Dis in
"Theogony" -- "The disposer of all things." (See Cory's
"Ancient Fragments," p. 314.)
According
to the Rosicrucian tenets, as handled and explained by the profane for once
correctly, if only partially, so "Light and Darkness are identical in
themselves, being only divisible in the human mind"; and according to
Robert Fludd, "Darkness adopted illumination in order to make itself
visible" (On Rosenkranz). According to the tenets of Eastern Occultism,
DARKNESS is the one true actuality, the basis and the root of light, without
which the latter could never manifest itself, nor even exist. Light is matter,
and DARKNESS pure Spirit. Darkness, in its radical, metaphysical basis, is
subjective and absolute light; while the latter in all its seeming effulgence
and glory, is merely a mass of shadows, as it can never be eternal, and is
simply an illusion, or Maya.
Even
in the mind-baffling and science-harassing Genesis, light is created out of
darkness "and darkness was upon the face of the deep" (ch. i. v. 2.)
-- and not vice versa. "In him (in darkness) was life; and the life was
the light of men" (John i. 4). A day may come when the eyes of men will be
opened; and then they may comprehend better than they do now, that verse in the
Gospel of John that says "And the light shineth in darkness; and the
darkness comprehendeth it not." They will see then that the word
"darkness" does not apply to man's spiritual eyesight, but indeed to
"Darkness," the absolute, that comprehendeth not (cannot cognize)
transient light, however transcendent to human eyes. Demon est Deus inversus.
The devil is now called Darkness by the Church, whereas, in the Bible he is
called the "Son of God" (see Job), the bright star of the early
morning, Lucifer (see Isaiah). There is a whole philosophy of dogmatic craft in
the reason why the first Archangel, who sprang from the depths of Chaos, was
called Lux (Lucifer), the "Luminous Son of the Morning," or man-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Kwan-Shai-Yin." The real name from the text cannot be given.
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[[Vol.
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vantaric
Dawn. He was transformed by the Church into Lucifer or Satan, because he is
higher and older than Jehovah, and had to be sacrificed to the new dogma. (See
Book II.)
---------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
7.
BEHOLD, OH LANOO!** THE RADIANT CHILD OF THE TWO, THE UNPARALLELED REFULGENT
GLORY, BRIGHT SPACE, SON OF DARK SPACE, WHO EMERGES FROM THE DEPTHS OF THE
GREAT DARK WATERS. IT IS OEAOHOO, THE YOUNGER, THE * * * (whom thou knowest now
as Kwan-Shai-Yin. -- Comment) (a). HE SHINES FORTH AS THE SUN. HE IS THE
BLAZING DIVINE DRAGON OF WISDOM. THE EKA IS CHATUR (four), AND CHATUR TAKES TO
ITSELF THREE, AND THE UNION PRODUCES THE SAPTA (seven) IN WHOM ARE THE SEVEN
WHICH BECOME THE TRIDASA*** (the thrice ten) THE HOSTS AND THE MULTITUDES (b).
BEHOLD HIM LIFTING THE VEIL, AND UNFURLING IT FROM EAST TO WEST. HE SHUTS OUT
THE ABOVE AND LEAVES THE BELOW TO BE SEEN AS THE GREAT ILLUSION. HE MARKS THE
PLACES FOR THE SHINING ONES (stars) AND TURNS THE UPPER (space) INTO A
SHORELESS SEA OF FIRE, AND THE ONE MANIFESTED (element) INTO THE GREAT WATERS
(c).
"Bright
Space, son of dark Space," corresponds to the Ray dropped at the first
thrill of the new "Dawn" into the great Cosmic depths, from which it
re-emerges differentiated as Oeaohoo the younger, (the "new LIFE"),
to become, to the end of the life-cycle, the germ of all things. He is
"the Incorporeal man who contains in himself the divine Idea," -- the
generator of Light and Life, to use an expression of Philo Judaeus. He is
called the "Blazing Dragon of Wisdom,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
**
Lanoo is a student, a chela who studies practical Esotericism.
***
"Tri-dasa," or three times ten (30), alludes to the Vedic deities, in
round numbers, or more accurately 33 -- a sacred number. They are the 12
Adityas, the 8 Vasus, the 11 Rudras, and 2 Aswins -- the twin sons of the Sun
and the Sky. This is the root-number of the Hindu Pantheon, which enumerates 33
crores or over three hundred millions of gods and goddesses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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because,
firstly, he is that which the Greek philosophers called the Logos, the Verbum of
the Thought Divine; and secondly, because in Esoteric philosophy this first
manifestation, being the synthesis or the aggregate of Universal Wisdom,
Oeaohoo, "the Son of the Son," contains in himself the Seven Creative
Hosts (The Sephiroth), and is thus the essence of manifested Wisdom. "He
who bathes in the light of Oeaohoo will never be deceived by the veil of
Maya."
Kwan-Shai-Yin
is identical with, and an equivalent of the Sanskrit Avalokiteshwara, and as
such he is an androgynous deity, like the Tetragrammaton and all the Logoi* of
antiquity. It is only by some sects in China that he is anthropomorphized and
represented with female attributes,** when, under his female aspect, he becomes
Kwan-Yin, the goddess of mercy, called the "Divine Voice."*** The
latter is the patron deity of Thibet and of the island of Puto in China, where
both deities have a number of monasteries.**** (See Part II. Kwan-Shai-Yin and
Kwan-yin.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence all the higher gods of antiquity are all "Sons of the Mother"
before they become those of the "Father." The Logoi, like Jupiter or
Zeus, Son of Kronos-Saturn, "Infinite Time" (or Kala), in their
origin were represented as male-female. Zeus is said to be the "beautiful
Virgin," and Venus is made bearded. Apollo is originally bisexual, so is
Brahma-Vach in Manu and the Puranas. Osiris is interchangeable with Isis, and
Horus is of both sexes. Finally St. John's vision in Revelation, that of the
Logos, who is now connected with Jesus -- is hermaphrodite, for he is described
as having female breasts. So is the Tetragrammaton = Jehovah. But there are two
Avalokiteshwaras in Esotericism; the first and the second Logos.
**
No religious symbol can escape profanation and even derision in our days of
politics and Science. In Southern India the writer has seen a converted native
making pujah with offerings before a statue of Jesus clad in woman's clothes
and with a ring in his nose. When asking the meaning of the masquerade we were
answered that it was Jesu-Maria blended in one, and that it was done by the
permission of the Padri, as the zealous convert had no money to purchase two
statues or "idols" as they, very properly, were called by a witness
-- another but a non-converted Hindu. Blasphemous this will appear to a
dogmatic Christian, but the Theosophist and the Occultist must award the palm
of logic to the converted Hindu. The esoteric Christos in the gnosis is, of
course, sexless, but in exoteric theology he is male and female.
***
The Gnostic Sophia, "Wisdom" who is "the Mother" of the
Ogdoad (Aditi, in a certain sense, with her eight sons), is the Holy Ghost and
the Creator of all, as in the ancient systems. The "father" is a far
later invention. The earliest manifested Logos was female everywhere -- the
mother of the seven planetary powers.
****
See "Chinese Buddhism," by the Rev. J. C. Edkins, who always gives
correct facts, although his conclusions are very frequently erroneous.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(b)
"The "Dragon of Wisdom" is the One, the "Eka"
(Sanskrit) or Saka. It is curious that Jehovah's name in Hebrew should also be
One, Echod. "His name is Echod": say the Rabbins. The philologists
ought to decide which of the two is derived from the other -- linguistically
and symbolically: surely, not the Sanskrit? The "One" and the Dragon
are expressions used by the ancients in connection with their respective Logoi.
Jehovah -- esoterically (as Elohim) -- is also the Serpent or Dragon that
tempted Eve, and the "Dragon" is an old glyph for "Astral
Light" (Primordial Principle), "which is the Wisdom of Chaos."
Archaic philosophy, recognizing neither Good nor Evil as a fundamental or
independent power, but starting from the Absolute ALL (Universal Perfection
eternally), traced both through the course of natural evolution to pure Light
condensing gradually into form, hence becoming Matter or Evil. It was left with
the early and ignorant Christian fathers to degrade the philosophical and
highly scientific idea of this emblem (the Dragon) into the absurd superstition
called the "Devil." They took it from the later Zoroastrians, who saw
devils or the Evil in the Hindu Devas, and the word Evil thus became by a
double transmutation D'Evil in every tongue (Diabolos, Diable, Diavolo,
Teufel). But the Pagans have always shown a philosophical discrimination in
their symbols. The primitive symbol of the serpent symbolised divine Wisdom and
Perfection, and had always stood for psychical Regeneration and Immortality.
Hence -- Hermes, calling the serpent the most spiritual of all beings; Moses,
initiated in the wisdom of Hermes, following suit in Genesis; the Gnostic's
Serpent with the seven vowels over its head, being the emblem of the seven
hierarchies of the Septenary or Planetary Creators. Hence, also, the Hindu
serpent Sesha or Ananta, "the Infinite," a name of Vishnu, whose
first Vahan or vehicle on the primordial waters is this serpent.* Yet they all
made a difference between the good and the bad Serpent (the Astral Light of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Like the logoi and the Hierarchies of Powers, however, the "Serpents"
have to be distinguished one from the other. Sesha or Ananta, "the couch
of Vishnu," is an allegorical abstraction, symbolizing infinite Time in
Space, which contains the germ and throws off periodically the efflorescence of
this germ, the manifested Universe; whereas, the gnostic Ophis contained the
same triple symbolism in its seven vowels as the One, Three and Seven-syllabled
Oeaohoo of the Archaic doctrine; i.e., the One Unmanifested Logos, the Second
manifested, the triangle concreting into the Quaternary or Tetragrammaton, and
the rays of the latter on the material plane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Kabalists) -- between the former, the embodiment of divine Wisdom in the region
of the Spiritual, and the latter, Evil, on the plane of matter.* Jesus accepted
the serpent as a synonym of Wisdom, and this formed part of his teaching:
"Be ye wise as serpents," he says. "In the beginning, before
Mother became Father-Mother, the fiery Dragon moved in the infinitudes
alone" (Book of Sarparajni.) The Aitareya Brahmana calls the Earth
Sarparajni, "the Serpent Queen," and "the Mother of all that
moves." Before our globe became egg-shaped (and the Universe also) "a
long trail of Cosmic dust (or fire mist) moved and writhed like a serpent in
Space." The "Spirit of God moving on Chaos" was symbolized by
every nation in the shape of a fiery serpent breathing fire and light upon the
primordial waters, until it had incubated cosmic matter and made it assume the
annular shape of a serpent with its tail in its mouth -- which symbolises not
only Eternity and Infinitude, but also the globular shape of all the bodies
formed within the Universe from that fiery mist. The Universe, as well as the
Earth and Man, cast off periodically, serpent-like, their old skins, to assume
new ones after a time of rest. The serpent is, surely, a not less graceful or a
more unpoetical image than the caterpillar and chrysalis from which springs the
butterfly, the Greek emblem of Psyche, the human soul. The "Dragon"
was also the symbol of the Logos with the Egyptians, as with the Gnostics. In
the "Book of Hermes," Pymander, the oldest and the most spiritual of
the Logoi of the Western Continent, appears to Hermes in the shape of a Fiery
Dragon of "Light, Fire, and Flame." Pymander, the "Thought
Divine" personified, says: The Light is me, I am the Nous (the mind or
Manu), I am thy God, and I am far older than the human principle which escapes
from the shadow ("Darkness," or the concealed Deity). I am the germ
of thought, the resplendent Word, the Son of God. All that thus sees and hears
in thee is the Verbum of the Master, it is the Thought (Mahat) which is God,
the Father.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Astral Light, or the AEther, of the ancient pagans (for the name of Astral
Light is quite modern) is Spirit-Matter. Beginning with the pure spiritual
plane, it becomes grosser as it descends until it becomes the Maya or the
tempting and deceitful serpent on our plane.
**
By "God, the Father," the seventh principle in Man and Kosmos are
here unmistakeably meant, this principle being inseparable in its Esse and
Nature from the seventh Cosmic principle. In one sense it is the Logos of the
Greeks and the Avalokiteswara of the esoteric Buddhists.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
celestial Ocean, the 'Ether . . . . is the Breath of the Father, the
life-giving principle, the Mother, the Holy Spirit, . . . . for these are not
separated, and their union is LIFE."
Here
we find the unmistakeable echo of the Archaic Secret Doctrine, as now
expounded. Only the latter does not place at the head and Evolution of Life
"the Father," who comes third and is the "Son of the
Mother," but the "Eternal and Ceaseless Breath of the ALL." The
Mahat (Understanding, Universal Mind, Thought, etc.), before it manifests
itself as Brahma or Siva, appears as Vishnu, says Sankhya Sara (p. 16); hence
Mahat has several aspects, just as the logos has. Mahat is called the Lord, in
the Primary Creation, and is, in this sense, Universal Cognition or Thought
Divine; but, "That Mahat which was first produced is (afterwards) called
Ego-ism, when it is born as "I," that is said to be the second
Creation" (Anugita, ch. xxvi.). And the translator (an able and learned
Brahmin, not a European Orientalist) explains in a foot-note (6), "i.e.,
when Mahat develops into the feeling of Self-Consciousness -- I -- then it
assumes the name of Egoism," which, translated into our esoteric
phraseology, means when Mahat is transformed into the human Manas (or even that
of the finite gods), and becomes Aham-ship. Why it is called the Mahat of the
Second creation (or the ninth, that of the Kumara in Vishnu Purana) will be
explained in Book II. The "Sea of Fire" is then the Super-Astral
(i.e., noumenal) Light, the first radiation from the Root, the Mulaprakriti,
the undifferentiated Cosmic Substance, which becomes Astral Matter. It is also
called the "Fiery Serpent," as above described. If the student bears
in mind that there is but One Universal Element, which is infinite, unborn, and
undying, and that all the rest -- as in the world of phenomena -- are but so
many various differentiated aspects and transformations (correlations, they are
now called) of that One, from Cosmical down to microcosmical effects, from
super-human down to human and sub-human beings, the totality, in short, of
objective existence -- then the first and chief difficulty will disappear and
Occult Cosmology may be mastered.* All the Kabalists and Occultists, Eastern
and Western, recognise (a)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Egyptian as in the Indian theogony there was a concealed deity, the ONE,
and the creative, androgynous god. Thus Shoo is the god of creation and Osiris
is, in his original primary form, the "god whose name is unknown."
(See Mariette's Abydos II., p. 63, and Vol. III., pp. 413, 414, No. 1122.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
identity of "Father-Mother" with primordial AEther or Akasa, (Astral
Light)*; and (b) its homogeneity before the evolution of the "Son,"
cosmically Fohat, for it is Cosmic Electricity. "Fohat hardens and
scatters the seven brothers" (Book III. Dzyan); which means that the
primordial Electric Entity -- for the Eastern Occultists insist that
Electricity is an Entity -- electrifies into life, and separates primordial
stuff or pregenetic matter into atoms, themselves the source of all life and
consciousness. "There exists an universal agent unique of all forms and of
life, that is called Od,** Ob, and Aour, active and passive, positive and negative,
like day and night: it is the first light in Creation" (Eliphas Levi's
Kabala):--- the first Light of the primordial Elohim -- the Adam, "male
and female" -- or (scientifically) ELECTRICITY AND LIFE.
(c)
The ancients represented it by a serpent, for "Fohat hisses as he glides
hither and thither" (in zigzags). The Kabala figures it with the Hebrew
letter Teth [[hebrew]], whose symbol is the serpent which played such a
prominent part in the Mysteries. Its universal value is nine, for it is the
ninth letter of the alphabet and the ninth door of the fifty portals or
gateways that lead to the concealed mysteries of being. It is the magical agent
par excellence, and designates in Hermetic philosophy "Life infused into
primordial matter," the essence that composes all things, and the spirit
that determines their form. But there are two secret Hermetical operations, one
spiritual, the other material-correlative, and for ever united. "Thou
shalt separate the earth from the fire, the subtile from the solid . . . that
which ascends from earth to heaven and descends again from heaven to earth. It
(the subtile light), is the strong force of every force, for it conquers every
subtile thing and penetrates into every solid. Thus was the world formed"
(Hermes).
It
was not Zeno alone, the founder of the Stoics, who taught that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See next note.
**
Od is the pure life-giving Light, or magnetic fluid; Ob the messenger of death used
by the sorcerers, the nefarious evil fluid; Aour is the synthesis of the two,
Astral Light proper. Can the Philologists tell why Od -- a term used by
Reichenbach to denominate the vital fluid -- is also a Tibetan word meaning
light, brightness, radiancy? It equally means "Sky" in an occult
sense. Whence the root of the word? But Akasa is not quite Ether, but far
higher than that, as will be shown.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Universe
evolves, when its primary substance is transformed from the state of fire into
that of air, then into water, etc. Heracleitus of Ephesus maintained that the
one principle that underlies all phenomena in Nature is fire. The intelligence
that moves the Universe is fire, and fires is intelligence. And while
Anaximenes said the same of air, and Thales of Miletus (600 years B.C.) of
water, the Esoteric Doctrine reconciles all those philosophers by showing that
though each was right the system of none was complete.
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
8.
WHERE WAS THE GERM, AND WHERE WAS NOW DARKNESS? WHERE IS THE SPIRIT OF THE
FLAME THAT BURNS IN THY LAMP, OH LANOO? THE GERM IS THAT, AND THAT IS LIGHT;
THE WHITE BRILLIANT SON OF THE DARK HIDDEN FATHER (a).
(a)
The answer to the first question, suggested by the second, which is the reply
of the teacher to the pupil, contains in a single phrase one of the most
essential truths of occult philosophy. It indicates the existence of things
imperceptible to our physical senses which are of far greater importance, more
real and more permanent, than those that appeal to these senses themselves.
Before the Lanoo can hope to understand the transcendentally metaphysical
problem contained in the first question he must be able to answer the second,
while the very answer he gives to the second will furnish him with the clue to
the correct reply to the first.
In
the Sanscrit Commentary on this Stanza, the terms used for the concealed and
the unrevealed Principle are many. In the earliest MSS. of Indian literature
this Unrevealed, Abstract Deity has no name. It is called generally
"That" (Tad in Sanskrit), and means all that is, was, and will be, or
that can be so received by the human mind.
Among
such appellations, given, of course, only in esoteric philosophy, as the
"Unfathomable Darkness," the "Whirlwind," etc. -- it is
also called the "It of the Kalahansa, the Kala-ham-sa," and even the
"Kali Hamsa," (Black swan). Here the m and the n are convertible, and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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both
sound like the nasal French an or am, or, again, en or em (Ennui, Embarras,
etc.) As in the Hebrew Bible, many a mysterious sacred name in Sanscrit conveys
to the profane ear no more than some ordinary, and often vulgar word, because
it is concealed anagrammatically or otherwise. This word of Hansa or
esoterically "hamsa" is just such a case. Hamsa is equal to a-ham-sa,
three words meaning "I am he" (in English), while divided in still
another way it will read "So-ham," "he (is) I" -- Soham
being equal to Sah, "he," and aham, "I," or "I am
he." In this alone is contained the universal mystery, the doctrine of the
identity of man's essence with god-essence, for him who understands the
language of wisdom. Hence the glyph of, and the allegory about, Kalahansa (or
hamsa), and the name given to Brahma neuter (later on, to the male Brahma) of
"Hansa-Vahana," he who uses the Hansa as his vehicle." The same
word may be read "Kalaham-sa" or "I am I" in the eternity
of Time, answering to the Biblical, or rather Zoroastrian "I am that I
am." The same doctrine is found in the Kabala, as witness the following
extract from an unpublished MS. by Mr. S. Liddell McGregor Mathers, the learned
Kabalist: "The three pronouns [[hebrew]], Hoa, Atah, Ani; He, Thou, I; are
used to symbolize the ideas of Macroprosopus and Microprosopus in the Hebrew
Qabalah. Hoa, "He," is applied to the hidden and concealed Macroprosopus;
Atah, "Thou," to Microprosopus; and Ani, "I," to the latter
when He is represented as speaking. (See Lesser Holy Assembly, 204 et seq.) It
is to be noted that each of these names consists of three letters, of which the
letter Aleph [[hebrew]], A, forms the conclusion of the first word Hoa, and the
commencement of Atah and Ani, as if it were the connecting link between them.
But [[hebrew]] is the symbol of the Unity and consequently of the unvarying
Idea of the Divine operating through all these. But behind the [[hebrew]] in
the name Hoa are the letters [[hebrew]] and [[hebrew]], the symbols of the
numbers Six and Five, the Male and the Female, the Hexagram and the Pentagram.
And the numbers of these three words, Hoa Atah Ani, are 12, 406, and 61, which
are resumed in the key numbers of 3, 10, and 7, by the Qabalah of the Nine
Chambers, which is a form of the exegetical rule of Temura."
It
is useless to attempt to explain the mystery in full. Materialists and the men
of modern Science will never understand it, since, in order
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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to
obtain clear perception of it, one has first of all to admit the postulate of a
universally diffused, omnipresent, eternal Deity in Nature; secondly, to have
fathomed the mystery of electricity in its true essence; and thirdly, to credit
man with being the septenary symbol, on the terrestrial plane, of the One Great
UNIT (the Logos), which is Itself the Seven-vowelled sign, the Breath
crystallized into the WORD.* He who believes in all this, has also to believe
in the multiple combination of the seven planets of Occultism and of the
Kabala, with the twelve zodiacal signs; to attribute, as we do, to each planet
and to each constellation an influence which, in the words of Ely Star (a
French Occultist), "is proper to it, beneficent or maleficent, and this,
after the planetary Spirit which rules it, who, in his turn, is capable of influencing
men and things which are found in harmony with him and with which he has any
affinity." For these reasons, and since few believe in the foregoing, all
that can now be given is that in both cases the symbol of Hansa (whether
"I," "He," Goose or Swan) is an important symbol,
representing, for instance, Divine Wisdom, Wisdom in darkness beyond the reach
of men. For all exoteric purposes, Hansa, as every Hindu knows, is a fabulous
bird, which, when given milk mixed with water for its food (in the allegory) separated
the two, drinking the milk and leaving the water; thus showing inherent wisdom
-- milk standing symbolically for spirit, and water for matter.
That
this allegory is very ancient and dates from the very earliest archaic period,
is shown by the mention (in Bhagavata Purana) of a certain caste named
"Hamsa" or "Hansa," which was the "one caste" par
excellence; when far back in the mists of a forgotten past there was among the
Hindus only "One Veda, One Deity, One Caste." There is also a range
in the Himalayas, described in the old books as being situated north of Mount
Meru, called "Hamsa," and connected with episodes pertaining to the
history of religious mysteries and initiations. As to the name of Kala-Hansa
being the supposed vehicle of Brahma-Prajapati, in the exoteric texts and
translations of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is again similar to the doctrine of Fichte and German Pantheists. The
former reveres Jesus as the great teacher who inculcated the unity of the
spirit of man with the God-Spirit (the Adwaita doctrine) or universal
Principle. It is difficult to find a single speculation in Western metaphysics
which has not been anticipated by Archaic Eastern philosophy. From Kant to
Herbert Spencer, it is all a more or less distorted echo of the Dwaita,
Adwaita, and Vedantic doctrines generally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Orientalists,
it is quite a mistake. Brahma, the neuter, is called by them Kala-Hansa and
Brahma, the male, Hansa-Vahana, because forsooth "his vehicle or Vahan is
a swan or goose" (vide "the Hindu Classical Dictionary.") This
is a purely exoteric gloss. Esoterically and logically, if Brahma, the
infinite, is all that is described by the Orientalists, namely, agreeably with
the Vedantic texts, an abstract deity in no way characterised by the
description of any human attributes, and it is still maintained that he or it
is called Kala-Hansa -- then how can it ever become the Vahan of Brahma, the
manifested finite god? It is quite the reverse. The "Swan or goose"
(Hansa) is the symbol of that male or temporary deity, as he, the emanation of
the primordial Ray, is made to serve as a Vahan or vehicle for that divine Ray,
which otherwise could not manifest itself in the Universe, being,
antiphrastically, itself an emanation of "Darkness" -- for our human
intellect, at any rate. It is Brahma, then, who is Kala-Hansa, and the Ray, the
Hansa-Vahana.
As
to the strange symbol chosen, it is equally suggestive; the true mystic
significance being the idea of a universal matrix, figured by the primordial
waters of the "deep," or the opening for the reception, and
subsequently for the issue, of that one ray (the Logos), which contains in
itself the other seven procreative rays or powers (the logoi or builders).
Hence the choice by the Rosecroix of the aquatic fowl -- whether swan or
pelican,* with seven young ones for a symbol, modified and adapted to the
religion of every country. En-Soph is called the "Fiery Soul of the
Pelican" in the Book of Numbers.** (See Part II. "The Hidden Deity
and its Symbols and Glyphs.") Appearing with every Manvantara as Narayan,
or Swayambhuva (the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whether the genus of the bird be cygnus, anser, or pelecanus, it is no matter,
as it is an aquatic bird floating or moving on the waters like the Spirit, and
then issuing from those waters to give birth to other beings. The true
significance of the symbol of the Eighteenth Degree of the Rose-Croix is
precisely this, though poetised later on into the motherly feeling of the
Pelican rending its bosom to feed its seven little ones with its blood.
**
The reason why Moses forbids eating the pelican and swan, classing the two
among the unclean fowls, and permits eating "bald locusts, beetles, and
the grasshopper after his kind" (Leviticus xi. and Deuteronomy xiv.) is a
purely physiological one, and has to do with mystic symbology only in so far as
the word "unclean," like every other word, ought not to be read and
understood literally, as it is esoteric like all the [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
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[[Vol.
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Self-Existent),
and penetrating into the Mundane Egg, it emerges from it at the end of the
divine incubation as Brahma or Prajapati, a progenitor of the future Universe
into which he expands. He is Purusha (spirit), but he is also Prakriti
(matter). Therefore it is only after separating himself into two halves --
Brahma-vach (the female) and Brahma-Viraj (the male), that the Prajapati
becomes the male Brahma.
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
9.
LIGHT IS COLD FLAME, AND FLAME IS FIRE, AND THE FIRE PRODUCES HEAT, WHICH
YIELDS WATER, THE WATER OF LIFE IN THE GREAT MOTHER (Chaos) (a).
(a)
It must be remembered that the words "Light," "Fire," and
"Flame" used in the Stanzas have been adopted by the translators
thereof from the vocabulary of the old "Fire philosophers,"** in
order to render better the meaning of the archaic terms and symbols employed in
the original. Otherwise they would have remained entirely unintelligible to a
European reader. But to a student of the Occult the terms used will be
sufficiently clear.
All
these -- "Light," "Flame," "Hot,"
"Cold," "Fire," "Heat," "Water," and
the "water of life" are all, on our plane, the progeny; or as a
modern physicist would say, the correlations of ELECTRICITY. Mighty word, and a
still mightier symbol! Sacred generator of a no less sacred progeny; of fire --
the creator, the preserver and the destroyer; of light -- the essence of our
divine ancestors; of flame -- the Soul of things. Electricity, the ONE Life at
the upper rung of Being, and Astral Fluid, the Athanor of the Alchemists, at
its lowest; GOD and DEVIL, GOOD and EVIL. . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] rest, and may as well mean "holy" as
not. It is a blind, very suggestive in connection with certain superstitions --
e.g., that of the Russian people who will not use the pigeon for food; not
because it is "unclean," but because the "Holy Ghost" is
credited with having appeared under the form of a Dove.
**
Not the Mediaeval Alchemists, but the Magi and Fire-Worshippers, from whom the
Rosicrucians or the Philosophers per ignem, the successors of the theurgists
borrowed all their ideas concerning Fire, as a mystic and divine element.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Now,
why is Light called in the Stanzas "cold flame"? Because in the order
of Cosmic evolution (as taught by the Occultist), the energy that actuates
matter after its first formation into atoms is generated on our plane by Cosmic
heat; and because Kosmos, in the sense of dissociated matter, was not, before
that period. The first primordial matter, eternal and coeval with Space,
"which has neither a beginning nor an end," is "neither hot nor
cold, but is of its own special nature," says the Commentary (Book II).
Heat and cold are relative qualities and pertain to the realms of the
manifested worlds, which all proceed from the manifested Hyle, which, in its
absolutely latent aspect, is referred to as the "cold Virgin," and
when awakened to life, as the "Mother." The ancient Western
Cosmogonic myths state that at first there was but cold mist which was the Father,
and the prolific slime (the Mother, Ilus or Hyle), from which crept forth the
Mundane snake-matter, (Isis, vol. i., p. 146). Primordial matter, then, before
it emerges from the plane of the never-manifesting, and awakens to the thrill
of action under the impulse of Fohat, is but "a cool Radiance, colourless,
formless, tasteless, and devoid of every quality and aspect." Even such
are her first-born, the "four sons," who "are One, and become
Seven," -- the entities, by whose qualifications and names the ancient
Eastern Occultists called the four of the seven primal "centres of
Forces," or atoms, that develop later into the great Cosmic
"Elements," now divided into the seventy or so sub-elements, known to
science. The four primal natures of the first Dhyan Chohans, are the so-called
(for want of better terms) "Akasic," "Ethereal,"
"Watery," and "Fiery," answering, in the terminology of
practical occultism, to scientific definitions of gases, which, to convey a
clear idea to both Occultists and laymen, must be defined as Parahydrogenic,*
Paraoxygenic, Oxyhydrogenic, and Ozonic, or perhaps Nitr-ozonic; the latter
forces or gases (in Occultism, supersensuous, yet atomic substances) being the
most effective and active when energising on the plane of more grossly
differentiated matter.** These are both electro-positive and electro-negative.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
[[para]], "beyond," outside.
**
Each of these and many more are probably the missing links of chemistry. They
are known by other names in Alchemy and to the Occultists who practise in
phenomenal powers. It is by combining and recombining in a certain way (or
dissociating) the "Elements" by means of astral fire that the
greatest phenomena are produced.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
III. -- Continued.
10.
FATHER-MOTHER SPIN A WEB WHOSE UPPER END IS FASTENED TO SPIRIT (Purusha), THE LIGHT
OF THE ONE DARKNESS, AND THE LOWER ONE TO MATTER (Prakriti) ITS (the Spirit's)
SHADOWY END; AND THIS WEB IS THE UNIVERSE SPUN OUT OF THE TWO SUBSTANCES MADE
IN ONE, WHICH IS SWABHAVAT (a).
(a)
In the Mandukya (Mundaka) Upanishad it is written, "As a spider throws out
and retracts its web, as herbs spring up in the ground . . . so is the Universe
derived from the undecaying one" (I. 1. 7). Brahma, as "the germ of
unknown Darkness," is the material from which all evolves and develops "as
the web from the spider, as foam from the water," etc. This is only
graphic and true, if Brahma the "Creator" is, as a term, derived from
the root brih, to increase or expand. Brahma "expands" and becomes
the Universe woven out of his own substance.
The
same idea has been beautifully expressed by Goethe, who says:
"Thus
at the roaring loom of Time I ply,
And
weave for God the garment thou see'st Him by."
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
11.
IT (the Web) EXPANDS WHEN THE BREATH OF FIRE (the Father) IS UPON IT; IT CONTRACTS
WHEN THE BREATH OF THE MOTHER (the root of Matter) TOUCHES IT. THEN THE SONS
(the Elements with their respective Powers, or Intelligences) DISSOCIATE AND
SCATTER, TO RETURN INTO THEIR MOTHER'S BOSOM AT THE END OF THE "GREAT
DAY" AND REBECOME ONE WITH HER (a). WHEN IT (the Web) IS COOLING, IT
BECOMES RADIANT, ITS SONS EXPAND AND CONTRACT THROUGH THEIR OWN SELVES AND
HEARTS; THEY EMBRACE INFINITUDE. (b)
The
expanding of the Universe under the breath of FIRE is very suggestive in the
light of the "Fire mist" period of which modern science speaks so
much, and knows in reality so little.
Great
heat breaks up the compound elements and resolves the
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[[Vol.
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heavenly
bodies into their primeval one element, explains the commentary. "Once
disintegrated into its primal constituent by getting within the attraction and
reach of a focus, or centre of heat (energy), of which many are carried about
to and fro in space, a body, whether alive or dead, will be vapourised and held
in "the bosom of the Mother" until Fohat, gathering a few of the
clusters of Cosmic matter (nebulae) will, by giving it an impulse, set it in
motion anew, develop the required heat, and then leave it to follow its own new
growth.
The
expanding and contracting of the Web -- i.e., the world stuff or atoms --
expresses here the pulsatory movement; for it is the regular contraction and
expansion of the infinite and shoreless Ocean of that which we may call the
noumenon of matter emanated by Swabhavat, which causes the universal vibration
of atoms. But it is also suggestive of something else. It shows that the
ancients were acquainted with that which is now the puzzle of many scientists
and especially of astronomers: the cause of the first ignition of matter or the
world-stuff, the paradox of the heat produced by the refrigerative contraction
and other such Cosmic riddles. For it points unmistakeably to a knowledge by
the ancients of such phenomena. "There is heat internal and heat external
in every atom," say the manuscript Commentaries, to which the writer has
had access; "the breath of the Father (or Spirit) and the breath (or heat)
of the Mother (matter);" and they give explanations which show that the
modern theory of the extinction of the solar fires by loss of heat through
radiation, is erroneous. The assumption is false even on the Scientists' own
admission. For as Professor Newcomb points out (Popular Astronomy, pp.
506-508), "by losing heat, a gaseous body contracts, and the heat
generated by the contraction exceeds that which it had to lose in order to
produce the contraction." This paradox, that a body gets hotter as the
shrinking produced by its getting colder is greater, led to long disputes. The
surplus of heat, it was argued, was lost by radiation, and to assume that the
temperature is not lowered pari passu with a decrease of volume under a
constant pressure, is to set at nought the law of Charles (Nebular Theory,
Winchell). Contraction develops heat, it is true; but contraction (from
cooling) is incapable of developing the whole amount of heat at any time
existing in the mass, or even of maintaining a body at a constant temperature,
etc. Professor Winchell tries to reconcile the paradox -- only a seeming one in
fact, as
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[[Vol.
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Homer
Lanes proved, -- by suggesting "something besides heat." "May it
not be," he asks, "simply a repulsion among the molecules, which
varies according to some law of the distance?" But even this will be found
irreconcileable, unless this "something besides heat" is ticketed
"Causeless Heat," the "Breath of Fire," the all-creative
Force Plus ABSOLUTE INTELLIGENCE, which physical science is not likely to
accept.
However
it may be, the reading of this Stanza shows it, notwithstanding its archaic
phraseology, to be more scientific than even modern science.
-------
STANZA
III. -- Continued.
12.
THEN SVABHAVAT SENDS FOHAT TO HARDEN THE ATOMS. EACH (of these) IS A PART OF
THE WEB (Universe). REFLECTING THE "SELF-EXISTENT LORD" (Primeval
Light) LIKE A MIRROR, EACH BECOMES IN TURN A WORLD.* . . .
"Fohat
hardens the atoms"; i.e., by infusing energy into them: he scatters the
atoms or primordial matter. "He scatters himself while scattering matter
into atoms" (MSS. Commentaries.)
It
is through Fohat that the ideas of the Universal Mind are impressed upon
matter. Some faint idea of the nature of Fohat may be gathered from the
appellation "Cosmic Electricity" sometimes applied to it; but to the
commonly known properties of electricity must, in this case, be added others,
including intelligence. It is of interest to note that modern science has come
to the conclusion, that all cerebration and brain-activity are attended by
electrical phenomena. (For further details as to "Fohat" See Stanza
V. and Comments.")
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is said in the sense that the flame from a fire is endless, and that the
lights of the whole Universe could be lit at one simple rush-light without
diminishing its flame.
---------------------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
IV.
COMMENTARY.
1.
LISTEN, YE SONS OF THE EARTH, TO YOUR INSTRUCTORS -- THE SONS OF THE FIRE (a).
LEARN THERE IS NEITHER FIRST NOR LAST; FOR ALL IS ONE NUMBER, ISSUED FROM NO
NUMBER (b).
(a)
These terms, the "Sons of the Fire," the "Sons of the
Fire-Mist," and the like, require explanation. They are connected with a
great primordial and universal mystery, and it is not easy to make it clear.
There is a passage in the Bhagavatgita (ch. viii.) wherein Krishna, speaking
symbolically and esoterically, says: "I will state the times (conditions)
. . . at which devotees departing (from this life) do so never to return (be
reborn), or to return (to incarnate again). The Fire, the Flame, the day, the
bright (lucky) fortnight, the six months of the Northern solstice, departing
(dying) in these, those who know the Brahman (Yogis) go to the Brahman. Smoke,
night, the dark (unlucky) fortnight, the six months of the Southern solstice,
(dying) in these, the devotee goes to the lunar light (or mansion the astral
light also) and returns (is reborn). These two paths, bright and dark, are said
to be eternal in this world (or great kalpa, 'Age'). By the one a man goes
never to come back, by the other he returns." Now these names, "Fire,"
"Flame," "Day," the "bright fortnight," etc., as
"Smoke," "Night," and so on, leading only to the end of the
lunar path are incomprehensible without a knowledge of Esotericism. These are
all names of various deities which preside over the Cosmo-psychic Powers. We
often speak of the Hierarchy of "Flames" (see Book II.) of the
"Sons of Fire," etc. Sankaracharya the greatest of the Esoteric
masters of India, says that fire means a deity which presides over Time (kala).
The able translator of Bhagavatgita, Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A., of Bombay,
confesses he has "no clear notion of the meaning of these verses" (p.
81, footnote). It seems quite clear, on the contrary, to him who knows the
occult doctrine. With these verses the mystic sense of the solar and lunar
symbols are connected: the Pitris are lunar deities and our ancestors, because
they created the physical man.
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The
Agnishwatha, the Kumara (the seven mystic sages), are solar deities, though the
former are Pitris also; and these are the "fashioners of the Inner
Man." (See Book II.) They are:--
"The
Sons of Fire" -- because they are the first Beings (in the Secret Doctrine
they are called "Minds"), evolved from Primordial Fire. "The
Lord is a consuming Fire" (Deuteronomy iv. 24); "The Lord (Christos)
shall be revealed with his mighty angels in flaming fire" (2 Thessal. i.
7, 8). The Holy Ghost descended on the Apostles like "cloven tongues of
fire," (Acts ii. v. 3); Vishnu will return on Kalki, the White Horse, as
the last Avatar amid fire and flames; and Sosiosh will be brought down equally
on a White Horse in a "tornado of fire." "And I saw heaven open
and behold a white horse, and he that sat upon him . . . . is called the Word
of God," (Rev. xix. 13) amid flaming Fire. Fire is AEther in its purest
form, and hence is not regarded as matter, but it is the unity of Aether -- the
second manifested deity -- in its universality. But there are two
"Fires" and a distinction is made between them in the Occult
teachings. The first, or the purely Formless and invisible Fire concealed in
the Central Spiritual Sun, is spoken of as "triple" (metaphysically);
while the Fire of the manifested Kosmos is Septenary, throughout both the
Universe and our Solar System. "The fire or knowledge burns up all action
on the plane of illusion," says the commentary. "Therefore, those who
have acquired it and are emancipated, are called 'Fires.' " Speaking of
the seven senses symbolised as Hotris, priests, the Brahmana says in Anugita:
"Thus these seven (senses, smell and taste, and colour, and sound, etc.,
etc.) are the causes of emancipation;" and the commentator adds: "It
is from these seven from which the Self is to be emancipated. 'I' (am here
devoid of qualities) must mean the Self, not the Brahmana who speaks."
("Sacred Books of the East," ed. by Max Muller, Vol. VIII., 278.)
(b)
The expression "All is One Number, issued from No Number" relates
again to that universal and philosophical tenet just explained in Stanza III.
(Comm. 4). That which is absolute is of course No Number; but in its later
significance it has an application in Space as in Time. It means that not only
every increment of time is part of a larger increment, up to the most
indefinitely prolonged duration conceivable by the human intellect, but also
that no manifested thing can
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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be
thought of except as part of a larger whole: the total aggregate being the One
manifested Universe that issues from the unmanifested or Absolute -- called
Non-Being or "No-Number," to distinguish it from BEING or "the
One Number."
-------
STANZA
IV. -- Continued.
(2)
LEARN WHAT WE, WHO DESCEND FROM THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, WE, WHO ARE BORN FROM THE
PRIMORDIAL FLAME, HAVE LEARNED FROM OUR FATHERS (a).
(a)
This is explained in Book II., and this name, "Primordial Flame,"
corroborates what is said in the first paragraph of the preceding commentary on
Stanza IV.
The
distinction between the "Primordial" and the subsequent seven
Builders is this: The former are the Ray and direct emanation of the first
"Sacred Four," the Tetraktis, that is, the eternally Self-Existent
One (Eternal in Essence note well, not in manifestation, and distinct from the
universal ONE). Latent, during Pralaya, and active, during Manvantara, the
"Primordial" proceed from "Father-Mother" (Spirit-Hyle, or
Ilus); whereas the other manifested Quaternary and the Seven proceed from the
Mother alone. It is the latter who is the immaculate Virgin-Mother, who is
overshadowed, not impregnated, by the Universal MYSTERY -- when she emerges
from her state of Laya or undifferentiated condition. In reality, they are, of
course, all one; but their aspects on the various planes of being are
different. (See Part II., "Theogony of the Creative Gods.")
The
first "Primordial" are the highest Beings on the Scale of Existence.
They are the Archangels of Christianity, those who refuse -- as Michael did in
the latter system, and as did the eldest "Mind-born sons" of Brahma
(Veddhas) -- to create or rather to multiply.
-------
STANZA
IV. -- Continued.
3.
FROM THE EFFULGENCY OF LIGHT -- THE RAY OF THE EVER-DARKNESS -- SPRUNG IN SPACE
THE RE-AWAKENED ENERGIES (Dhyan Chohans): THE ONE FROM THE EGG, THE SIX AND THE
FIVE (a); THEN THE THREE, THE ONE,
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[[Vol.
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THE
FOUR, THE ONE, THE FIVE -- THE TWICE SEVEN, THE SUM TOTAL (b). AND THESE ARE:
THE ESSENCES, THE FLAMES, THE ELEMENTS, THE BUILDERS, THE NUMBERS, THE ARUPA
(formless), THE RUPA (with bodies), AND THE FORCE OR DIVINE MAN -- THE SUM
TOTAL. AND FROM THE DIVINE MAN EMANATED THE FORMS, THE SPARKS, THE SACRED
ANIMALS, AND THE MESSENGERS OF THE SACRED FATHERS (the Pitris) WITHIN THE HOLY
FOUR.*
(a)
This relates to the sacred Science of the Numerals: so sacred, indeed, and so
important in the study of Occultism that the subject can hardly be skimmed,
even in such a large work as the present. It is on the Hierarchies and correct
numbers of these Beings invisible (to us) except upon very rare occasions, that
the mystery of the whole Universe is built. The Kumaras, for instance, are
called the "Four" though in reality seven in number, because Sanaka,
Sananda, Sanatana and Sanat-Kumara are the chief Vaidhatra (their patronymic
name), as they spring from the "four-fold mystery." To make the whole
clearer we have to turn for our illustrations to tenets more familiar to some
of our readers, namely, the Brahminical.
According
to Manu, Hiranyagarbha is Brahma the first male formed by the undiscernible
Causeless CAUSE in a "Golden Egg resplendent as the Sun," as states
the Hindu Classical Dictionary. "Hiranyagarbha" means the golden, or
rather the "Effulgent Womb" or Egg. The meaning tallies awkwardly
with the epithet of "male." Surely the esoteric meaning of the
sentence is clear enough. In the Rig Veda it is said:-- "THAT, the one
Lord of all beings . . . . the one animating principle of gods and man,"
arose, in the beginning, in the Golden Womb, Hiranyagarbha -- which is the
Mundane Egg or sphere of our Universe. That Being is surely androgynous, and
the allegory of Brahma separating into two and recreating in one of his halves
(the female Vach) himself as Viraj, is a proof of it.
"The
One from the Egg, the Six and the Five," give the number 1065, the value
of the first-born (later on the male and female Brahma-Prajapati), who answers
to the numbers 7, and 14, and 21 respectively. The Prajapati are, like the
Sephiroth, only seven, including the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The 4, represented in the Occult numerals by the Tetraktis, the Sacred or
Perfect Square, is a Sacred Number with the mystics of every nation and race.
It has one and the same significance in Brahmanism, Buddhism, the Kabala and in
the Egyptian, Chaldean and other numerical systems.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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synthetic
Sephira of the triad from which they spring. Thus from Hiranyagarbha or
Prajapati, the triune (primeval Vedic Trimurti, Agni, Vayu, and Surya), emanate
the other seven, or again ten, if we separate the first three which exist in
one, and one in three, all, moreover, being comprehended within that one
"supreme" Parama, called Guhya or " secret," and Sarvatma,
the "Super-Soul." "The seven Lords of Being lie concealed in
Sarvatma like thoughts in one brain." So are the Sephiroth. It is either
seven when counting from the upper Triad headed by Kether, or ten --
exoterically. In the Mahabharata the Prajapati are 21 in number, or ten, six,
and five (1065), thrice seven.*
(b)
"The Three, the One, the Four, the One, the Five" (in their totality
-- twice seven) represent 31415 -- the numerical hierarchy of the Dhyan-Chohans
of various orders, and of the inner or circumscribed world.** When placed on
the boundary of the great circle of "Pass not" (see Stanza V.),
called also the Dhyanipasa, the "rope of the Angels," the
"rope" that hedges off the phenomenal from the noumenal Kosmos, (not
falling within the range of our present objective consciousness); this number,
when not enlarged by permutation and expansion, is ever 31415 anagrammatically
and Kabalistically, being both the number of the circle and the mystic
Svastica, the twice seven once more; for whatever way the two sets of figures
are counted, when added separately, one figure after another, whether
crossways, from right or from left, they will always yield fourteen.
Mathematically they represent the well-known calculation, namely, that the
ratio of the diameter to the circumference of a circle is as 1 to 3.1415, or
the value of the (pi), as this ratio is called -- the symbol being always used
in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Kabala the same numbers are a value of Jehovah, viz., 1065, since the
numerical values of the three letters which compose his name -- Jod, Vau and
twice He -- are respectively 10 ( [[hebrew]]), 6 ( [[hebrew]]) and 5 (
[[hebrew]]); or again thrice seven, 21. "Ten is the Mother of the Soul,
for Life and Light are therein united," says Hermes. "For number one
is born of the Spirit and the number ten from matter (chaos, feminine); the
unity has made the ten, the ten the unity" (Book of the Keys). By the means
of the Temura, the anagrammatical method of the Kabala, and the knowledge of
1065 (21), a universal science may be obtained regarding Kosmos and its
mysteries" (Rabbi Yogel). The Rabbis regard the numbers 10, 6, and 5 as
the most sacred of all.
**
The reader may be told that an American Kabalist has now discovered the same
number for the Elohim. It came to the Jews from Chaldaea. See "Hebrew
Metrology" in the Masonic Review, July, 1885, McMillan Lodge, No. 141.
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[[Vol.
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mathematical
formulae to express it. This set of figures must have the same meaning, since
the 1 : 314,159, and then again 1 : 3 : 1,415,927 are worked out in the secret
calculations to express the various cycles and ages of the "first
born," or 311,040,000,000,000 with fractions, and yield the same 13,415 by
a process we are not concerned with at present. And it may be shown that Mr.
Ralston Skinner, author of The Source of Measures, reads the Hebrew word Alhim
in the same number values, by omitting, as said, the ciphers and by permutation
-- 13,514: since [[hebrew]] (a) is 1 : [[hebrew]] (l) is 3 (or 30); [[hebrew]]
(h) is 5; [[hebrew]] (i) 1 for 10; and [[hebrew]] (m) is 4 (40), and
anagrammatically -- 31,415 as explained by him.
Thus,
while in the metaphysical world, the circle with the one central Point in it
has no number, and is called Anupadaka (parentless and numberless) -- viz., it
can fall under no calculation, -- in the manifested world the mundane Egg or
Circle is circumscribed within the groups called the Line, the Triangle, the
Pentacle, the second Line and the Cube (or 13514); and when the Point having
generated a Line, thus becomes a diameter which stands for the androgynous
Logos, then the figures become 31415, or a triangle, a line, a cube, the second
line, and a pentacle. "When the Son separates from the Mother he becomes
the Father," the diameter standing for Nature, or the feminine principle.
Therefore it is said: "In the world of being, the one Point fructifies the
Line -- the Virgin Matrix of Kosmos (the egg-shaped zero) -- and the immaculate
Mother gives birth to the form that combines all forms." Prajapati is
called the first procreating male, and "his Mother's husband."* This
gives the key-note to all the later divine sons from immaculate mothers. It is
greatly corroborated by the significant fact that Anna (the name of the Mother
of the Virgin Mary) now represented by the Roman Catholic church as having
given birth to her daughter in an immaculate way ("Mary conceived without
sin"), is derived from the Chaldean Ana, heaven, or Astral Light, Anima
Mundi; whence Anaitia, Devi-durga, the wife of Siva, is also called Annapurna,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We find the same expression in Egypt. Mout signifies, for one thing,
"Mother," and shows the character assigned to her in the triad of
that country. "She was no less the mother than the wife of Ammon, one of
the principle titles of the god being "the husband of his mother."
The goddess Mout, or Mut, is addressed as "our lady," the "queen
of Heaven" and of "the Earth," thus "sharing these titles
with the other mother goddesses, Isis, Hathor, etc." (Maspero).
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[[Vol.
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and
Kanya, the Virgin; "Uma-Kanya" being her esoteric name, and meaning
the "Virgin of light," Astral Light in one of its multitudinous
aspects.
(c)
The Devas, Pitris, Rishis; the Suras and the Asuras; the Daityas and Adityas;
the Danavas and Gandharvas, etc., etc., have all their synonyms in our Secret
Doctrine, as well as in the Kabala and the Hebrew Angelology; but it is useless
to give their ancient names, as it would only create confusion. Many of these
may be also found now, even in the Christian hierarchy of divine and celestial
powers. All those Thrones and Dominions, Virtues and Principalities, Cherubs,
Seraphs and demons, the various denizens of the Sidereal World, are the modern
copies of archaic prototypes. The very symbolism in their names, when
transliterated and arranged in Greek and Latin, are sufficient to show it, as
will be proved in several cases further on.
The
"Sacred Animals" are found in the Bible as well as in the Kabala, and
they have their meaning (a very profound one, too) on the page of the origins
of Life. In the Sepher Jezirah it is stated that "God engraved in the Holy
Four the throne of his glory, the Ophanim (Wheels or the World-Spheres), the
Seraphim,* the Sacred Animals, and the ministering angels, and from these three
(the Air, Water, and Fire or Ether) he formed his habitation." Thus was
the world made "through three Seraphim -- Sepher, Saphar, and Sipur,"
or "through Number, Numbers, and Numbered." With the astronomical key
these "Sacred Animals" become the signs of the Zodiac.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is the literal translation from the IXth and Xth Sections: "Ten numbers
without what? One: the spirit of the living God . . . . who liveth in
eternities! Voice and Spirit and Word, and this is the Holy Spirit. Two: Spirit
out of Spirit. He designed and hewed therewith twenty-two letters of
foundation, three Mothers and seven double and Twelve single, and one spirit
out of them. Three: Water out of spirit; he designed and hewed with them the
barren and the void, mud and earth. He designed them as a flowerbed, hewed them
as a wall, covered them as a paving. Four: Fire out of water. He designed and
hewed therewith the throne of glory and the wheels, and the seraphim and the
holy animals and the ministering angels, and of the three He founded his
dwelling, as it is said, He makes his angels spirits and his servants fiery flames!"
Which words "founded his dwelling" show clearly that in the Kabala,
as in India, the Deity was considered as the Universe, and was not, in his
origin, the extra-cosmic God he is now.
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STANZA
IV. -- Continued.
4.
THIS WAS THE ARMY OF THE VOICE -- THE DIVINE SEPTENARY. THE SPARKS OF THE SEVEN
ARE SUBJECT TO, AND THE SERVANTS OF, THE FIRST, SECOND, THIRD, FOURTH, FIFTH, SIXTH,
AND THE SEVENTH OF THE SEVEN (a). THESE ("sparks") ARE CALLED
SPHERES, TRIANGLES, CUBES, LINES, AND MODELLERS; FOR THUS STANDS THE ETERNAL
NIDANA -- THE OI-HA-HOU (the Permutation of Oeaohoo) (b).*
(a)
This Sloka gives again a brief analysis of the Hierarchies of the Dhyan
Chohans, called Devas (gods) in India, or the conscious intelligent powers in
Nature. To this Hierarchy correspond the actual types into which humanity may
be divided; for humanity, as a whole, is in reality a materialized though as
yet imperfect expression thereof. The "army of the Voice" is a term
closely connected with the mystery of Sound and Speech, as an effect and
corollary of the cause -- Divine Thought. As beautifully expressed by P.
Christian, the learned author of "The History of Magic" and of
"L'Homme Rouge des Tuileries," the word spoken by, as well as the
name of, every individual largely determine his future fate. Why? Because --
--
"When our Soul (mind) creates or evokes a thought, the representative sign
of that thought is self-engraved upon the astral fluid, which is the receptacle
and, so to say, the mirror of all the manifestations of being.
"The
sign expresses the thing: the thing is the (hidden or occult) virtue of the
sign.
"To
pronounce a word is to evoke a thought, and make it present: the magnetic
potency of the human speech is the commencement of every manifestation in the
Occult World. To utter a Name is not only to define a Being (an Entity), but to
place it under and condemn it through the emission of the Word (Verbum), to the
influence of one or more Occult potencies. Things are, for every one of us,
that which it (the Word) makes them while naming them. The Word (Verbum) or the
speech of every man is, quite unconsciously to himself, a BLESSING or a CURSE;
this is why our present ignorance about the properties or attributes of the
IDEA as well as about the attributes and properties of MATTER, is often fatal
to us.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The literal signification of the word is, among the Eastern Occultists of the
North, a circular wind, whirlwind; but in this instance, it is a term to denote
the ceaseless and eternal Cosmic Motion; or rather the Force that moves it,
which Force is tacitly accepted as the Deity but never named. It is the eternal
Karana, the ever-acting Cause.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Yes,
names (and words) are either BENEFICENT or MALEFICENT; they are, in a certain
sense, either venomous or health-giving, according to the hidden influences
attached by Supreme Wisdom to their elements, that is to say, to the LETTERS
which compose them, and the NUMBERS correlative to these letters."
This
is strictly true as an esoteric teaching accepted by all the Eastern Schools of
Occultism. In the Sanskrit, as also in the Hebrew and all other alphabets,
every letter has its occult meaning and its rationale; it is a cause and an
effect of a preceding cause and a combination of these very often produces the
most magical effect. The vowels, especially, contain the most occult and
formidable potencies. The Mantras (esoterically, magical rather than religious)
are chanted by the Brahmins and so are the Vedas and other Scriptures.
The
"Army of the Voice," is the prototype of the "Host of the
Logos," or the "WORD" of the Sepher Jezirah, called in the
Secret Doctrine "the One Number issued from No-Number" -- the One
Eternal Principle. The esoteric theogony begins with the One, manifested,
therefore not eternal in its presence and being, if eternal in its essence; the
number of the numbers and numbered -- the latter proceeding from the Voice, the
feminine Vach, Satarupa "of the hundred forms," or Nature. It is from
this number 10, or creative nature, the Mother (the occult cypher, or
"nought," ever procreating and multiplying in union with the Unit
"I," one, or the Spirit of Life), that the whole Universe proceeded.
In
the Anugita a conversation is given (ch. vi., 15) between a Brahmana and his
wife, on the origin of Speech and its occult properties.* The wife asks how
Speech came into existence, and which was prior to the other, Speech or Mind.
The Brahmana tells her that the Apana (inspirational breath) becoming lord,
changes that intelligence, which does not understand Speech or Words, into the
state of Apana, and thus opens the mind. Thereupon he tells her a story, a
dialogue between Speech and Mind. "Both went to the Self of Being (i.e.,
to the individual Higher Self, as Nilakantha thinks, to Prajapati, according to
the commentator Arjuna Misra), and asked him to destroy their doubts and decide
which of them preceded and was superior to the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Anugita forms part of the Asvamedha Parvan of the "Mahabharata." The
translator of the Bhagavatgita, edited by Max Muller, regards it as a
continuation of the Bhagavatgita. Its original is one of the oldest Upanishads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 95 SPEECH AND MIND.
other.
To this the lord said: 'Mind is Superior.' But Speech answered the Self of
Being, by saying: 'I verily yield (you) your desires,' meaning that by speech
he acquired what he desired. Thereupon again, the Self told her that there are
two minds, the 'movable' and the 'immovable.' 'The immovable is with me,' he
said, 'the movable is in your dominion' (i.e. of Speech) on the plane of
matter. To that you are superior. But inasmuch, O beautiful one, as you came
personally to speak to me (in the way you did, i.e. proudly), therefore, O,
Sarasvati! you shall never speak after (hard) exhalation." "The
goddess Speech" (Sarasvati, a later form or aspect of Vach, the goddess
also of secret learning or Esoteric Wisdom), "verily, dwelt always between
the Prana and the Apana. But O noble one! going with the Apana wind (vital
air), though impelled, without the Prana (expirational breath), she ran up to
Prajapati (Brahma), saying, 'Be pleased, O venerable sir!' Then the Prana
appeared again, nourishing Speech. And, therefore, Speech never speaks after
(hard or inspirational) exhalation. It is always noisy or noiseless. Of these
two, the noiseless is the superior to the noisy (Speech). . . . . The (speech)
which is produced in the body by means of the Prana, and which then goes (is
transformed) into Apana, and then becoming assimilated with the Udana (physical
organs of Speech) . . . then finally dwells in the Samana ('at the navel in the
form of sound, as the material cause of all words,' says Arjuna Misra). So
Speech formerly spoke. Hence the mind is distinguished by reason of its being
immovable, and the Goddess (Speech) by reason of her being movable."
This
allegory is at the root of the Occult law, which prescribes silence upon the
knowledge of certain secret and invisible things perceptible only to the
spiritual mind (the 6th sense), and which cannot be expressed by
"noisy" or uttered speech. This chapter of Anugita explains, says Arjuna
Misra, Pranayama, or regulation of the breath in Yoga practices. This mode,
however, without the previous acquisition of, or at least full understanding of
the two higher senses, of which there are seven, as will be shown, pertains
rather to the lower Yoga. The Hatha so called was and still is discountenanced
by the Arhats. It is injurious to the health and alone can never develop into
Raj Yoga. This story is quoted to show how inseparably connected are, in the
metaphysics of old, intelligent beings, or rather "Intelligences,"
with every sense or
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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function
whether physical or mental. The Occult claim that there are seven senses in
man, as in nature, as there are seven states of consciousness, is corroborated
in the same work, chapter vii., on Pratyahara (the restraint and regulation of
the senses, Pranayama being that of the "vital winds" or breath). The
Brahmana speaks in it "of the institution of the seven sacrificial Priests
(Hotris). He says: "The nose and the eyes, and the tongue, and the skin
and the ear as the fifth (or smell, sight, taste, touch and hearing), mind and
understanding are the seven sacrificial priests separately stationed"; and
which "dwelling in a minute space (still) do not perceive each other"
on this sensuous plane, none of them except mind. For mind says: "The nose
smells not without me, the eye does not take in colour, etc., etc. I am the
eternal chief among all elements (i.e., senses). Without me, the senses never
shine, like an empty dwelling, or like fires the flames of which are extinct.
Without me, all beings, like fuel half dried and half moist, fail to apprehend
qualities or objects even with the senses exerting themselves."*
This,
of course, with regard only to mind on the sensuous plane. Spiritual mind (the
upper portion or aspect of the impersonal MANAS) takes no cognisance of the
senses in physical man. How well the ancients were acquainted with the
correlation of forces and all the recently discovered phenomena of mental and
physical faculties and functions, with many more mysteries also -- may be found
in reading chapters vii. and viii. of this (in philosophy and mystic learning)
priceless work. See the quarrel of the senses about their respective
superiority and their taking the Brahman, the lord of all creatures, for their
arbiter. "You are all greatest and not greatest," or superior to
objects, as A. Misra says, none being independent of the other. "You are
all possessed of one another's qualities. All are greatest in their own spheres
and all support one another. There is one unmoving (life-wind or breath, the
'Yoga inhalation,' so called, which is the breath of the One or Higher SELF).
That is the (or my) own Self, accumulated in numerous (forms)."
This
Breath, Voice, Self or "Wind" (pneuma?) is the Synthesis of the Seven
Senses, noumenally all minor deities and esoterically -- the septenary and the
"Army of the VOICE."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This shows the modern metaphysicians, added to all past and present Haegels,
Berkeleys, Schopenhauers, Hartmanns, Herbert Spencers, and even the modern
Hylo-Idealists to boot, no better than the pale copyists of hoary antiquity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(b)
Next we see Cosmic matter scattering and forming itself into elements; grouped
into the mystic four within the fifth element -- Ether, the lining of Akasa,
the Anima Mundi or Mother of Kosmos. "Dots, Lines, Triangles, Cubes,
Circles" and finally "Spheres" -- why or how? Because, says the
Commentary, such is the first law of Nature, and because Nature geometrizes
universally in all her manifestations. There is an inherent law -- not only in
the primordial, but also in the manifested matter of our phenomenal plane -- by
which Nature correlates her geometrical forms, and later, also, her compound
elements; and in which there is no place for accident or chance. It is a
fundamental law in Occultism, that there is no rest or cessation of motion in
Nature.* That which seems rest is only the change of one form into another; the
change of substance going hand in hand with that of form -- as we are taught in
Occult physics, which thus seem to have anticipated the discovery of the
"Conservation of matter" by a considerable time. Says the ancient
Commentary** to Stanza IV.:--
"The
Mother is the fiery Fish of Life. She scatters her spawn and the Breath
(Motion) heats and quickens it. The grains (of spawn) are soon attracted to
each other and form the curds in the Ocean (of Space). The larger lumps
coalesce and receive new spawn -- in fiery dots, triangles and cubes, which
ripen, and at the appointed time some of the lumps detach themselves and assume
spheroidal form, a process which they effect only when not interfered with by
the others. After which, law No. * * * comes into operation. Motion (the
Breath) becomes the whirlwind and sets them into rotation."***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is the knowledge of this law that permits and helps the Arhat to perform his
Siddhis, or various phenomena, such as disintegration of matter, the transport
of objects from one place to another.
**
These are ancient Commentaries attached with modern Glossaries to the Stanzas,
as the Commentaries in their symbolical language are usually as difficult to
understand as the Stanzas themselves.
***
In a polemical scientific work, "The Modern Genesis," the author, the
Rev. W. B. Slaughter, criticising the position assumed by the astronomers,
asks:-- "It is to be regretted that the advocates of this (nebular) theory
have not entered more largely into the discussion of it (the beginning of
rotation). No one condescends to give us the rationale of it. How does the
process of cooling and contracting the mass impart to it a rotatory
motion?" The question is amply treated in the Addendum. It is not
materialistic science that can ever solve it. "Motion is eternal in the
unmanifested, and periodical in the manifest," says an Occult teaching. It
is "when heat caused [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
IV. -- Continued.
5.
. . . . . WHICH IS:----
"DARKNESS,"
THE BOUNDLESS OR THE NO-NUMBER, ADI-NIDANA SVABHAVAT: THE [[diagram]] (for x,
unknown quantity):
I.
THE ADI-SANAT, THE NUMBER, FOR HE IS ONE (a).
II.
THE VOICE OF THE WORD, SVABHAVAT, THE NUMBERS, FOR HE IS ONE AND NINE.*
III.
THE "FORMLESS SQUARE." (Arupa.) (b).
AND
THESE THREE ENCLOSED WITHIN THE [[diagram]] (boundless circle), ARE THE SACRED
FOUR, AND THE TEN ARE THE ARUPA (subjective, formless) UNIVERSE (c); THEN COME
THE "SONS," THE SEVEN FIGHTERS, THE ONE, THE EIGHTH LEFT OUT, AND HIS
BREATH WHICH IS THE LIGHT-MAKER (Bhaskara) (d).
(a)
"Adi-Sanat," translated literally is the First or "primeval"
ancient, which name identifies the Kabalistic "Ancient of Days" and
the "Holy Aged" (Sephira and Adam Kadmon) with Brahma the Creator,
called also Sanat among his other names and titles.
Svabhavat
is the mystic Essence, the plastic root of physical Nature --
"Numbers" when manifested; the Number, in its Unity of Substance, on
the highest plane. The name is of Buddhist use and a Synonym for the four-fold
Anima Mundi, the Kabalistic "Archetypal World," from whence proceed
the "Creative, Formative, and the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] by the descent of FLAME into primordial matter
causes its particles to move, which motion becomes Whirlwind." A drop of
liquid assumes a spheroidal form owing to its atoms moving around themselves in
their ultimate, unresolvable, and noumenal essence; unresolvable for physical
science, at any rate.
*
Which makes ten, or the perfect number applied to the "Creator," the
name given to the totality of the Creators blended by the Monotheists into One,
as the "Elohim," Adam Kadmon or Sephira -- the Crown -- are the
androgyne synthesis of the 10 Sephiroth, who stand for the symbol of the
manifested Universe in the popularised Kabala. The esoteric Kabalists, however,
following the Eastern Occultists, divide the upper Sephirothal triangle from
the rest (or Sephira, Chochmah and Binah), which leaves seven Sephiroth. As for
Svabhavat, the Orientalists explain the term as meaning the Universal plastic
matter diffused through Space, with, perhaps, half an eye to the Ether of
Science. But the Occultists identify it with "FATHER-MOTHER" on the
mystic plane. (Vide supra.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Material
Worlds"; the Scintillae or Sparks, -- the various other worlds contained
in the last three. The Worlds are all subject to Rulers or Regents -- Rishis
and Pitris with the Hindus, Angels with the Jews and Christians, Gods, with the
Ancients in general.
(b)
[[diagram]] This means that the "Boundless Circle" (Zero) becomes a
figure or number, only when one of the nine figures precedes it, and thus
manifests its value and potency, the Word or Logos in union with VOICE and
Spirit* (the expression and source of Consciousness) standing for the nine
figures and thus forming, with the Cypher, the Decade which contains in itself
all the Universe. The triad forms within the circle the Tetraktis or Sacred
Four, the Square within the Circle being the most potent of all the magical
figures.
(c)
The "One Rejected" is the Sun of our system. The exoteric version may
be found in the oldest Sanskrit Scriptures. In the Rig Veda, Aditi, "The Boundless"
or infinite Space, translated by Mr. Max Muller, "the visible infinite,
visible by the naked eye (!!); the endless expanse beyond the Earth, beyond the
clouds, beyond the sky," is the equivalent of "Mother-Space"
coeval with "Darkness." She is very properly called "The Mother
of the Gods," DEVA-MATRI, as it is from her Cosmic matrix that all the
heavenly bodies of our system were born -- Sun and Planets. Thus she is
described, allegorically, in this wise: "Eight Sons were born from the
body of Aditi; she approached the gods with seven, but cast away the eighth,
Martanda," our sun. The seven sons called the Aditya are, cosmically or
astronomically, the seven planets; and the Sun being excluded from their number
shows plainly that the Hindus may have known, and in fact knew of a seventh
planet, without calling it Uranus.** But esoterically and theologically,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"In union with the Spirit and the Voice," referring to the Abstract
Thought and concrete Voice, or the manifestation thereof, the effect of the
Cause. Adam Kadmon or Tetragrammaton is the Logos in the Kabala; therefore this
triad answers in the latter to the highest triangle of Kether, Chochmah and
Binah, the last a female potency and at the same time the male Jehovah, as
partaking of the nature of Chochmah, or the male Wisdom.
**
The Secret Doctrine teaches that the Sun is a central Star and not a planet.
Yet the Ancients knew of and worshipped seven great gods, excluding the Sun and
Earth. Which was that "Mystery God" they set apart? Of course not
Uranus, discovered only by Herschel in 1781. But could it not be known by
another name? Says the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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so
to say, the Adityas are, in their primitive most ancient meanings, the eight,
and the twelve great gods of the Hindu Pantheon. "The Seven allow the
mortals to see their dwellings, but show themselves only to the Arhats,"
says an old proverb, "their dwellings" standing here for planets. The
ancient Commentary gives an allegory and explains it:--
"Eight
houses were built by Mother. Eight houses for her Eight Divine sons; four large
and four small ones. Eight brilliant suns, according to their age and merits.
Bal-ilu (Martanda) was not satisfied, though his house was the largest. He
began (to work) as the huge elephants do. He breathed (drew in) into his
stomach the vital airs of his brothers. He sought to devour them. The larger
four were far away; far, on the margin of their kingdom.* They were not robbed
(affected), and laughed. Do your worst, Sir, you cannot reach us, they said.
But the smaller wept. They complained to the Mother. She exiled Bal-i-lu to the
centre of her Kingdom, from whence he could not move. (Since then) he (only)
watches and threatens. He pursues them, turning slowly around himself, they
turning swiftly from him, and he following from afar the direction in which his
brothers move on the path that encircles their houses.** From that day he feeds
on the sweat of the Mother's body. He fills himself with her breath and refuse.
Therefore, she rejected him."
Thus
the "rejected Son" being our Sun, evidently, as shown above, the
"Sun-Sons" refer not only to our planets but to the heavenly bodies
in general. Himself only a reflection of the Central Spiritual Sun, Surya is
the prototype of all those bodies that evolved after him. In the Vedas he is
called Loka-Chakshuh, "the Eye of the World" (our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] author of "Maconnerie Occulte":--
"Occult Sciences having discovered through astronomical calculations that
the number of the planets must be seven, the ancients were led to introduce the
Sun into the scale of the celestial harmonies, and make him occupy the vacant
place. Thus, every time they perceived an influence that pertained to none of
the six planets known, they attributed it to the Sun. The error only seems
important, but was not so in practical results, if the ancient astrologers
replaced Uranus by the Sun, which is a central Star relatively motionless,
turning only on its axis and regulating time and measure; and which cannot be
turned aside from its true functions." . . . . . . The nomenclature of the
days of the week is thus faulty. "The Sun-Day ought to be Uranus-day
(Urani dies, Urandi)," adds the learned writer, Ragon.
*
Planetary System.
**
"The Sun rotates on his axis always in the same direction in which the
planets revolve in their respective orbits," astronomy teaches us.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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planetary
world), and he is one of the three chief deities. He is called indifferently
the Son of Dyaus and of Aditi, because no distinction is made with reference
to, or scope allowed for, the esoteric meaning. Thus he is depicted as drawn by
seven horses, and by one horse with seven heads; the former referring to his
seven planets, the latter to their one common origin from the One Cosmic
Element. This "One Element" is called figuratively "FIRE."
The Vedas (Aitareya-Brahmana of Haug also; p. i) teach "that the fire verily
is all the deities." (Narada in Anugita).
The
meaning of the allegory is plain, for we have both the Dzyan Commentary and
modern science to explain it, though the two differ in more than one
particular. The Occult Doctrine rejects the hypothesis born out of the Nebular
Theory, that the (seven) great planets have evolved from the Sun's central
mass, not of this our visible Sun, at any rate. The first condensation of
Cosmic matter of course took place about a central nucleus, its parent Sun; but
our sun, it is taught, merely detached itself earlier than all the others, as
the rotating mass contracted, and is their elder, bigger brother therefore, not
their father. The eight Adityas, "the gods," are all formed from the
eternal substance (Cometary matter* -- the Mother) or the "World-Stuff
" which is both the fifth and the sixth COSMIC Principle, the Upadhi or
basis of the Universal Soul, just as in man, the Microcosm, Manas** is the
Upadhi of Buddhi.***
(d)
There is a whole poem on the pregenetic battles fought by the growing planets
before the final formation of Kosmos, thus accounting for the seemingly
disturbed position of the systems of several planets, the plane of the
satellites of some (of Neptune and Uranus, for instance, of which the ancients
knew nothing, it is said) being tilted over, thus giving them an appearance of
retrograde motion. These planets are called the warriors, the Architects, and
are accepted by the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This Essence of Cometary matter, Occult Science teaches, is totally different
from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which modern science
is acquainted. It is homogeneous in its primitive form beyond the Solar
Systems, and differentiates entirely once it crosses the boundaries of our
Earth's region, vitiated by the atmospheres of the planets and the already
compound matter of the interplanetary stuff, heterogeneous only in our
manifested world.
**
Manas -- the Mind-Principle, or the human Soul.
***
Buddhi -- the divine Soul.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Roman
Church as the leaders of the heavenly Hosts, thus showing the same traditions. Having
evolved from Cosmic Space, and before the final formation of the primaries and
the annulation of the planetary nebula, the Sun, we are taught, drew into the
depths of its mass all the Cosmic vitality he could, threatening to engulf his
weaker "brothers" before the law of attraction and repulsion was
finally adjusted; after which he began feeding on "The Mother's refuse and
sweat"; in other words, on those portions of Ether (the "breath of
the Universal Soul") of the existence and constitution of which science is
as yet absolutely ignorant. A theory of this kind having been propounded by Sir
William Grove (see "Correlation of the Physical Forces," 1843, p. 81;
and "Address to the British Association, 1866"), who theorized that
the systems "are gradually changing by atmospheric additions or
subtractions, or by accretions and diminutions arising from nebular
substances" . . . and again that "the Sun may condense gaseous matter
as it travels in Space and so heat may be produced" -- the archaic
teaching seems scientific enough, even in this age.* Mr. W. Mattieu Williams
suggested that the diffused matter or Ether which is the recipient of the heat
radiations of the Universe is thereby drawn into the depths of the solar mass.
Expelling thence the previously condensed and thermally exhausted Ether, it
becomes compressed and gives up its heat, to be in turn itself driven out in a
rarified and cooled state, to absorb a fresh supply of heat, which he supposes
to be in this way taken up by the Ether, and again concentrated and
redistributed by the Suns of the Universe.**
This
is about as close an approximation to the Occult teachings as Science ever
imagined; for Occultism explains it by "the dead breath" given back
by Martanda and his feeding on the "sweat and refuse" of "Mother
Space." What could affect Neptune,*** Saturn and Jupiter,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Very similar ideas in Mr. W. Mattieu Williams' "The Fuel of the Sun;"
in Dr. C. William Siemens' "On the Conservation of Solar Energy"
(Nature, XXV., p. 440-444, March 9, 1882); and also in Dr. P. Martin Duncan's
"Address of the President of the Geological Society," London, May,
1877.
**
See "Comparative Geology," by Alexander Winchell, LL.D., p. 56.
***
When we speak of Neptune it is not as an Occultist but as a European. The true
Eastern Occultist will maintain that, whereas there are many yet undiscovered
planets in our system, Neptune does not belong to it, his apparent connection
with our sun and the influence of the latter upon Neptune notwithstanding. This
connection is mayavic, imaginary, they say.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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but
little, would have killed such comparatively small "Houses" as
Mercury, Venus and Mars. As Uranus was not known before the end of the
eighteenth century, the name of the fourth planet mentioned in the allegory
must remain to us, so far, a mystery.
The
"Breath" of all the "seven" is said to be Bhaskara
(light-making), because they (the planets) were all comets and suns in their
origin. They evolve into Manvantaric life from primaeval Chaos (now the
noumenon of irresolvable nebulae) by aggregation and accumulation of the
primary differentiations of the eternal matter, according to the beautiful
expression in the Commentary, "Thus the Sons of Light clothed themselves
in the fabric of Darkness." They are called allegorically "the
Heavenly Snails," on account of their (to us) formless INTELLIGENCES
inhabiting unseen their starry and planetary homes, and, so to speak, carrying
them as the snails do along with themselves in their revolution. The doctrine
of a common origin for all the heavenly bodies and planets, was, as we see,
inculcated by the Archaic astronomers, before Kepler, Newton, Leibnitz, Kant,
Herschel and Laplace. Heat (the Breath), attraction and repulsion -- the three
great factors of Motion -- are the conditions under which all the members of
all this primitive family are born, developed, and die, to be reborn after a
"Night of Brahma," during which eternal matter relapses periodically
into its primary undifferentiated state. The most attenuated gases can give no
idea of its nature to the modern physicist. Centres of Forces at first, the
invisible sparks of primordial atoms differentiate into molecules, and become
Suns -- passing gradually into objectivity gaseous, radiant, cosmic, the one
"Whirlwind" (or motion) finally giving the impulse to the form, and
the initial motion, regulated and sustained by the never-resting Breaths -- the
Dhyan Chohans.
-------
STANZA
IV. -- Continued.
6.
. . . . THEN THE SECOND SEVEN, WHO ARE THE LIPIKA, PRODUCED BY THE THREE (Word,
Voice, and Spirit). THE REJECTED SON IS ONE, THE "SON-SUNS" ARE
COUNTLESS.
The
Lipi-ka, from the word lipi, "writing," means literally the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Scribes."*
Mystically, these Divine Beings are connected with Karma, the Law of
Retribution, for they are the Recorders or Annalists who impress on the (to us)
invisible tablets of the Astral Light, "the great picture-gallery of
eternity" -- a faithful record of every act, and even thought, of man, of
all that was, is, or ever will be, in the phenomenal Universe. As said in
"Isis," this divine and unseen canvas is the BOOK OF LIFE. As it is
the Lipika who project into objectivity from the passive Universal Mind the ideal
plan of the universe, upon which the "Builders" reconstruct the
Kosmos after every Pralaya, it is they who stand parallel to the Seven Angels
of the Presence, whom the Christians recognise in the Seven "Planetary
Spirits" or the "Spirits of the Stars;" for thus it is they who
are the direct amanuenses of the Eternal Ideation -- or, as called by Plato,
the "Divine Thought." The Eternal Record is no fantastic dream, for
we meet with the same records in the world of gross matter. "A shadow
never falls upon a wall without leaving thereupon a permanent trace which might
be made visible by resorting to proper processes," says Dr. Draper. . . .
"The portraits of our friends or landscape-views may be hidden on the
sensitive surface from the eye, but they are ready to make their appearance as
soon as proper developers are resorted to. A spectre is concealed on a silver
or a glassy surface, until, by our necromancy, we make it come forth into the
visible world. Upon the walls of our most private apartments, where we think
the eye of intrusion is altogether shut out, and our retirement can never be
profaned, there exist the vestiges of all our acts, silhouettes of whatever we
have done."** Drs. Jevons and Babbage believe that every thought,
displacing the particles of the brain and setting them in motion, scatters them
throughout the Universe, and they think that "each particle of the
existing matter must be a register of all that has happened." (Principles
of Science, Vol. II. p. 455.) Thus the ancient doctrine has begun to acquire
rights of citizenship in the speculations of the scientific world.
The
forty "Assessors" who stand in the region of Amenti as the accusers
of the Soul before Osiris, belong to the same class of deities as the Lipika,
and might stand paralleled, were not the Egyptian gods so
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These are the four "Immortals" which are mentioned in Atharva Veda as
the "Watchers" or Guardians of the four quarters of the sky (see ch.
lxxvi., 1-4, et seq.).
**
"Conflict between Religion and Science." -- Draper, pp. 132 and 133.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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little
understood in their esoteric meaning. The Hindu Chitra-Gupta who reads out the
account of every Soul's life from his register, called Agra-Sandhani; the
"Assessors" who read theirs from the heart of the defunct, which
becomes an open book before (whether) Yama, Minos, Osiris, or Karma -- are all
so many copies of, and variants from the Lipika, and their Astral Records.
Nevertheless, the Lipi-ka are not deities connected with Death, but with Life
Eternal.
Connected
as the Lipika are with the destiny of every man and the birth of every child,
whose life is already traced in the Astral Light not fatalistically, but only
because the future, like the PAST, is ever alive in the PRESENT -- they may
also be said to exercise an influence on the Science of Horoscopy. We must
admit the truth of the latter whether we will or not. For, as observed by one
of the modern adepts of Astrology, "Now that photography has revealed to
us the chemical influence of the Sidereal system, by fixing on the sensitized
plate of the apparatus milliards of stars and planets that had hitherto baffled
the efforts of the most powerful telescopes to discover them, it becomes easier
to understand how our solar system can, at the birth of a child, influence his
brain -- virgin of any impression -- in a definite manner and according to the presence
on the zenith of such or another zodiacal constellation."**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
**
Les Mysteres de l'Horoscope, p. XI.
---------------------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
V.
1.
THE PRIMORDIAL SEVEN, THE FIRST SEVEN BREATHS OF THE DRAGON OF WISDOM, PRODUCE
IN THEIR TURN FROM THEIR HOLY CIRCUMGYRATING BREATHS THE FIERY WHIRLWIND (a).
COMMENTARY.
(a)
This is, perhaps, the most difficult of all the Stanzas to explain. Its
language is comprehensible only to him who is thoroughly versed in Eastern
allegory and its purposely obscure phraseology. The question will surely be
asked, "Do the Occultists believe in all these 'Builders,' 'Lipika,' and
'Sons of Light' as Entities, or are they merely imageries?" To this the
answer is given as plainly: "After due allowance for the imagery of
personified Powers, we must admit the existence of these Entities, if we would
not reject the existence of spiritual humanity within physical mankind. For the
hosts of these Sons of Light and 'Mind-born Sons' of the first manifested Ray
of the UNKNOWN ALL, are the very root of spiritual man." Unless we want to
believe the unphilosophical dogma of a specially created soul for every human
birth -- a fresh supply of these pouring in daily, since "Adam" -- we
have to admit the occult teachings. This will be explained in its place. Let us
see, now, what may be the occult meaning of this Stanza.
The
Doctrine teaches that, in order to become a divine, fully conscious god, --
aye, even the highest -- the Spiritual primeval INTELLIGENCES must pass through
the human stage. And when we say human, this does not apply merely to our
terrestrial humanity, but to the mortals that inhabit any world, i.e., to those
Intelligences that have reached the appropriate equilibrium between matter and
spirit, as we have now, since the middle point of the Fourth Root Race of the
Fourth Round was passed. Each Entity must have won for itself the right of
becoming divine, through self-experience. Hegel, the great German thinker, must
have known or sensed intuitionally this truth when saying, as he did, that the
Unconscious evolved the Universe only "in the hope of attaining clear
self-consciousness," of becoming, in other words, MAN; for this is also
the secret meaning of the usual Puranic phrase about
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Brahma
being constantly "moved by the desire to create." This explains also
the hidden Kabalistic meaning of the saying: "The Breath becomes a stone;
the stone, a plant; the plant, an animal; the animal, a man; the man, a spirit;
and the spirit, a god." The Mind-born Sons, the Rishis, the Builders,
etc., were all men -- of whatever forms and shapes -- in other worlds and the
preceding Manvantaras.
This
subject, being so very mystical, is therefore the most difficult to explain in
all its details and bearings; since the whole mystery of evolutionary creation
is contained in it. A sentence or two in it vividly recalls to mind similar
ones in the Kabala and the phraseology of the King Psalmist (civ.), as both,
when speaking of God, show him making the wind his messenger and his
"ministers a flaming fire." But in the Esoteric doctrine it is used
figuratively. The "fiery Wind" is the incandescent Cosmic dust which
only follows magnetically, as the iron filings follow the magnet, the directing
thought of the "Creative Forces." Yet, this cosmic dust is something
more; for every atom in the Universe has the potentiality of self-consciousness
in it, and is, like the Monads of Leibnitz, a Universe in itself, and for
itself. It is an atom and an angel.
In
this connection it should be noted that one of the luminaries of the modern
Evolutionist School, Mr. A. R. Wallace, when discussing the inadequacy of
"natural selection" as the sole factor in the development of physical
man, practically concedes the whole point here discussed. He holds that the
evolution of man was directed and furthered by superior Intelligences, whose
agency is a necessary factor in the scheme of Nature. But once the operation of
these Intelligences is admitted in one place, it is only a logical deduction to
extend it still further. No hard and fast line can be drawn.
-------
STANZA
V. -- Continued.
2.
THEY MAKE OF HIM THE MESSENGER OF THEIR WILL (a). THE DZYU BECOMES FOHAT; THE
SWIFT SON OF THE DIVINE SONS, WHOSE SONS ARE THE LIPIKA,* RUNS CIRCULAR
ERRANDS. HE IS THE STEED, AND
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The difference between the "Builders," the Planetary Spirits, and the
Lipika must not be lost sight of. (See Nos. 5 and 6 of this Commentary.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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THE
THOUGHT IS THE RIDER (i.e., he is under the influence of their guiding
thought). HE PASSES LIKE LIGHTNING THROUGH THE FIERY CLOUDS (cosmic mists) (b);
TAKES THREE, AND FIVE, AND SEVEN STRIDES THROUGH THE SEVEN REGIONS ABOVE AND
THE SEVEN BELOW (the world to be). HE LIFTS HIS VOICE, AND CALLS THE
INNUMERABLE SPARKS (atoms) AND JOINS THEM TOGETHER (c).
(a)
This shows the "Primordial Seven" using for their Vahan (vehicle, or
the manifested subject which becomes the symbol of the Power directing it),
Fohat, called in consequence, the "Messenger of their will" -- the
fiery whirlwind.
"Dzyu
becomes Fohat" -- the expression itself shows it. Dzyu is the one real
(magical) knowledge, or Occult Wisdom; which, dealing with eternal truths and
primal causes, becomes almost omnipotence when applied in the right direction.
Its antithesis is Dzyu-mi, that which deals with illusions and false
appearances only, as in our exoteric modern sciences. In this case, Dzyu is the
expression of the collective Wisdom of the Dhyani-Buddhas.
(b)
As the reader is supposed not to be acquainted with the Dhyani-Buddhas, it is
as well to say at once that, according to the Orientalists, there are five
Dhyanis who are the "celestial" Buddhas, of whom the human Buddhas
are the manifestations in the world of form and matter. Esoterically, however,
the Dhyani-Buddhas are seven, of whom five only have hitherto manifested,* and
two are to come in the sixth and seventh Root-races. They are, so to speak, the
eternal prototypes of the Buddhas who appear on this earth, each of whom has
his particular divine prototype. So, for instance, Amitabha is the
Dhyani-Buddha of Gautama Sakyamuni, manifesting through him whenever this great
Soul incarnates on earth as He did in Tzon-kha-pa.** As the synthesis of the
seven Dhyani-Buddhas, Avalokiteswara was the first Buddha (the Logos), so
Amitabha is the inner "God" of Gautama, who, in China, is called
Amita(-Buddha). They are, as Mr. Rhys Davids
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See A. P. Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism," 5th annotated edition, pp.
171-173.
**
The first and greatest Reformer who founded the "Yellow-Caps,"
Gyalugpas. He was born in the year 1355 A.D. in Amdo, and was the Avatar of
Amitabha, the celestial name of Gautama Buddha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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correctly
states, "the glorious counterparts in the mystic world, free from the
debasing conditions of this material life" of every earthly mortal Buddha
-- the liberated Manushi-Buddhas appointed to govern the Earth in this Round.
They are the "Buddhas of Contemplation," and are all Anupadaka
(parentless), i.e., self-born of divine essence. The exoteric teaching which
says that every Dhyani-Buddha has the faculty of creating from himself, an
equally celestial son -- a Dhyani-Bodhisattva -- who, after the decease of the
Manushi (human) Buddha, has to carry out the work of the latter, rests on the
fact that owing to the highest initiation performed by one overshadowed by the
"Spirit of Buddha" -- (who is credited by the Orientalists with
having created the five Dhyani-Buddhas!), -- a candidate becomes virtually a
Bodhisattva, created such by the High Initiator.
(c)
Fohat, being one of the most, if not the most important character in esoteric
Cosmogony, should be minutely described. As in the oldest Grecian Cosmogony,
differing widely from the later mythology, Eros is the third person in the
primeval trinity: Chaos, Gaea, Eros: answering to the Kabalistic En-Soph (for
Chaos is SPACE, [[chaino]], "void") the Boundless ALL, Shekinah and
the Ancient of Days, or the Holy Ghost; so Fohat is one thing in the yet
unmanifested Universe and another in the phenomenal and Cosmic World. In the
latter, he is that Occult, electric, vital power, which, under the Will of the
Creative Logos, unites and brings together all forms, giving them the first
impulse which becomes in time law. But in the unmanifested Universe, Fohat is
no more this, than Eros is the later brilliant winged Cupid, or LOVE. Fohat has
naught to do with Kosmos yet, since Kosmos is not born, and the gods still sleep
in the bosom of "Father-Mother." He is an abstract philosophical
idea. He produces nothing yet by himself; he is simply that potential creative
power in virtue of whose action the NOUMENON of all future phenomena divides,
so to speak, but to reunite in a mystic supersensuous act, and emit the
creative ray. When the "Divine Son" breaks forth, then Fohat becomes
the propelling force, the active Power which causes the ONE to become TWO and
THREE -- on the Cosmic plane of manifestation. The triple One differentiates
into the many, and then Fohat is transformed into that force which brings
together the elemental atoms and makes them aggregate and combine. We find an
echo of this primeval teaching
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
early Greek mythology. Erebos and Nux are born out of Chaos, and, under the
action of Eros, give birth in their turn to Ether and Hemera, the light of the
superior and the light of the inferior or terrestrial regions. Darkness
generates light. See in the Puranas Brahma's "Will" or desire to
create; and in the Phoenician Cosmogony of Sanchoniathon the doctrine that
Desire, [[pothos]], is the principle of creation.
Fohat
is closely related to the "ONE LIFE." From the Unknown One, the
Infinite TOTALITY, the manifested ONE, or the periodical, Manvantaric Deity,
emanates; and this is the Universal Mind, which, separated from its
Fountain-Source, is the Demiurgos or the creative Logos of the Western Kabalists,
and the four-faced Brahma of the Hindu religion. In its totality, viewed from
the standpoint of manifested Divine Thought in the esoteric doctrine, it
represents the Hosts of the higher creative Dhyan Chohans. Simultaneously with
the evolution of the Universal Mind, the concealed Wisdom of Adi-Buddha -- the
One Supreme and eternal -- manifests itself as Avalokiteshwara (or manifested
Iswara), which is the Osiris of the Egyptians, the Ahura-Mazda of the
Zoroastrians, the Heavenly Man of the Hermetic philosopher, the Logos of the
Platonists, and the Atman of the Vedantins.* By the action of the manifested
Wisdom, or Mahat, represented by these innumerable centres of spiritual Energy
in the Kosmos, the reflection of the Universal Mind, which is Cosmic Ideation
and the intellectual Force accompanying such ideation, becomes objectively the
Fohat of the Buddhist esoteric philosopher. Fohat, running along the seven
principles of AKASA, acts upon manifested substance or the One Element, as
declared above, and by differentiating it into various centres of Energy, sets
in motion the law of Cosmic Evolution, which, in obedience to the Ideation of
the Universal Mind, brings into existence all the various states of being in
the manifested Solar System.
The
Solar System, brought into existence by these agencies, consists of Seven
Principles, like everything else within these centres. Such is the teaching of
the trans-Himalayan Esotericism. Every philosophy, however, has its own way of
dividing these principles.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Subba Row seems to identify him with, and to call him, the LOGOS. (See his
four lectures on the "Bhagavadgita" in the Theosophist.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Fohat,
then, is the personified electric vital power, the transcendental binding Unity
of all Cosmic Energies, on the unseen as on the manifested planes, the action
of which resembles -- on an immense scale -- that of a living Force created by
WILL, in those phenomena where the seemingly subjective acts on the seemingly
objective and propels it to action. Fohat is not only the living Symbol and
Container of that Force, but is looked upon by the Occultists as an Entity --
the forces he acts upon being cosmic, human and terrestrial, and exercising
their influence on all those planes respectively. On the earthly plane his
influence is felt in the magnetic and active force generated by the strong
desire of the magnetizer. On the Cosmic, it is present in the constructive
power that carries out, in the formation of things -- from the planetary system
down to the glow-worm and simple daisy -- the plan in the mind of nature, or in
the Divine Thought, with regard to the development and growth of that special
thing. He is, metaphysically, the objectivised thought of the gods; the
"Word made flesh," on a lower scale, and the messenger of Cosmic and
human ideations: the active force in Universal Life. In his secondary aspect,
Fohat is the Solar Energy, the electric vital fluid,* and the preserving fourth
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In 1882 the President of the Theosophical Society, Col. Olcott, was taken to
task for asserting in one of his lectures that Electricity is matter. Such,
nevertheless, is the teaching of the Occult Doctrine. "Force,"
"Energy," may be a better name for it, so long as European Science
knows so little about its true nature; yet matter it is, as much as Ether is
matter, since it is as atomic, though several removes from the latter. It seems
ridiculous to argue that because a thing is imponderable to Science, therefore
it cannot be called matter. Electricity is "immaterial" in the sense
that its molecules are not subject to perception and experiment; yet it may be
-- and Occultism says it is -- atomic; therefore it is matter. But even
supposing it were unscientific to speak of it in such terms, once Electricity
is called in Science a source of Energy, Energy simply, and a Force -- where is
that Force or that Energy which can be thought of without thinking of matter?
Maxwell, a mathematician and one of the greatest authorities upon Electricity
and its phenomena, said, years ago, that Electricity was matter, not motion
merely. "If we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are
composed of atoms we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as
well as negative, is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like
atoms of electricity." (Helmholtz, Faraday Lecture, 1881). We will go
further than that, and assert that Electricity is not only Substance but that
it is an emanation from an Entity, which is neither God nor Devil, but one of
the numberless Entities that rule and guide our world according to the eternal
Law of KARMA. (See the Addendum to this Book.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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principle,
the animal Soul of Nature, so to say, or -- Electricity. In India, Fohat is
connected with Vishnu and Surya in the early character of the (first) God; for
Vishnu is not a high god in the Rig Veda. The name Vishnu is from the root
vish, "to pervade," and Fohat is called the "Pervader" and
the Manufacturer, because he shapes the atoms from crude material.* In the
sacred texts of the Rig Veda, Vishnu, also, is "a manifestation of the
Solar Energy," and he is described as striding through the Seven regions
of the Universe in three steps, the Vedic God having little in common with the
Vishnu of later times. Therefore the two are identical in this particular
feature, and one is the copy of the other.
The
"three and seven" strides refer to the Seven spheres inhabited by
man, of the esoteric Doctrine, as well as to the Seven regions of the Earth.
Notwithstanding the frequent objections made by would-be Orientalists, the
Seven Worlds or spheres of our planetary chain are distinctly referred to in
the exoteric Hindu scriptures. But how strangely all these numbers are
connected with like numbers in other Cosmogonies and with their symbols, can be
seen from comparisons and parallelisms made by students of old religions. The
"three strides of Vishnu" through the "seven regions of the
Universe," of the Rig Veda, have been variously explained by commentators
as meaning "fire, lightning and the Sun" cosmically; and as having
been taken in the Earth, the atmosphere, and the sky; also as the "three
steps" of the dwarf (Vishnu's incarnation), though more philosophically --
and in the astronomical sense, very correctly -- they are explained by
Aurnavabha as being the various positions of the sun, rising, noon, and
setting. Esoteric philosophy alone explains it clearly, and the Zohar laid it
down very philosophically and comprehensively. It is said and plainly
demonstrated therein that in the beginning the Elohim (Elhim) were called
Echod, "one," or the "Deity is one in many," a very simple
idea in a pantheistic conception (in its philosophical sense, of course). Then
came the change, "Jehovah is Elohim," thus unifying the multiplicity
and taking the first step towards Monotheism. Now to the query, "How is
Jehovah Elohim?" the answer is, "By three Steps" from below.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is well known that sand, when placed on a metal plate in vibration assumes a
series of regular curved figures of various descriptions. Can Science give a
complete explanation of this fact?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
meaning is plain.* They are all symbols, and emblematic, mutually and
correlatively, of Spirit, Soul and Body (MAN); of the circle transformed into Spirit,
the Soul of the World, and its body (or Earth). Stepping out of the Circle of
Infinity, that no man comprehendeth, Ain-Soph (the Kabalistic synonym for
Parabrahm, for the Zeroana Akerne, of the Mazdeans, or for any other
"UNKNOWABLE") becomes "One" -- the ECHOD, the EKA, the AHU
-- then he (or it) is transformed by evolution into the One in many, the
Dhyani-Buddhas or the Elohim, or again the Amshaspends, his third Step being
taken into generation of the flesh, or "Man." And from man, or
Jah-Hova, "male female," the inner divine entity becomes, on the
metaphysical plane, once more the Elohim.
The
Kabalistic idea is identical with the Esotericism of the Archaic period. This
esotericism is the common property of all, and belongs neither to the Aryan 5th
Race, nor to any of its numerous Sub-races. It cannot be claimed by the
Turanians, so-called, the Egyptians, Chinese, Chaldeans, nor any of the Seven
divisions of the Fifth Root Race, but really belongs to the Third and Fourth
Root Races, whose descendants we find in the Seed of the Fifth, the earliest
Aryans. The Circle was with every nation the symbol of the Unknown --
"Boundless Space," the abstract garb of an ever present abstraction
-- the Incognisable Deity. It represents limitless Time in Eternity. The
Zeroana Akerne is also the "Boundless Circle of the Unknown Time,"
from which Circle issues the radiant light -- the Universal SUN, or Ormazd** --
and the latter
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The numbers 3, 5, and 7 are prominent in speculative masonry, as shown in
"Isis." A mason writes:-- "There are the 3, 5, and 7 steps to
show a circular walk. The three faces of 3, 3; 5, 3; and 7, 3; etc., etc.
Sometimes it comes in this form -- 753/2 = 376.5 and 7635/2 = 3817.5 and the
ratio of 20612/6561 feet for cubit measure gives the Great Pyramid
measures," etc., etc. Three, five and seven are mystical numbers, and the
last and the first are as greatly honoured by Masons as by the Parsis -- the
triangle being a symbol of Deity everywhere. (See the Masonic Cyclopedia, and
"Pythagorean Triangle," Oliver.) As a matter of course, doctors of
divinity (Cassel, for instance) show the Zohar explaining and supporting the
Christian trinity (!). It is the latter, however, that had its origin from the
[[diagram]] of the Heathen, in the Archaic Occultism and Symbology. The three
strides relate metaphysically to the descent of Spirit into matter, of the
Logos falling as a ray into the Spirit, then into the Soul, and finally into
the human physical form of man, in which it becomes LIFE.
**
Ormazd is the Logos, the "First Born" and the Sun.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
identical with Kronos, in his AEolian form, that of a Circle. For the circle is
Sar, and Saros, or cycle, and was the Babylonian god whose circular horizon was
the visible symbol of the invisible, while the sun was the ONE Circle from
which proceeded the Cosmic orbs, and of which he was considered the leader.
Zero-ana, is the Chakra or circle of Vishnu, the mysterious emblem which is,
according to the definition of a mystic, "a curve of such a nature that as
to any, the least possible part thereof, if the curve be protracted either way
it will proceed and finally re-enter upon itself, and form one and the same
curve -- or that which we call the circle." No better definition could
thus be given of the natural symbol and the evident nature of Deity, which
having its circumference everywhere (the boundless) has, therefore, its central
point also everywhere; in other words, is in every point of the Universe. The
invisible Deity is thus also the Dhyan Chohans, or the Rishis, the primitive
seven, and the nine, without, and ten, including, their synthetical unit; from
which IT steps into Man. Returning to the Commentary (4) of Stanza IV. the
reader will understand why, while the trans-Himalayan Chackra has inscribed
within it [[diagram]] | [[diagram]] | [[diagram]] (triangle, first line, cube second
line, and a pentacle with a dot in the centre thus: [[diagram]], and some other
variations), the Kabalistic circle of the Elohim reveals, when the letters of
the word [[hebrew]] (Alhim or Elohim) are numerically read, the famous numerals
13514, or by anagram 31415 -- the astronomical (pi) number, or the hidden
meaning of Dhyani-Buddhas, of the Gebers, the Geborim, the Kabeiri, and the
Elohim, all signifying "great men," "Titans,"
"Heavenly Men," and, on earth, "the giants."
The
Seven was a Sacred Number with every nation; but none applied it to more
physiologically materialistic uses than the Hebrews. With these it was
pre-eminently the generative number and 9 the male causative one, forming as
shown by the Kabalists the [[hebrew with numbers above]] or otz -- "the
Tree of the Garden of Eden,"* the "double hermaphrodite rod" of
the fourth race. Whereas with the Hindus and Aryans generally, the significance
was manifold, and related almost entirely to purely metaphysical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This was the symbol of the "Holy of Holies," the 3 and the 4 of
sexual separation. Nearly every one of the 22 Hebrew letters are merely phallic
symbols. Of the two letters -- as shown above -- one, the ayin, is a negative
female letter, symbolically an eye; the other a male letter, tza, a fish-hook
or a dart.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and
astronomical truths.* Their Rishis and gods, their Demons and Heroes, have
historical and ethical meanings, and the Aryans never made their religion rest
solely on physiological symbols, as the old Hebrews have done. This is found in
the exoteric Hindu Scriptures. That these accounts are blinds is shown by their
contradicting each other, a different construction being found in almost every
Purana and epic poem. Read esoterically -- they will all yield the same
meaning. Thus one account enumerates Seven worlds, exclusive of the nether
worlds, also seven in number; these fourteen upper and nether worlds have
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are told by a Kabalist, who in a work not yet published contrasts the Kabala
and Zohar with Aryan Esotericism, that "The Hebrew clear, short, terse and
exact modes far and beyond measure surpass the toddling word-talk of the Hindus
-- just as by parallelisms the Psalmist says, 'My mouth speaks with my tongue,
I know not thy numbers' (lxxi., 15). . . . The Hindu Glyph shows by its
insufficiency in the large admixture of adventitious sides the same borrowed
plumage that the Greeks (the lying Greeks) had, and that Masonry has: which in
the rough monosyllabic (and apparent) poverty of the Hebrew, shows the latter
to have come down from a far more remote antiquity than any of these, and to
have been the source (!?), or nearer the old original source than any of
them." This is entirely erroneous. Our learned brother and correspondent
judges apparently the Hindu religious systems by their Shastras and Puranas,
probably the latter, and in their modern translation moreover, which is
disfigured out of all recognition, by the Orientalists. It is to their
philosophical systems that one has to turn, to their esoteric teaching, if he would
make a point of comparison. No doubt the symbology of the Pentateuch and even
of the New Testament, comes from the same source. But surely the Pyramid of
Cheops, whose measurements are all found repeated by Professor Piazzi Smythe in
Solomon's alleged and mythical temple, is not of a later date than the Mosaic
books? Hence, if there is any such great identity as claimed, it must be due to
servile copying on the part of the Jews, not on that of the Egyptians. The
Jewish glyphs -- and even their language, the Hebrew -- are not original. They
are borrowed from the Egyptians, from whom Moses got his Wisdom; from the
Coptic, the probable kinsman, if not parent, of the old Phoenician and from the
Hyksos, their (alleged) ancestors, as Josephus shows in his "Against
Apion," I., 25. Aye; but who are the Hyksos shepherds? And who the
Egyptians? History knows nothing of the question, and speculates and theorizes
out of the depths of the respective consciousnesses of her historians. (See
Isis Unveiled, vol. II., p. 430-438.) "Khamism, or old Coptic," says
Bunsen, "is from Western Asia, and contains some germ of the Semitic, thus
bearing witness to the primitive cognate unity of the Aryan and Semitic
races"; and he places the great events in Egypt 9,000 years B.C. The fact
is that in archaic Esotericism and Aryan thought we find a grand philosophy,
whereas in the Hebrew records we find only the most surprising ingenuity in
inventing apotheoses for phallic worship and sexual theogony.
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[[Vol.
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nothing
to do with the classification of the septenary chain and belong to the purely
aethereal, invisible worlds. These will be noticed elsewhere. Suffice for the
present to show that they are purposely referred to as though they belonged to
the chain. "Another enumeration calls the Seven worlds -- earth, sky,
heaven, middle region, place of birth, mansion of the blest, and abode of
truth; placing the 'Sons of Brahma' in the sixth division, and stating the
fifth, or Jana Loka, to be that where animals destroyed in the general
conflagration are born again." (see Hindu Classical Dictionary.) Some real
esoteric teaching is given in the "Symbolism." He who is prepared for
it will understand the hidden meaning.
-------
STANZA
V. -- Continued.
3.
HE IS THEIR GUIDING SPIRIT AND LEADER. WHEN HE COMMENCES WORK, HE SEPARATES THE
SPARKS OF THE LOWER KINGDOM (mineral atoms) THAT FLOAT AND THRILL WITH JOY IN
THEIR RADIANT DWELLINGS (gaseous clouds), AND FORMS THEREWITH THE GERMS OF
WHEELS. HE PLACES THEM IN THE SIX DIRECTIONS OF SPACE AND ONE IN THE MIDDLE --
THE CENTRAL WHEEL (a).
(a)
"Wheels," as already explained, are the centres of force, around
which primordial Cosmic matter expands, and, passing through all the six stages
of consolidation, becomes spheroidal and ends by being transformed into globes
or spheres. It is one of the fundamental dogmas of Esoteric Cosmogony, that
during the Kalpas (or aeons) of life, MOTION, which, during the periods of Rest
"pulsates and thrills through every slumbering atom"* (Commentary on
Dzyan), assumes an evergrowing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It may be asked, as also the writer has not failed to ask, "Who is there
to ascertain the difference in that motion, since all nature is reduced to its
primal essence, and there can be no one -- not even one of the Dhyani-Chohans,
who are all in Nirvana -- to see it?" The answer to this is:
"Everything in Nature has to be judged by analogy. Though the highest
Deities (Archangels or Dhyani-Buddhas) are unable to penetrate the mysteries
too far beyond our planetary system and the visible Kosmos, yet there were
great seers and prophets in olden times who were enabled to perceive the
mystery of Breath and Motion retrospectively, when the systems of worlds were
at rest and plunged in their periodic sleep."
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[[Vol.
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tendency,
from the first awakening of Kosmos to a new "Day," to circular
movement. The "Deity becomes a WHIRLWIND." They are also called Rotae
-- the moving wheels of the celestial orbs participating in the world's
creation -- when the meaning refers to the animating principle of the stars and
planets; for in the Kabala, they are represented by the Ophanim, the Angels of
the Spheres and stars, of which they are the informing Souls. (See Kabala
Denudata, "De Anima," p. 113.)
This
law of vortical movement in primordial matter, is one of the oldest conceptions
of Greek philosophy, whose first historical Sages were nearly all Initiates of
the Mysteries. The Greeks had it from the Egyptians, and the latter from the
Chaldeans, who had been the pupils of Brahmins of the esoteric school.
Leucippus, and Democritus of Abdera -- the pupil of the Magi -- taught that
this gyratory movement of the atoms and spheres existed from eternity.*
Hicetas, Heraclides, Ecphantus, Pythagoras, and all his pupils, taught the rotation
of the earth; and Aryabhata of India, Aristarchus, Seleucus, and Archimedes
calculated its revolution as scientifically as the astronomers do now; while
the theory of the Elemental Vortices was known to Anaxagoras, and maintained by
him 500 years B.C., or nearly 2,000 before it was taken up by Galileo,
Descartes, Swedenborg, and finally, with slight modifications, by Sir W.
Thomson. (See his "Vortical Atoms.") All such knowledge, if justice
be only done to it, is an echo of the archaic doctrine, an attempt to explain
which is now being made. How men of the last few centuries have come to the
same ideas and conclusions that were taught as axiomatic truths in the secrecy
of the Adyta dozens of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The doctrine of the rotation of the earth about an axis is taught by the
Pythagorean Hicetas, probably as early as 500 B.C. It was also taught by his
pupil Ecphantus, and by Heraclides, a pupil of Plato. The immobility of the Sun
and the orbital rotation of the earth were shown by Aristarchus of Samos as
early as 281 B.C. to be suppositions accordant with facts of observation. The
Heliocentric theory was taught about 150 B.C., by Seleucus of Seleucia on the
Tigris. -- [It was taught 500 B.C. by Pythagoras. -- H. P. B.] It is said also
that Archimedes, in a work entitled Psammites, inculcated the Heliocentric
theory. The sphericity of the earth was distinctly taught by Aristotle, who
appealed for proof to the figure of the Earth's shadow on the moon in eclipses
(Aristotle, De Coelo, lib. II, cap. XIV.). The same idea was defended by Pliny
(Nat. Hist., II., 65). These views seem to have been lost from knowledge for
more than a thousand years. . . ." (Comparative Geology, Part IV.,
"Pre-Kantian Speculation," p. 551, by Alex. Winchell, LL.D.).
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[[Vol.
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millenniums
ago, is a question that is treated separately. Some were led to it by the
natural progress in physical science and by independent observation; others --
such as Copernicus, Swedenborg, and a few more -- their great learning
notwithstanding, owed their knowledge far more to intuitive than to acquired
ideas, developed in the usual way by a course of study.* (See "A Mystery
about Buddha.")
By
the "Six directions of Space" is here meant the "Double
Triangle," the junction and blending together of pure Spirit and Matter,
of the Arupa and the Rupa, of which the Triangles are a Symbol. This double
Triangle is a sign of Vishnu, as it is Solomon's seal, and the Sri-Antara of
the Brahmins.
-------
STANZA
V. -- (Continued.)
4.
FOHAT TRACES SPIRAL LINES TO UNITE THE SIX TO THE SEVENTH -- THE CROWN (a); AN
ARMY OF THE SONS OF LIGHT STANDS AT EACH ANGLE (and) THE LIPIKA -- IN THE
MIDDLE WHEEL. THEY (the Lipika) SAY, "THIS IS GOOD" (b). THE FIRST
DIVINE WORLD IS READY, THE FIRST (is now), THE SECOND (world), THEN THE
"DIVINE ARUPA" (the formless Universe
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
That Swedenborg, who could not possibly have known anything of the esoteric
ideas of Buddhism, came independently near the Occult teaching in his general
conceptions, is shown by his essay on the Vortical Theory. In Clissold's
translation of it, quoted by Prof. Winchell, we find the following resume:--
"The first Cause is the Infinite or Unlimited. This gives existence to the
First Finite or Limited." (The Logos in His manifestation and the
Universe.) "That which produces a limit is analogous to motion. (See first
Stanza, supra.) The limit produced is a point, the Essence of which is Motion;
but being without parts, this Essence is not actual Motion, but only a connatus
to it." (In our Doctrine it is not a "connatus," but a change
from eternal vibration in the unmanifested, to Vortical Motion in the
phenomenal or manifested World). . . "From this first proceed Extension,
Space, Figure, and Succession, or Time. As in Geometry a point generates a
line, a line a surface, and a surface a solid, so here the connatus of a point
tends towards lines, surfaces and solids. In other words, the Universe is
contained in ovo in the first natural point . . . the Motion toward which the
connatus tends, is circular, since the circle is the most perfect of all
figures . . . The most perfect figure of a Motion . . . must be the perpetually
circular, that is to say, it must proceed from the centre to the periphery and
from the periphery to the centre." (Quoted from Principia Rerum Naturalia.)
This is Occultism pure and simple.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
Thought) REFLECTS ITSELF IN CHHAYALOKA (the shadowy world of primal form, or
the intellectual) THE FIRST GARMENT OF (the) ANUPADAKA (c).
(a)
This tracing of "Spiral lines" refers to the evolution of man's as
well as Nature's principles; an evolution which takes place gradually (as will
be seen in Book II., on "The origin of the Human Races"), as does
everything else in nature. The Sixth principle in Man (Buddhi, the Divine Soul)
though a mere breath, in our conceptions, is still something material when
compared with divine "Spirit" (Atma) of which it is the carrier or
vehicle. Fohat, in his capacity of DIVINE LOVE (Eros), the electric Power of
affinity and sympathy, is shown allegorically as trying to bring the pure
Spirit, the Ray inseparable from the ONE absolute, into union with the Soul,
the two constituting in Man the MONAD, and in Nature the first link between the
ever unconditioned and the manifested. "The first is now the second"
(world) -- of the Lipikas -- has reference to the same.
(b)
The "Army" at each angle is the Host of angelic Beings
(Dhyan-Chohans) appointed to guide and watch over each respective region from
the beginning to the end of Manvantara. They are the "Mystic
Watchers" of the Christian Kabalists and Alchemists, and relate,
symbolically as well as cosmogonically, to the numerical system of the
Universe. The numbers with which these celestial Beings are connected are
extremely difficult to explain, as each number refers to several groups of
distinct ideas, according to the particular group of "Angels" which
it is intended to represent. Herein lies the nodus in the study of symbology,
with which, unable to untie by disentangling it, so many scholars have
preferred dealing as Alexander dealt with the Gordian knot; hence erroneous
conceptions and teachings, as a direct result.
The
"First is the Second," because the "First" cannot really be
numbered or regarded as the First, as that is the realm of noumena in its
primary manifestation: the threshold to the World of Truth, or SAT, through
which the direct energy that radiates from the ONE REALITY -- the Nameless
Deity -- reaches us. Here again, the untranslateable term SAT (Be-ness) is
likely to lead into an erroneous conception, since that which is manifested
cannot be SAT, but is something phenomenal, not everlasting, nor, in truth,
even sempiternal. It is coeval and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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coexistent
with the One Life, "Secondless," but as a manifestation it is still a
Maya -- like the rest. This "World of Truth" can be described only in
the words of the Commentary as "A bright star dropped from the heart of
Eternity; the beacon of hope on whose Seven Rays hang the Seven Worlds of
Being." Truly so; since those are the Seven Lights whose reflections are
the human immortal Monads -- the Atma, or the irradiating Spirit of every
creature of the human family. First, this septenary Light; then:--
(c)
The "Divine World" -- the countless Lights lit at the primeval Light
-- the Buddhis, or formless divine Souls, of the last Arupa (formless) world;
the "Sum Total," in the mysterious language of the old Stanza. In the
Catechism, the Master is made to ask the pupil:--
"Lift
thy head, oh Lanoo; dost thou see one, or countless lights above thee, burning
in the dark midnight sky?"
"I
sense one Flame, oh Gurudeva, I see countless undetached sparks shining in
it."
"Thou
sayest well. And now look around and into thyself. That light which burns
inside thee, dost thou feel it different in anywise from the light that shines
in thy Brother-men?"
"It
is in no way different, though the prisoner is held in bondage by Karma, and
though its outer garments delude the ignorant into saying, 'Thy Soul and My
Soul.' "
The
radical unity of the ultimate essence of each constituent part of compounds in
Nature -- from Star to mineral Atom, from the highest Dhyan Chohan to the
smallest infusoria, in the fullest acceptation of the term, and whether applied
to the spiritual, intellectual, or physical worlds -- this is the one
fundamental law in Occult Science. "The Deity is boundless and infinite
expansion," says an Occult axiom; and hence, as remarked, the name of
Brahma.* There is a deep philosophy underlying the earliest worship in the
world, that of the Sun and of Fire. Of all the Elements known to physical science,
Fire is the one that has ever eluded definite analysis. It is confidently
asserted that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Rig Veda we find the names Brahmanaspati and Brihaspati alternating and
equivalent to each other. Also see "Brihad Upanishad"; Brihaspati is
a deity called "the Father of the gods."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Air
is a mixture containing the gases Oxygen and Nitrogen. We view the Universe and
the Earth as matter composed of definite chemical molecules. We speak of the
primitive ten Earths, endowing each with a Greek or Latin name. We say that
water is, chemically, a compound of Oxygen and Hydrogen. But what is FIRE? It
is the effect of combustion, we are gravely answered. It is heat and light and
motion, and a correlation of physical and chemical forces in general. And this
scientific definition is philosophically supplemented by the theological one in
Webster's Dictionary, which explains fire as "the instrument of
punishment, or the punishment of the impenitent in another state" -- the
"state," by the bye, being supposed to be spiritual; but, alas! the
presence of fire would seem to be a convincing proof of its material nature.
Yet, speaking of the illusion of regarding phenomena as simple, because they
are familiar, Professor Bain says (Logic. Part II.): "Very familiar facts
seem to stand in no need of explanation themselves and to be the means of explaining
whatever can be assimilated to them. Thus, the boiling and evaporation of a
liquid is supposed to be a very simple phenomenon requiring no explanation, and
a satisfactory explanation of rarer phenomena. That water should dry up is, to
the uninstructed mind, a thing wholly intelligible; whereas to the man
acquainted with physical science the liquid state is anomalous and
inexplicable. The lighting of a fire by a flame is a GREAT SCIENTIFIC
DIFFICULTY, yet few people think so" (p. 125).
What
says the esoteric teaching with regard to fire? "Fire," it says,
"is the most perfect and unadulterated reflection, in Heaven as on Earth,
of the ONE FLAME. It is Life and Death, the origin and the end of every
material thing. It is divine 'SUBSTANCE.' " Thus, not only the
FIRE-WORSHIPPER, the Parsee, but even the wandering savage tribes of America,
which proclaim themselves "born of fire," show more science in their
creeds and truth in their superstitions, than all the speculations of modern
physics and learning. The Christian who says: "God is a living Fire,"
and speaks of the Pentecostal "Tongues of Fire" and of the
"burning bush" of Moses, is as much a fire-worshipper as any other
"heathen." The Rosicrucians, among all the mystics and Kabalists,
were those who defined Fire in the right and most correct way. Procure a
sixpenny lamp, keep it only supplied with oil, and you will be able to light at
its flame the lamps, candles,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and
fires of the whole globe without diminishing that flame. If the Deity, the
radical One, is eternal and an infinite substance ("the Lord thy God is a
consuming fire") and never consumed, then it does not seem reasonable that
the Occult teaching should be held as unphilosophical when it says: "Thus
were the Arupa and Rupa worlds formed: from ONE light seven lights; from each
of the seven, seven times seven," etc., etc.
-------
STANZA
V. -- Continued.
5.
FOHAT TAKES FIVE STRIDES (having already taken the first three) (a), AND BUILDS
A WINGED WHEEL AT EACH CORNER OF THE SQUARE FOR THE FOUR HOLY ONES . . . . .
AND THEIR ARMIES (hosts) (b).
(a)
The "strides," as already explained (see Commentary on Stanza IV.),
refer to both the Cosmic and the Human principles -- the latter of which
consist, in the exoteric division, of three (Spirit, Soul, and Body), and, in
the esoteric calculation, of seven principles -- three rays of the Essence and
four aspects.* Those who have studied Mr. Sinnett's "Esoteric
Buddhism" can easily grasp the nomenclature. There are two esoteric
schools -- or rather one school, divided into two parts -- one for the inner
Lanoos, the other for the outer or semi-lay chelas beyond the Himalayas; the
first teaching a septenary, the other a six-fold division of human principles.
From
a Cosmic point of view, Fohat taking "five strides" refers here to
the five upper planes of Consciousness and Being, the sixth and the seventh
(counting downwards) being the astral and the terrestrial, or the two lower
planes.
(b)
"Four winged wheels at each corner . . . . . for the four holy ones and
their armies (hosts)" . . . . . These are the "four Maharajahs"
or great Kings of the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas who preside, each over one of
the four cardinal points. They are the Regents or Angels who rule over the
Cosmical Forces of North, South,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The four aspects are the body, its life or vitality, and the "Double"
of the body, the triad which disappears with the death of the person, and the
Kama-rupa which disintegrates in Kama-loka.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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East
and West, Forces having each a distinct occult property. These BEINGS are also
connected with Karma, as the latter needs physical and material agents to carry
out her decrees, such as the four kinds of winds, for instance, professedly
admitted by Science to have their respective evil and beneficent influences
upon the health of Mankind and every living thing. There is occult philosophy
in that Roman Catholic doctrine which traces the various public calamities,
such as epidemics of disease, and wars, and so on, to the invisible
"Messengers" from North and West. "The glory of God comes from
the way of the East" says Ezekiel; while Jeremiah, Isaiah, and the
Psalmist assure their readers that all the evil under the Sun comes from the
North and the West -- which proposition, when applied to the Jewish nation,
sounds like an undeniable prophecy for themselves. And this accounts also for
St. Ambrose (On Amos, ch. iv.) declaring that it is precisely for that reason
that "we curse the North-Wind, and that during the ceremony of baptism we
begin by turning towards the West (Sidereal), to renounce the better him who
inhabits it; after which we turn to the East."
Belief
in the "Four Maharajahs" -- the Regents of the Four cardinal points
-- was universal and is now that of Christians,* who call them, after St.
Augustine, "Angelic Virtues," and "Spirits" when enumerated
by themselves, and "Devils" when named by Pagans. But where is the
difference between the Pagans and the Christians in this cause? Following
Plato, Aristotle explained that the term [[stoicheia]] was understood only as
meaning the incorporeal principles placed at each of the four great divisions
of our Cosmical world to supervise them. Thus, no more than the Christians did,
do they adore and worship the Elements and the cardinal (imaginary) points, but
the "gods" that ruled these respectively. For the Church there are
two kinds of Sidereal beings, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says the scholarly Vossius, in his Theol. Cir. I. VII.: "Though St.
Augustine has said that every visible thing in this world had an angelic virtue
as an overseer near it, it is not individuals but entire species of things that
must be understood, each such species having indeed its particular angel to
watch it. He is at one in this with all the philosophers . . . For us these
angels are spirits separated from the objects . . . whereas for the
philosophers (pagan) they were gods." Considering the Ritual established
by the Roman Catholic Church for "Spirits of the Stars," the latter
look suspiciously like "Gods," and were no more honoured and prayed
to by the ancient and modern pagan rabble than they are now at Rome by the
highly cultured Catholic Christians.
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[[Vol.
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Angels
and the Devils. For the Kabalist and Occultist there is but one; and neither of
them makes any difference between "the Rectors of Light" and the
Cosmocratores, or "Rectores tenebrarum harum," whom the Roman Church
imagines and discovers in a "Rector of Light" as soon as he is called
by another name than the one she addresses him by. It is not the "Rector"
or "Maharajah" who punishes or rewards, with or without
"God's" permission or order, but man himself -- his deeds or Karma,
attracting individually and collectively (as in the case of whole nations
sometimes), every kind of evil and calamity. We produce CAUSES, and these awaken
the corresponding powers in the sidereal world; which powers are magnetically
and irresistibly attracted to -- and react upon -- those who produced these
causes; whether such persons are practically the evil-doers, or simply Thinkers
who brood mischief. Thought is matter,* we are taught by modern Science; and
"every particle of the existing matter must be a register of all that has
happened," as in their "Principles of Science" Messrs. Jevons
and Babbage tell the profane. Modern Science is drawn more every day into the
maelstrom of Occultism; unconsciously, no doubt, still very sensibly. The two
main theories of science -- re the relations between Mind and Matter -- are
Monism and Materialism. These two cover the whole ground of negative psychology
with the exception of the quasi-occult views of the pantheistic German
schools.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Not of course in the sense of the German Materialist Moleschott, who assures us
that "Thought is the movement of matter," a statement of almost
unequalled absurdity. Mental states and bodily states are utterly contrasted as
such. But that does not affect the position that every thought, in addition to
its physical accompaniment (brain-change), exhibits an objective -- though to
us supersensuously objective -- aspect on the astral plane. (See "The
Occult World," pp. 89, 90.)
**
The views of our present-day scientific thinkers as to the relations between
mind and matter may be reduced to two hypotheses. These show that both views
equally exclude the possibility of an independent Soul, distinct from the
physical brain through which it functions. They are:--
(1.)
MATERIALISM, the theory which regards mental phenomena as the product of
molecular change in the brain; i.e., as the outcome of a transformation of
motion into feeling (!). The cruder school once went so far as to identify mind
with a "peculiar mode of motion" (!!), but this view is now happily
regarded as absurd by most of the men of science themselves.
(2.)
MONISM, or the Single Substance Doctrine, is the more subtle form of negative
psychology, which one of its advocates, Professor Bain, ably terms
"guarded [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 125 THE REAL MEANING OF THE TABERNACLE.
In
the Egyptian temples, according to Clemens Alexandrinus, an immense curtain
separated the tabernacle from the place for the congregation. The Jews had the
same. In both, the curtain was drawn over five pillars (the Pentacle)
symbolising our five senses and five Root-races esoterically, while the four
colours of the curtain represented the four cardinal points and the four
terrestrial elements. The whole was an allegorical symbol. It is through the
four high Rulers over the four points and Elements that our five senses may
become cognisant of the hidden truths of Nature; and not at all, as Clemens
would have it, that it is the elements per se that furnished the Pagans with
divine Knowledge or the knowledge of God.* While the Egyptian emblem was
spiritual, that of the Jews was purely materialistic, and, indeed, honoured
only the blind Elements and the imaginary "Points." For what was the
meaning of the square tabernacle raised by Moses in the wilderness, if it had
not the same cosmical significance? "Thou shalt make an hanging . . . of
blue, purple, and scarlet" and "five pillars of shittim wood for the
hanging . . . four brazen rings in the four corners thereof . . . boards of
fine wood for the four sides, North, South, West, and East . . . of the
Tabernacle . . . with Cherubims of cunning work." (Exodus, ch. xxvi.,
xxvii.) The Tabernacle and the square courtyard, Cherubim and all, were
precisely the same as those in the Egyptian temples. The square form of the
Tabernacle meant just the same thing as it still means, to this day, in the
exoteric worship of the Chinese and Tibetans -- the four cardinal points
signifying that which the four sides of the pyramids, obelisks, and other such
square erections mean. Josephus takes care to explain the whole thing. He
declares that the Tabernacle pillars are the same
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Materialism." This doctrine, which commands
a very wide assent, counting among its upholders such men as Lewis, Spencer,
Ferrier, and others, while positing thought and mental phenomena generally as
radically contrasted with matter, regards both as equal to the two sides, or
aspects, of one and the same substance in some of its conditions. Thought as
thought, they say, is utterly contrasted with material phenomena, but it must
be also regarded as only "the subjective side of nervous motion"
whatever our learned men may mean by this.
*
Thus the sentence, "Natura Elementorum obtinet revelationem Dei," (In
Clemens's Stromata, R. IV., para. 6), is applicable to both or neither. Consult
the Zends, vol II., p. 228, and Plutarch De Iside, as compared by Layard,
Academie des Inscriptions, 1854, Vol. XV.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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as
those raised at Tyre to the four Elements, which were placed on pedestals whose
four angles faced the four cardinal points: adding that "the angles of the
pedestals had equally the four figures of the Zodiac" on them, which
represented the same orientation (Antiquities I., VIII., ch. xxii.).
The
idea may be traced in the Zoroastrian caves, in the rock-cut temples of India,
as in all the sacred square buildings of antiquity that have survived to this
day. This is shown definitely by Layard, who finds the four cardinal points,
and the four primitive elements, in the religion of every country, under the
shape of square obelisks, the four sides of the pyramids, etc., etc. Of these
elements and their points the four Maharajahs were the regents and the
directors.
If
the student would know more of them, he has but to compare the Vision of
Ezekiel (chap. i.) with what is known of Chinese Buddhism (even in its exoteric
teachings); and examine the outward shape of these "Great Kings." In
the opinion of the Rev. Joseph Edkins, they are "the Devas who preside
each over one of the four continents into which the Hindus divide the world."*
Each leads an army of spiritual beings to protect mankind and Buddhism. With
the exception of favouritism towards Buddhism, the four celestial beings are
precisely this. They are the protectors of mankind and also the Agents of Karma
on Earth, whereas the Lipika are concerned with Humanity's hereafter. At the
same time they are the four living creatures "who have the likeness of a
man" of Ezekiel's visions, called by the translators of the Bible,
"Cherubim," "Seraphim," etc.; and by the Occultists,
"the winged Globes," the "Fiery Wheels," and in the Hindu
Pantheon by a number of different names. All these Gandharvas, the "Sweet
Songsters," the Asuras, Kinnaras, and Nagas, are the allegorical
descriptions of the "four Maharajahs." The Seraphim are the fiery
Serpents of Heaven which we find in a passage describing Mount Meru as:
"the exalted mass of glory, the venerable haunt of gods and heavenly
choristers . . . . not to be reached by sinful men . . . . because guarded by
Serpents." They are called the Avengers, and the "Winged
Wheels."
Their
mission and character being explained, let us see what the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Hindus happen to divide the world into seven continents, exoterically as
esoterically; and their four cosmic Devas are eight, presiding over the eight
points of the compass and not the Continents. (Compare "Chinese
Buddhism," p. 216.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 127 THE DRAGONS OF SECRET WISDOM.
Christian
Bible-interpreters say of the Cherubim:-- "The word signifies in Hebrew,
fullness of knowledge; these angels are so called from their exquisite
Knowledge, and were therefore used for the punishment of men who affected
divine Knowledge." (Interpreted by Cruden in his Concordance, from Genesis
iii., 24.) Very well; and vague as the information is, it shows that the Cherub
placed at the gate of the garden of Eden after the "Fall," suggested
to the venerable Interpreters the idea of punishment connected with forbidden
Science or divine Knowledge -- one that generally leads to another
"Fall," that of the gods, or "God," in man's estimation.
But as the good old Cruden knew nought of Karma, he may be forgiven. Yet the
allegory is suggestive. From Meru, the abode of gods, to Eden, the distance is
very small, and from the Hindu Serpents to the Ophite Cherubim, the third out
of the seven of which was the Dragon, the separation is still smaller, for both
watched the entrance to the realm of Secret Knowledge. But Ezekiel plainly
describes the four Cosmic Angels: "I looked, and behold, a whirlwind, a
cloud and fire infolding it . . . also out of the midst thereof came the
likeness of four living creatures . . . they had the likeness of a man. And
every one had four faces and four wings . . . the face of a man, and the face
of a lion, the face of an ox, and the face of an eagle . . . "
("Man" was here substituted for "Dragon." Compare the
"Ophite Spirits."*) . . . "Now as I beheld the living creatures
behold one wheel upon the Earth with his four faces . . . as it were a wheel in
the middle of a wheel . . . for the support of the living creature was in the
wheel . . . their appearance was like coals of fire . . ." etc. (Ezekiel,
ch. i.)
There
are three chief groups of Builders and as many of the Planetary Spirits and the
Lipika, each group being again divided into Seven sub-groups. It is impossible,
even in such a large work as this, to enter into a minute examination of even
the three principal groups, as it would demand an extra volume. The
"Builders" are the representatives of the first "Mind-Born"
Entities, therefore of the primeval Rishi-Prajapati: also of the Seven great
Gods of Egypt, of which Osiris is the chief: of the Seven Amshaspends of the
Zoroastrians, with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Angels recognised by the Roman Catholic Church who correspond to these
"Faces" were with the Ophites:-- Dragon -- Raphael; Lion -- Michael;
Bull, or ox -- Uriel; and Eagle -- Gabriel. The four keep company with the four
Evangelists, and preface the Gospels.
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[[Vol.
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Ormazd
at their head: or the "Seven Spirits of the Face": the Seven
Sephiroth separated from the first Triad, etc., etc.*
They
build or rather rebuild every "System" after the "Night."
The Second group of the Builders is the Architect of our planetary chain
exclusively; and the third, the progenitor of our Humanity -- the Macrocosmic
prototype of the microcosm.
The
Planetary Spirits are the informing spirits of the Stars in general, and of the
Planets especially. They rule the destinies of men who are all born under one
or other of their constellations; the second and third groups pertaining to
other systems have the same functions, and all rule various departments in
Nature. In the Hindu exoteric Pantheon they are the guardian deities who
preside over the eight points of the compass -- the four cardinal and the four
intermediate points -- and are called Loka-Palas, "Supporters or guardians
of the World" (in our visible Kosmos), of which Indra (East), Yama
(South), Varuna (West), and Kuvera (North) are the chief; their elephants and
their spouses pertaining of course to fancy and afterthought, though all of
them have an occult significance.
The
Lipika (a description of whom is given in the Commentary on Stanza IV. No. 6)
are the Spirits of the Universe, whereas the Builders are only our own
planetary deities. The former belong to the most occult portion of
Cosmogenesis, which cannot be given here. Whether the Adepts (even the highest)
know this angelic order in the completeness of its triple degrees, or only the
lower one connected with the records of our world, is something which the
writer is unprepared to say, and she would incline rather to the latter
supposition. Of its highest grade one thing only is taught: the Lipika are
connected with Karma -- being its direct Recorders.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Jews, save the Kabalists, having no names for East, West, South, and North,
expressed the idea by words signifying before, behind, right and left, and very
often confounded the terms exoterically, thus making the blinds in the Bible
more confused and difficult to interpret. Add to this the fact that out of the
forty-seven translators of King James I. of England's Bible "only three
understood Hebrew, and of these two died before the Psalms were translated"
(Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia), and one may easily understand what reliance can be
placed on the English version of the Bible. In this work the Douay Roman
Catholic version is generally followed.
**
The Symbol for Sacred and Secret Knowledge was universally in antiquity, a
Tree, by which a Scripture or a Record was also meant. Hence the word Lipika,
the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 129 THE LIPIKA.
STANZA
V. -- Continued.
6.
THE LIPIKA CIRCUMSCRIBE THE TRIANGLE, THE FIRST ONE (the vertical line or the
figure 1.), THE CUBE, THE SECOND ONE, AND THE PENTACLE WITHIN THE EGG (circle)
(a). IT IS THE RING CALLED "PASS NOT," FOR THOSE WHO DESCEND AND
ASCEND (as also for those) WHO, DURING THE KALPA, ARE PROGRESSING TOWARD THE
GREAT DAY "BE WITH US" (b). . . . THUS WERE FORMED THE ARUPA AND THE
RUPA (the Formless World and the World of Forms); FROM ONE LIGHT SEVEN LIGHTS;
FROM EACH OF THE SEVEN SEVEN TIMES SEVEN LIGHTS. THE "WHEELS" WATCH
THE RING.
The
Stanza proceeds with a minute classification of the Orders of Angelic
Hierarchy. From the group of Four and Seven emanates the "mind-born"
group of Ten, of Twelve, of Twenty-one, etc., all these divided again into
sub-groups of septenaries, novenaries, duodecimals, and so on, until the mind
is lost in this endless enumeration of celestial hosts and Beings, each having
its distinct task in the ruling of the visible Kosmos during its existence.
(a)
The esoteric meaning of the first sentence of the Sloka is, that those who have
been called Lipikas, the Recorders of the Karmic ledger, make an impassible
barrier between the personal EGO and the impersonal SELF, the Noumenon and
Parent-Source of the former. Hence the allegory. They circumscribe the
manifested world of matter within the RING "Pass-Not." This world is
the symbol (objective) of the ONE divided into the many, on the planes of
Illusion, of Adi (the "First") or of Eka (the "One"); and
this One is the collective aggregate, or totality, of the principal Creators or
Architects of this visible universe. In Hebrew Occultism their name is both
Achath, feminine, "One," and Achod, "One" again, but
masculine. The monotheists have taken (and are still taking) advantage of the
profound esotericism of the Kabala to apply the name by which the One Supreme
Essence is known to ITS manifestation, the Sephiroth-Elohim, and call it
Jehovah. But this is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] "writers" or scribes; the
"Dragons," symbols of wisdom, who guard the Trees of Knowledge; the
"golden" apple Tree of the Hesperides; the "Luxuriant
Trees" and vegetation of Mount Meru guarded by a Serpent. Juno giving to
Jupiter, on her marriage with him, a Tree with golden fruit is another form of
Eve offering Adam the apple from the Tree of Knowledge.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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quite
arbitrary and against all reason and logic, as the term Elohim is a plural
noun, identical with the plural word Chiim, often compounded with the Elohim.*
Moreover, in Occult metaphysics there are, properly speaking, two
"ONES" -- the One on the unreachable plane of Absoluteness and
Infinity, on which no speculation is possible, and the Second "One"
on the plane of Emanations. The former can neither emanate nor be divided, as
it is eternal, absolute, and immutable. The Second, being, so to speak, the
reflection of the first One (for it is the Logos, or Eswara, in the Universe of
Illusion), can do all this.** It emanates from itself -- as the upper
Sephirothal Triad emanates the lower seven Sephiroth -- the seven Rays or Dhyan
Chohans; in other words, the Homogeneous becomes the Heterogeneous, the
"Protyle" differentiates into the Elements. But these, unless they
return into their primal Element, can never cross beyond the Laya, or
zero-point.
Hence
the allegory. The Lipika separate the world (or plane) of pure spirit from that
of Matter. Those who "descend and ascend" -- the incarnating Monads,
and men striving towards purification and "ascending," but still not
having quite reached the goal -- may cross the "circle of the Pass-Not,"
only on the day "Be-With-Us"; that day when man, freeing himself from
the trammels of ignorance, and recog-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The sentence in the Sepher Jezirah and elsewhere:
"Achath-Ruach-Elohim-Chiim" denotes the Elohim as androgynous at
best, the feminine element almost predominating, as it would read: "ONE is
She the Spirit of the Elohim of Life." As said above, Echath (or Achath)
is feminine, and Echod (or Achod) masculine, both meaning ONE.
**
This metaphysical tenet can hardly be better described than Mr. Subba Row's in
"Bhagavadgita" lectures: "Mulaprakriti (the veil of Parabrahmam)
acts as the one energy through the Logos (or 'Eswara'). Now Parabrahmam, is the
one essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy, which I shall
for the present call the Logos. . . . It is called the Verbum . . . by the
Christians, and it is the divine Christos who is eternal in the bosom of his
father. It is called Avalokiteshwara by the Buddhists. . . . In almost every
doctrine, they have formulated the existence of a centre of spiritual energy
which is unborn and eternal, and which exists in the bosom of Parabrahmam at
the time of Pralaya, and starts as a centre of conscious energy at the time of
Cosmic activity. . . ." For, as the lecturer premised by saying,
Parabraham is not this or that, it is not even consciousness, as it cannot be
related to matter or anything conditioned. It is not Ego nor is it Non-ego, not
even Atma, but verily the one source of all manifestations and modes of
existence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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nising
fully the non-separateness of the Ego within his personality -- erroneously
regarded as his own -- from the UNIVERSAL EGO (Anima Supra-Mundi), merges
thereby into the One Essence to become not only one "with us" (the
manifested universal lives which are "ONE" LIFE), but that very life
itself.
Astronomically,
the "Ring PASS-NOT" that the Lipika trace around the Triangle, the
First One, the Cube, the Second One, and the Pentacle to circumscribe these
figures, is thus shown to contain the symbol of 31415 again, or the coefficient
constantly used in mathematical tables (the value of, pi), the geometrical
figures standing here for numerical figures. According to the general
philosophical teachings, this ring is beyond the region of what are called
nebulae in astronomy. But this is as erroneous a conception as that of the
topography and the descriptions, given in Puranic and other exoteric
Scriptures, about the 1008 worlds of the Devaloka worlds and firmaments. There
are worlds, of course, in the esoteric as well as in the profane scientific
teachings, at such incalculable distances that the light of the nearest of them
which has just reached our modern Chaldees, had left its luminary long before
the day on which the words "Let there be Light" were pronounced; but
these are no worlds on the Devaloka plane, but in our Kosmos.
The
chemist goes to the laya or zero point of the plane of matter with which he
deals, and then stops short. The physicist or the astronomer counts by billions
of miles beyond the nebulae, and then they also stop short; the semi-initiated
Occultist will represent this laya-point to himself as existing on some plane
which, if not physical, is still conceivable to the human intellect. But the
full Initiate knows that the ring "Pass-Not" is neither a locality
nor can it be measured by distance, but that it exists in the absoluteness of
infinity. In this "Infinity" of the full Initiate there is neither
height, breadth nor thickness, but all is fathomless profundity, reaching down
from the physical to the "para-para-metaphysical." In using the word
"down," essential depth -- "nowhere and everywhere" -- is
meant, not depth of physical matter.
If
one searches carefully through the exoteric and grossly anthropomorphic
allegories of popular religions, even in these the doctrine embodied in the
circle of "Pass-Not" thus guarded by the Lipika, may be dimly perceived.
Thus one finds it even in the teachings of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Vedantin sect of the Visishtadwaita, the most tenaciously anthropomorphic in
all India. For we read of the released soul that:--
After
reaching Moksha (a state of bliss meaning "release from Bandha" or
bondage), bliss is enjoyed by it in a place called PARAMAPADHA, which place is not
material, but made of Suddasatwa (the essence, of which the body of Iswara --
"the Lord" -- is formed). There, Muktas or Jivatmas (Monads) who have
attained Moksha, are never again subject to the qualities of either matter or
Karma. "But if they choose, for the sake of doing good to the world, they
may incarnate on Earth."* The way to Paramapadha, or the immaterial
worlds, from this world, is called Devayana. When a person has attained Moksha
and the body dies:--
"The
Jiva (Soul) goes with Sukshma Sarira** from the heart of the body, to the
Brahmarandra in the crown of the head, traversing Sushumna, a nerve connecting
the heart with the Brahmarandra. The Jiva breaks through the Brahmarandra and
goes to the region of the Sun (Suryamandala) through the solar Rays. Then it
goes, through a dark spot in the Sun, to Paramapadha. The Jiva is directed on
its way by the Supreme Wisdom acquired by Yoga.*** The Jiva thus proceeds to
Paramapadha by the aid of Athivahikas (bearers in transit), known by the names
of Archi-Ahas . . . Aditya, Prajapati, etc. The Archis here mentioned are
certain pure Souls, etc., etc." (Visishtadwaita Catechism, by Pundit
Bhashyacharya, F.T.S.)
No
Spirit except the "Recorders" (Lipika) has ever crossed its forbidden
line, nor will any do so until the day of the next Pralaya, for it is the
boundary that separates the finite -- however infinite in man's sight -- from
the truly INFINITE. The Spirits referred to, therefore, as those who
"ascend and descend" are the "Hosts" of what we loosely
call "celestial Beings." But they are, in fact, nothing of the kind.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These voluntary re-incarnations are referred to in our Doctrine as Nirmanakayas
(the surviving spiritual principles of men).
**
Sukshma-sarira, "dream-like" illusive body, with which are clothed
the inferior Dhyanis of the celestial Hierarchy.
***
Compare this esoteric tenet with the Gnostic doctrine found in
"Pistis-Sophia" (Knowledge = Wisdom), in which treatise Sophia
Achamoth is shown lost in the waters of Chaos (matter), on her way to Supreme
Light, and Christos delivering and helping her on the right Path. Note well,
"Christos" with the Gnostics meant the impersonal principal, the
Atman of the Universe, and the Atma within every man's soul -- not Jesus;
though in the old Coptic MSS. in the British Museum "Christos" is
almost constantly replaced by "Jesus."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 133 THE GOD OF MAN AND THE GOD OF THE ANT.
They
are Entities of the higher worlds in the hierarchy of Being, so immeasurably
high that, to us, they must appear as Gods, and collectively -- GOD. But so we,
mortal men, must appear to the ant, which reasons on the scale of its special
capacities. The ant may also, for all we know, see the avenging finger of a
personal God in the hand of the urchin who, in one moment, under the impulse of
mischief, destroys its anthill, the labour of many weeks -- long years in the
chronology of insects. The ant, feeling it acutely, and attributing the
undeserved calamity to a combination of Providence and sin, may also, like man,
see in it the result of the sin of its first parent. Who knows and who can
affirm or deny? The refusal to admit in the whole Solar system of any other
reasonable and intellectual beings on the human plane, than ourselves, is the
greatest conceit of our age. All that science has a right to affirm, is that
there are no invisible Intelligences living under the same conditions as we do.
It cannot deny point-blank the possibility of there being worlds within worlds,
under totally different conditions to those that constitute the nature of our
world; nor can it deny that there may be a certain limited communication*
between some of those worlds and our own. To the highest, we are taught, belong
the seven orders of the purely divine Spirits; to the six lower ones belong
hierarchies that can occasionally be seen and heard by men, and who do
communicate with their progeny of the Earth; which progeny is indissolubly
linked with them, each principle in man having its direct source in the nature
of those great Beings, who furnish us with the respective invisible elements in
us. Physical Science is welcome to speculate upon the physiological mechanism
of living beings, and to continue her fruitless efforts in trying to resolve
our feelings, our sensations, mental and spiritual, into functions of their
inorganic vehicles. Nevertheless, all that will ever be accomplished in this
direction has already been done, and Science will go no farther.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The greatest philosopher of European birth, Imanuel Kant, assures us that such
a communication is in no way improbable. "I confess I am much disposed to
assert the existence of Immaterial natures in the world, and to place my own
soul in the class of these beings. It will hereafter, I know not where, or
when, yet be proved that the human soul stands even in this life in indissoluble
connection with all immaterial natures in the spirit-world, that it
reciprocally acts upon these and receives impressions from them." (Traume
eines Geistersehers, quoted by C. C. Massey, in his preface to Von Hartmann's
"Spiritismus.")
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[[Vol.
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She
is before a dead wall, on the face of which she traces, as she imagines, great
physiological and psychic discoveries, but every one of which will be shown later
on to be no better than the cobwebs spun by her scientific fancies and
illusions. The tissues of our objective framework alone are subservient to the
analysis and researches of physiological science.* The six higher principles in
them will evade for ever the hand that is guided by an animus that purposely
ignores and rejects the Occult Sciences.
The
"Great Day of BE-WITH-US," then, is an expression the only merit of
which lies in its literal translation. Its significance is not so easily
revealed to a public, unacquainted with the mystic tenets of Occultism, or
rather of Esoteric Wisdom or "Budhism." It is an expression peculiar
to the latter, and as hazy for the profane as that of the Egyptians who called
the same the "Day of COME-TO-US,"** which
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
E.g., all that modern physiological research in connection with psychological
problems has, and owing to the nature of things, could have shown, is, that
every thought, sensation, and emotion is attended with a re-marshalling of the
molecules of certain nerves. The inference drawn by scientists of the type of
Buchner, Vogt, and others, that thought is molecular motion, necessitates a
complete abstraction being made of the fact of our subjective consciousness.
**
See "Le Livre des Morts," by Paul Pierret; "Le Jour de 'Viens a
nous' . . . c'est le jour ou Osiris a dit au Soleil: Viens! Je le vois
rencontrant le Soleil dans l'Amenti." (Chap. xvii., p. 61.) The Sun here
stands for the Logos (or Christos, or Horus) as central Essence synthetically,
and as a diffused essence of radiated Entities, different in substance, but not
in essence. As expressed by the Bhagavadgita lecturer, "it must not be
supposed that the Logos is but a single centre of energy manifested from
Parabrahmam; there are innumerable other centres . . . and their number is
almost infinite in the bosom of Parabrahmam." Hence the expressions,
"The Day of Come to us" and "The Day of Be with us," etc.
Just as the square is the Symbol of the Four sacred Forces or Powers --
Tetraktis -- so the Circle shows the boundary within the Infinity that no man
can cross, even in spirit, nor Deva nor Dhyan Chohan. The Spirits of those who
"descend and ascend" during the course of cyclic evolution shall
cross the "iron-bound world" only on the day of their approach to the
threshold of Paranirvana. If they reach it -- they will rest in the bosom of
Parabrahmam, or the "Unknown Darkness," which shall then become for
all of them Light -- during the whole period of Mahapralaya, the "Great
NIGHT," namely, 311,040,000,000,000 years of absorption in Brahm. The day
of "Be-With-Us" is this period of rest or Paranirvana. See also for
other data on this peculiar expression, the day of "Come-To-Us," The
Funerary Ritual of the Egyptians, by Viscount de Rouge. It corresponds to the
Day of the Last Judgment of the Christians, which has been sorely materialised
by their religion.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
identical with the former, though the verb "be" in this sense, might
be still better replaced with either of the two words "Remain" or
"Rest-with-us," as it refers to that long period of REST which is
called Paranirvana. As in the exoteric interpretation of the Egyptian rites the
soul of every defunct person -- from the Hierophant down to the sacred bull
Apis -- became an Osiris, was Osirified, though the Secret Doctrine had always
taught, that the real Osirification was the lot of every Monad only after 3,000
cycles of Existences; so in the present case. The "Monad," born of
the nature and the very Essence of the "Seven" (its highest principle
becoming immediately enshrined in the Seventh Cosmic Element), has to perform its
septenary gyration throughout the Cycle of Being and forms, from the highest to
the lowest; and then again from man to God. At the threshold of Paranirvana it
reassumes its primeval Essence and becomes the Absolute once more.
---------------------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
VI.
1.
BY THE POWER OF THE MOTHER OF MERCY AND KNOWLEDGE (a), KWAN-YIN,* THE
"TRIPLE" OF KWAN-SHAI-YIN, RESIDING IN KWAN-YIN-TIEN (b), FOHAT, THE
BREATH OF THEIR PROGENY, THE SON OF THE SONS, HAVING CALLED FORTH FROM THE
LOWER ABYSS (chaos) THE ILLUSIVE FORM OF SIEN-TCHAN (our Universe) AND THE
SEVEN ELEMENTS:--
(a.)
The Mother of Mercy and Knowledge is called "the triple" of
Kwan-Shai-Yin because in her correlations, metaphysical and cosmical, she is
the "Mother, the Wife and the Daughter" of the Logos, just as in the
later theological translations she became "the Father, Son and (the
female) Holy Ghost" -- the Sakti or Energy -- the Essence of the three.
Thus in the Esotericism of the Vedantins, Daiviprakriti, the Light manifested
through Eswara, the Logos,** is at one and the same time the Mother and also
the Daughter of the Logos or Verbum of Parabrahmam; while in that of the
trans-Himalayan teachings it is -- in the hierarchy of allegorical and
metaphysical theogony -- "the MOTHER" or abstract, ideal matter,
Mulaprakriti, the Root of Nature; -- from the metaphysical standpoint, a
correlation of Adi-Bhuta, manifested in the Logos, Avalokiteshwara; -- and from
the purely occult and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This stanza is translated from the Chinese text, and the names, as the
equivalents of the original terms, are preserved. The real esoteric nomenclature
cannot be given, as it would only confuse the reader. The Brahmanical doctrine
has no equivalent to these. Vach seems, in many an aspect, to approach the
Chinese Kwan-yin, but there is no regular worship of Vach under this name in
India, as there is of Kwan-Yin in China. No exoteric religious system has ever
adopted a female Creator, and thus woman was regarded and treated, from the
first dawn of popular religions, as inferior to man. It is only in China and
Egypt that Kwan-Yin and Isis were placed on a par with the male gods.
Esotericism ignores both sexes. Its highest Deity is sexless as it is formless,
neither Father nor Mother; and its first manifested beings, celestial and
terrestrial alike, become only gradually androgynous and finally separate into
distinct sexes.
**
The "Theosophist" of February, 1887, p. 305, first lecture on the
Bhagavadgita.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Cosmical,
Fohat,* the "Son of the Son," the androgynous energy resulting from
this "Light of the Logos," and which manifests in the plane of the
objective Universe as the hidden, as much as the revealed, Electricity -- which
is LIFE.
(b)
Kwan-Yin-Tien means the "melodious heaven of Sound," the abode of
Kwan-Yin, or the "Divine Voice" literally. This "Voice" is
a synonym of the Verbum or the Word: "Speech," as the expression of
thought. Thus may be traced the connection with, and even the origin of the
Hebrew Bath-Kol, the "daughter of the Divine Voice," or Verbum, or
the male and female Logos, the "Heavenly Man" or Adam Kadmon, who is
at the same time Sephira. The latter was surely anticipated by the Hindu Vach,
the goddess of Speech, or of the Word. For Vach -- the daughter and the female
portion, as is stated, of Brahma, one "generated by the gods" -- is,
in company with Kwan-Yin, with Isis (also the daughter, wife and sister of
Osiris) and other goddesses, the female Logos, so to speak, the goddess of the
active forces in Nature, the Word, Voice or Sound, and Speech. If Kwan-Yin is
the "melodious Voice," so is Vach; "the melodious cow who milked
forth sustenance and water" (the female principle) -- "who yields us
nourishment and sustenance," as Mother-Nature. She is associated in the
work of creation with the Prajapati. She is male and female ad libitum, as Eve
is with Adam. And she is a form of Aditi -- the principle higher than Ether --
in Akasa, the synthesis of all the forces in Nature; thus Vach and Kwan-Yin are
both the magic potency of Occult sound in Nature and Ether -- which
"Voice" calls forth Sien-Tchan, the illusive form of the Universe out
of Chaos and the Seven Elements.
Thus
in Manu Brahma (the Logos also) is shown dividing his body into two parts, male
and female, and creating in the latter, who is Vach, Viraj, who is himself, or
Brahma again -- it is in this way a learned Vedantin Occultist speaks of that
"goddess," explaining the reason why Eswara (or Brahma) is called
Verbum or Logos; why in fact it is called Sabda Brahmam:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says the lecturer on p. 306: "Evolution is commenced by the intellectual
energy of the Logos, not merely on account of the potentialities locked up in
Mulaprakriti. This light of the Logos is the link . . . between objective
matter and the subjective thought of Eswara (or Logos). It is called in several
Buddhist books Fohat. It is the one instrument with which the Logos
works."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"The
explanation I am going to give you will appear thoroughly mystical; but if
mystical, it has a tremendous significance when properly understood. Our old
writers said that Vach is of four kinds (see Rig Veda and the Upanishads).
Vaikhari-Vach is what we utter. Every kind of Vaikhari-Vach exists in its
Madhyama, further in its Pasyanti, and ultimately in its Para form.* The reason
why this Pranava is called Vach is this, that the four principles of the great
Kosmos correspond to these four forms of Vach. Now the whole manifested solar
System exists in its Sukshma form in the light or energy of the Logos, because
its energy is caught up and transferred to Cosmic matter. . . . The whole
Kosmos in its objective form is Vaikhari-Vach, the light of the Logos is the
Madhyama form, and the Logos itself the Pasyanti form, and Parabrahm the Para
form or aspect of that Vach. It is by the light of this explanation that we
must try to understand certain statements made by various philosophers to the
effect that the manifested Kosmos is the Verbum manifested as Kosmos" (see
Lecture on the Bhagavadgita, referred to above).
-------
STANZA
VI. -- (Continued.)
2.
THE SWIFT AND THE RADIANT ONE PRODUCES THE SEVEN Layu** (a) CENTRES, AGAINST
WHICH NONE WILL PREVAIL TO THE GREAT DAY "BE WITH US" -- AND SEATS
THE UNIVERSE ON THESE ETERNAL FOUNDATIONS, SURROUNDING SIEN-TCHAN WITH THE
ELEMENTARY GERMS (b).
(a.)
The seven Layu centres are the seven Zero points, using the term Zero in the
same sense that Chemists do, to indicate a point at which, in Esotericism, the
scale of reckoning of differentiation begins. From the Centres -- beyond which
Esoteric philosophy allows us to perceive the dim metaphysical outlines of the
"Seven Sons" of Life and Light, the Seven Logoi of the Hermetic and
all other philosophers -- begins
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Madhya is said of something whose commencement and end are unknown, and Para
means infinite. These expressions all relate to infinitude and to division of
time.
**
From the Sanskrit Laya, the point of matter where every differentiation has
ceased.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
differentiation of the elements which enter into the constitution of our Solar
System. It has often been asked what was the exact definition of Fohat and his
powers and functions, as he seems to exercise those of a Personal God as
understood in the popular religions. The answer has just been given in the
comment on Stanza V. As well said in the Bhagavadgita Lectures, "The whole
Kosmos must necessarily exist in the One Source of energy from which this light
(Fohat) emanates." Whether we count the principles in Kosmos and man as
seven or only as four, the forces of, and in, physical Nature are Seven; and it
is stated by the same authority that "Pragna, or the capacity of
perception, exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the seven
conditions of matter" (Personal and impersonal God). For, "just as a
human being is composed of seven principles, differentiated matter in the Solar
System exists in seven different conditions" (ibid). So does Fohat.* He is
One and Seven, and on the Cosmic plane is behind all such manifestations as
light, heat, sound, adhesion, etc., etc., and is the "spirit" of
ELECTRICITY, which is the LIFE of the Universe. As an abstraction, we call it
the ONE LIFE; as an objective and evident Reality, we speak of a septenary
scale of manifestation, which begins at the upper rung with the One Unknowable
CAUSALITY, and ends as Omnipresent Mind and Life immanent in every atom of
Matter. Thus, while science speaks of its evolution through brute matter, blind
force, and senseless motion, the Occultists point to intelligent LAW and
sentient LIFE, and add that Fohat is the guiding Spirit of all this. Yet he is
no personal god at all, but the emanation of those other Powers behind him whom
the Christians call the "Messengers" of their God (who is in reality
only the Elohim, or rather one of the Seven Creators called Elohim), and we,
the "Messenger of the primordial Sons of Life and Light."
(b.)
The "Elementary Germs" with which he fills Sien-Tchan (the
"Universe") from Tien-Sin (the "Heaven of Mind," literally,
or that which is absolute) are the Atoms of Science and the Monads of Leibnitz.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Fohat" has several meanings. (See Stanza V., Commentary et infra).
He is called the "Builder of the Builders," the Force that he
personifies having formed our Septenary chain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
3.
OF THE SEVEN (elements) -- FIRST ONE MANIFESTED, SIX CONCEALED; TWO MANIFESTED
-- FIVE CONCEALED; THREE MANIFESTED -- FOUR CONCEALED; FOUR PRODUCED -- THREE
HIDDEN; FOUR AND ONE TSAN (fraction) REVEALED -- TWO AND ONE HALF CONCEALED;
SIX TO BE MANIFESTED -- ONE LAID ASIDE (a). LASTLY, SEVEN SMALL WHEELS
REVOLVING; ONE GIVING BIRTH TO THE OTHER (b).
(a.)
Although these Stanzas refer to the whole Universe after a Mahapralaya
(universal destruction), yet this sentence, as any student of Occultism may
see, refers also by analogy to the evolution and final formation of the
primitive (though compound) Seven Elements on our Earth. Of these, four
elements are now fully manifested, while the fifth -- Ether -- is only
partially so, as we are hardly in the second half of the Fourth Round, and
consequently the fifth Element will manifest fully only in the Fifth Round. The
Worlds, including our own, were of course, as germs, primarily evolved from the
ONE Element in its second stage ("Father-Mother," the differentiated
World's Soul, not what is termed the "Over-Soul" by Emerson), whether
we call it, with modern Science, Cosmic dust and Fire Mist, or with Occultism --
Akasa, Jivatma, divine Astral Light, or the "Soul of the World." But
this first stage of Evolution was in due course of time followed by the next.
No world, as no heavenly body, could be constructed on the objective plane, had
not the Elements been sufficiently differentiated already from their primeval
Ilus, resting in Laya. The latter term is a synonym of Nirvana. It is, in fact,
the Nirvanic dissociation of all substances, merged after a life-cycle into the
latency of their primary conditions. It is the luminous but bodiless shadow of
the matter that was, the realm of negativeness -- wherein lie latent during
their period of rest the active Forces of the Universe. Now, speaking of
Elements, it is made the standing reproach of the Ancients, that they "supposed
their Elements simple and undecomposable."* Once more this is an
unwarrantable state-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The shades of our pre-historical ancestors might return the compliment to
modern physicists, now that new discoveries in chemistry have led Mr. Crookes,
F.R.S., to admit that Science is yet a thousand leagues from the knowledge of
the compound nature of the simplest molecule. From him we learn that such a
thing as a really simple [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ment;
as, at any rate, their initiated philosophers can hardly come under such an imputation,
since it is they who have invented allegories and religious myths from the
beginning. Had they been ignorant of the Heterogeneity of their Elements they
would have had no personifications of Fire, Air, Water, Earth, and AEther;
their Cosmic gods and goddesses would never have been blessed with such
posterity, with so many sons and daughters, elements born from and within each
respective Element. Alchemy and occult phenomena would have been a delusion and
a snare, even in theory, had the Ancients been ignorant of the potentialities
and correlative functions and attributes of every element that enters into the
composition of Air, Water, Earth, and even Fire -- the latter a terra incognita
to this day to modern Science, which is obliged to call it Motion, evolution of
light and heat, state of ignition, -- defining it by its outward aspects in
short, and remaining ignorant of its nature. But that which
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] molecule entirely homogeneous is terra incognita
in chemistry. "Where are we to draw the line?" he asks; "is
there no way out of this perplexity? Must we either make the elementary
examinations so stiff that only 60 or 70 candidates can pass, or must we open
the examination doors so wide that the number of admissions is limited only by
the number of applicants?" And then the learned gentleman gives striking
instances. He says: "Take the case of yttrium. It has its definite atomic
weight, it behaved in every respect as a simple body, an element, to which we
might indeed add, but from which we could not take away. Yet this yttrium, this
supposed homogeneous whole, on being submitted to a certain method of
fractionation, is resolved into portions not absolutely identical among
themselves, and exhibiting a gradation of properties. Or take the case of
didymium. Here was a body betraying all the recognised characters of an
element. It had been separated with much difficulty from other bodies which
approximated closely to it in their properties, and during this crucial process
it had undergone very severe treatment and very close scrutiny. But then came
another chemist, who, treating this assumed homogeneous body by a peculiar
process of fractionation, resolved it into the two bodies praseodymium and
neodymium, between which certain distinctions are perceptible. Further, we even
now have no certainty that neodymium and praseodymium are simple bodies. On the
contrary, they likewise exhibit symptoms of splitting up. Now, if one supposed
element on proper treatment is thus found to comprise dissimilar molecules, we
are surely warranted in asking whether similar results might not be obtained in
other elements, perhaps in all elements, if treated in the right way. We may
even ask where the process of sorting-out is to stop -- a process which of
course pre-supposes variations between the individual molecules of each
species. And in these successive separations we naturally find bodies
approaching more and more closely to each other." (Presidential address
before the Royal Society of Chemists, March, 1888.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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modern
Science seems to fail to perceive is that, differentiated as may have been
those simple chemical atoms -- which archaic philosophy called "the
creators of their respective Parents," fathers, brothers, husbands of
their mothers, and those mothers the daughters of their own sons, like Aditi
and Daksha, for example -- differentiated as these elements were in the
beginning, still, they were not the compound bodies known to science, as they
are now. Neither Water, Air, Earth (synonym for solids generally) existed in
their present form, representing the three states of matter alone recognised by
Science; for all these are the productions already recombined by the
atmospheres of globes completely formed -- even to fire -- so that in the first
periods of the earth's formation they were something quite sui generis. Now
that the conditions and laws ruling our solar system are fully developed; and
that the atmosphere of our earth, as of every other globe, has become, so to
say, a crucible of its own, Occult Science teaches that there is a perpetual
exchange taking place in space of molecules, or of atoms rather, correlating,
and thus changing their combining equivalents on every planet. Some men of
Science, and those among the greatest physicists and chemists, begin to suspect
this fact, which has been known for ages to the Occultists. The spectroscope
only shows the probable similarity (on external evidence) of terrestrial and
sidereal substance; it is unable to go any farther, or to show whether atoms
gravitate towards one another in the same way and under the same conditions as
they are supposed to do on our planet, physically and chemically. The scale of
temperature, from the highest degree to the lowest that can be conceived of,
may be imagined to be one and the same in and for the whole Universe; nevertheless,
its properties, other than those of dissociation and reassociation, differ on
every planet; and thus atoms enter into new forms of existence, undreamt of,
and incognizable to, physical Science. As already expressed in "Five Years
of Theosophy," the essence of Cometary matter, for instance, "is
totally different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with
which the greatest chemists and physicists of the earth are acquainted"
(p. 242). And even that matter, during rapid passage through our atmosphere,
undergoes a certain change in its nature. Thus not alone the elements of our
planets, but even those of all its sisters in the Solar System, differ as
widely from each other in their combinations, as from the Cosmic elements
beyond our
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Solar
limits.* Therefore, they cannot be taken as a standard for comparison with the
same in other worlds.** Enshrined in their virgin, pristine 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 the efflux, are scattered by
Fohat, and driven toward and 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 term
implies); when it may be carried once more to the borderland where it had
perished, and taking its flight, not into Space above but into Space within, it
will be brought under a state of differential equilibrium and happily
re-absorbed. Were a truly learned Occultist-alchemist to write the "Life
and Adventures of an Atom" he would secure thereby the eternal scorn of the
modern chemist, perchance also his subsequent
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is again corroborated by the same man of science in the same lecture, who
quotes Clerk Maxwell, saying "that the elements are not absolutely homogeneous."
He writes: "It is difficult to conceive of selection and elimination of
intermediate varieties, for where can these eliminated molecules have gone to,
if, as we have reason to believe, the hydrogen, &c. of the fixed stars is
composed of molecules identical in all respects with our own." And he
adds: "In the first place we may call in question this absolute molecular
identity, since we have hitherto had no means for coming to a conclusion save
the means furnished by the spectroscope, while it is admitted that, for
accurately comparing and discriminating the spectra of two bodies, they should
be examined under identical states of temperature, pressure, and all other
physical conditions. We have certainly seen, in the spectrum of the sun, rays
which we have not been able to identify."
**
"Each world has its Fohat, who is omnipresent in his own sphere of action.
But there are as many Fohats as there are worlds, each varying in power and
degree of manifestations. The individual Fohats make one Universal, Collective
Fohat -- the aspect-Entity of the one absolute Non-Entity, which is absolute
Be-Ness, 'SAT.' "Millions and billions of worlds are produced at every
Manvantara" -- it is said. Therefore there must be many Fohats, whom we
consider as conscious and intelligent Forces. This, no doubt, to the disgust of
scientific minds. Nevertheless the Occultists, who have good reasons for it,
consider all the forces of Nature as veritable, though supersensuous, states of
Matter; and as possible objects of perception to Beings endowed with the
requisite senses.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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gratitude.*
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 being the mouth, and the lower one the lungs of every
globe -- the man of our planet breathes only the refuse of "Mother";
therefore, "he is doomed to die on it."**
(b)
The process referred to as "the small wheels giving birth, one 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 (see Commentary
Nos. 5 and 6). By "Wheels" the various spheres and centres of forces
are generally meant; but in this case they refer to our septenary ring.
-------
STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
4.
HE BUILDS THEM IN THE LIKENESS OF OLDER WHEELS (worlds), 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, 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.***
(a)
The Worlds are built "in the likeness of older Wheels" -- i.e., those
that existed in preceding Manvantaras and went into Pralaya,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
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.
**
He who would allotropise 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.
***
A period of 311,040,000,000,000 years, according to Brahminical calculations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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because
the LAW for the birth, growth, and decay of everything in Kosmos, from the Sun
to the glow-worm in the grass, is ONE. It is an everlasting work of perfection
with every new appearance, but the Substance-Matter and Forces are all one and
the same. But this LAW acts on every planet through minor and varying laws. The
"imperishable Laya Centres" have a great importance, and their
meaning must be fully understood if we would have a clear conception of the
Archaic Cosmogony, whose theories have now passed into Occultism. At present,
one thing may be stated. The worlds are built neither upon, nor over, nor in
the Laya centres, the zero-point being a condition, not any mathematical point.
(b)
Bear in mind that Fohat, the constructive Force of Cosmic Electricity, is said,
metaphorically, to have sprung like Rudra from Brahma "from the brain of
the Father and the bosom of the Mother," and then to have metamorphosed
himself into a male and a female, i.e., polarity, into positive and negative
electricity. He has seven sons who are his brothers; and Fohat is forced to be
born time after time whenever any two of his son-brothers indulge in too close
contact -- whether an embrace or a fight. To avoid this, he binds together and
unites those of unlike nature and separates those of similar temperaments.
This, of course, relates, as any one can see, to electricity generated by
friction and to the law involving attraction between two objects of unlike, and
repulsion between those of like polarity. The Seven "Sons-brothers," however,
represent and personify the seven forms of Cosmic magnetism called in practical
Occultism the "Seven Radicals," whose co-operative and active progeny
are, among other energies, Electricity, Magnetism, Sound, Light, Heat,
Cohesion, etc. Occult Science defines all these as Super-sensuous effects in
their hidden behaviour, and as objective phenomena in the world of senses; the
former requiring abnormal faculties to perceive them -- the latter, our
ordinary physical senses. They all pertain to, and are the emanations of, still
more supersensuous spiritual qualities, not personated by, but belonging to,
real and conscious CAUSES. To attempt a description of such ENTITIES would be
worse than useless. The reader must bear in mind that, according to our
teaching which regards this phenomenal Universe as a great Illusion, the nearer
a body is to the UNKNOWN SUBSTANCE, the more it approaches reality, as being
removed the farther
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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from
this world of Maya. Therefore, though the molecular constitution of their
bodies is not deducible from their manifestations on this plane of
consciousness, they nevertheless (from the standpoint of the adept Occultist)
possess a distinctive objective if not material structure, in the relatively
noumenal -- as opposed to the phenomenal -- Universe. Men of science may term
them Force or Forces generated by matter, or "modes of its motion,"
if they will; Occultism sees in the effects "Elemental" (forces),
and, in the direct causes producing them, intelligent DIVINE Workmen. The
intimate connection of those Elementals (guided by the unerring hand of the
Rulers) -- their correlation we might call it -- with the elements of pure
Matter, results in our terrestrial phenomena, such as light, heat, magnetism,
etc., etc. Of course we shall never agree with the American Substantialists*
who call every Force and Energy -- whether Light, Heat, Electricity or Cohesion
-- an "Entity"; for this would be equivalent to calling the noise
produced by the rolling of the wheels of a vehicle an Entity -- thus confusing
and identifying that "noise" with the driver outside, and the guiding
Master Intelligence within the vehicle. But we certainly give that name to the
"drivers" and to these guiding Intelligences -- the ruling Dhyan
Chohans, as shown. The "Elementals," the Nature-Forces, are the
acting, though invisible, or rather imperceptible, secondary Causes and in
themselves the effects of primary Causes behind the Veil of all terrestrial
phenomena. Electricity, light, heat, etc., have been aptly termed the
"Ghost or Shadow of Matter in Motion," i.e., supersensuous states of
matter whose effects only we are able to cognize. To expand, then, the simile
given above. The sensation of light is like the sound of the rolling wheels --
a purely phenomenal effect, having no existence outside the observer; the
proximate exciting cause of the sensation is comparable to the driver -- a
supersensuous state of matter in motion, a Nature-Force or Elemental. But,
behind even this, stand -- just as the owner of the carriage directs the driver
from within -- the higher and noumenal causes, the Intelligences from whose
essence radiate these States of "Mother," generating the countless
milliards of Elementals or psychic Nature-Spirits, just as every drop of water
generates its physical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Scientific Arena," a monthly Journal devoted to current philosophical
teaching and its bearing upon the religious thought of the Age. New York: A.
Wilford Hall, Ph.D., LL.D., Editor. (1886, July, August, and September.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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infinitesimal
Infusoria. (See "Gods, Monads, and Atoms," in Part III.) It is Fohat
who guides the transfer of the principles from one planet to the other, from
one star to another -- child-star. When a planet dies, its informing principles
are transferred to a laya or sleeping centre, with potential but latent energy
in it, which is thus awakened into life and begins to form itself into a new
sidereal body. (Vide infra, "A Few Theosophical Misconceptions, etc.")
It
is most remarkable that, while honestly confessing their entire ignorance of
the true Nature of even terrestrial matter -- primordial substance being
regarded more as a dream than as a sober reality -- the physicists should set
themselves up as judges, nevertheless, of that matter, and claim to know what
it is able and is not able to do, in various combinations. Scientists know it
(matter) hardly skin-deep, and yet they will dogmatise. It is "a mode of
motion" and nothing else. But the force that is inherent in a living
person's breath, when blowing a speck of dust from the table, is also, and
undeniably, "a mode of motion"; and it is as undeniably not a quality
of the matter, or the particles of that speck, and it emanates from the living
and thinking Entity that breathed, whether the impulse originated consciously
or unconsciously. Indeed, to endow matter -- something of which nothing is
known so far -- with an inherent quality called Force, of the nature of which
still less is known, is to create a far more serious difficulty than that which
lies in the acceptation of the intervention of our "Nature-Spirits"
in every natural phenomenon.
The
Occultists, who do not say -- if they would express themselves correctly --
that matter, but only the substance or essence of matter, is indestructible and
eternal, (i.e., the Root of all, Mulaprakriti): assert that all the so-called
Forces of Nature, Electricity, Magnetism, Light, Heat, etc., etc., far from
being modes of motion of material particles, are in esse, i.e., in their
ultimate constitution, the differentiated aspects of that Universal Motion
which is discussed and explained in the first pages of this volume (See Proem).
When Fohat is said to produce "Seven Laya Centres," it means that for
formative or creative purposes, the GREAT LAW (Theists may call it God) stops,
or rather modifies its perpetual motion on seven invisible points within the
area of the manifested Universe. "The great Breath digs through Space
seven holes into Laya to cause them to circumgyrate during Manvantara"
(Occult Catechism). We
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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have
said that Laya is what Science may call the Zero-point or line; the realm of
absolute negativeness, or the one real absolute Force, the NOUMENON of the
Seventh State of that which we ignorantly call and recognise as
"Force"; or again the Noumenon of Undifferentiated Cosmic Substance
which is itself an unreachable and unknowable object to finite perception; the
root and basis of all states of objectivity and subjectivity too; the neutral
axis, not one of the many aspects, but its centre. It may serve to elucidate
the meaning if we attempt to imagine a neutral centre -- the dream of those who
would discover perpetual motion. A "neutral centre" is, in one
aspect, the limiting point of any given set of senses. Thus, imagine two
consecutive planes of matter as already formed; each of these corresponding to
an appropriate set of perceptive organs. We are forced to admit that between
these two planes of matter an incessant circulation takes place; and if we
follow the atoms and molecules of (say) the lower in their transformation
upwards, these will come to a point where they pass altogether beyond the range
of the faculties we are using on the lower plane. In fact, to us the matter of
the lower plane there vanishes from our perception into nothing -- or rather it
passes on to the higher plane, and the state of matter corresponding to such a
point of transition must certainly possess special and not readily discoverable
properties. Such "Seven Neutral Centres,"* then, are produced by
Fohat, who, when, as Milton has it --
"Fair
foundations (are) laid whereon to build . . ."
quickens
matter into activity and evolution.
The
Primordial Atom (anu) cannot be multiplied either in its pregenetic state, or
its primogeneity; therefore it is called "SUM TOTAL," figuratively,
of course, as that "SUM TOTAL" is boundless. (See Addendum to this
Book.) That which is the abyss of nothingness to the physicist, who knows only
the world of visible causes and effects, is the boundless Space of the Divine
Plenum to the Occultist. Among many other objections to the doctrine of an
endless evolution and re-involution (or re-absorption) of the Kosmos, a process
which, according to the Brahminical and Esoteric Doctrine, is without a
beginning or an end, the Occultist is told that it cannot be, since "by
all the admissions of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Such, we believe, is the name applied by Mr. Keely, of Philadelphia, the
inventor of the famous "Motor" -- destined, as his admirers have
hoped, to revolutionise the motor power of the world -- to what he again calls
the "Etheric Centres."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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modern
scientific philosophy it is a necessity of Nature to run down." If the
tendency of Nature "to run down" is to be considered so forcible an
objection to Occult Cosmogony, "How," we may ask, "do your
Positivists and Free-thinkers and Scientists account for the phalanx around us
of active stellar systems?" They had eternity to "run down" in;
why, then, is not the Kosmos a huge inert mass? Even the moon is only
hypothetically believed to be a dead planet, "run down," and
astronomy does not seem to be acquainted with many such dead planets.* The
query is unanswerable. But apart from this it must be noted that the idea of the
amount of "transformable energy" in our little system coming to an
end is based purely on the fallacious conception of a "white-hot,
incandescent Sun" perpetually radiating away his heat without compensation
into Space. To this we reply that nature runs down and disappears from the
objective plane, only to re-emerge after a time of rest out of the subjective
and to reascend once more. Our Kosmos and Nature will run down only to reappear
on a more perfect plane after every PRALAYA. The matter of the Eastern
philosophers is not the "matter" and Nature of the Western
metaphysicians. For what is Matter? And above all, what is our scientific
philosophy but that which was so justly and so politely defined by Kant as
"the Science of the limits to our Knowledge"? Where have the many
attempts made by Science to bind, to connect, and define all the phenomena of
organic life by mere physical and chemical manifestations, brought it to? To
speculation generally -- mere soap-bubbles, that burst one after the other before
the men of Science were permitted to discover real facts. All this would have
been avoided, and the progress of knowledge would have proceeded with gigantic
strides, had only Science and its philosophy abstained from accepting
hypotheses on the mere one-sided Knowledge of their Matter.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The moon is dead only so far as regards her inner "principles" --
i.e., psychically and spiritually, however absurd the statement may seem.
Physically, she is only as a semi-paralysed body may be. She is aptly referred
to in Occultism as the "insane mother," the great sidereal lunatic.
**
The instance of Uranus and Neptune, whose satellites, four and one
respectively, revolved, it was thought, in their orbits from East to West,
whereas all the other satellites rotate from West to East, is a very good one,
as showing how unreliable are all a priori speculations even when based on the
strictest mathematical analysis. The famous hypothesis of the formation of our
Solar System out of the nebulous rings, put [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 150 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
If
no physical intellect is capable of counting the grains of sand covering a few
miles of sea-shore; or to fathom the ultimate nature and essence of those
grains, palpable and visible on the palm of the naturalist, how can any
materialist limit the laws changing the conditions and being of the atoms in primordial
chaos, or know anything certain about the capabilities and potency of their
atoms and molecules before and after their formation into worlds? These
changeless and eternal molecules -- far thicker in space than the grains on the
ocean shore -- may differ in their constitution along the line of their planes
of existence, as the soul-substance differs from its vehicle, the body. Each
atom has seven planes of being or existence, we are taught; and each plane is
governed by its specific laws of evolution and absorption. Ignorant of any,
even approximate, chronological data from which to start in attempting to
decide the age of our planet or the origin of the solar system, astronomers,
geologists, and physicists are drifting with each new hypothesis farther and
farther away from the shores of fact into the fathomless depths of speculative
ontology.* The Law of Analogy in the plan of structure between the trans-Solar
systems and the intra-Solar planets, does not necessarily bear upon the finite
conditions to which every visible body is subject, in this our plane of being.
In Occult Science this law is the first and most important key to Cosmic
physics; but it has to be studied in its minutest details and, "to be
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] forward by Kant and Laplace, was chiefly based
on the above fact that all the planets revolved in the same direction. It is on
this fact, mathematically demonstrated during the time of Laplace, that this
great astronomer, calculating on the theory of probabilities, offered to bet
three milliards to one that the next planet discovered would have in its system
the same peculiarity of motion Eastward. The immutable laws of scientific
mathematics got "worsted by further experiments and observations," it
was said. This idea of Laplace's mistake prevails generally to this day; but
some astronomers have finally succeeded in demonstrating (?) that the mistake
had been in accepting Laplace's assertion for a mistake; and steps to correct
it without attracting general attention to the bevue are now being taken. Many
such unpleasant surprises are in store for hypotheses of even a purely physical
character. What further disillusions, then, may there not be in questions of a
transcendental, Occult Nature? At any rate, Occultism teaches that the
so-called "reverse rotation" is a fact.
*
The Occultists, having most perfect faith in their own exact records,
astronomical and mathematical, calculate the age of Humanity, and assert that
the latter (as separate sexes) has existed in this Round just 18,618,727 years,
as the Brahmanical teachings and even some Hindu calendars declare.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 151 NATURE CAN NEVER CEASE.
turned
seven times," before one comes to understand it. Occult philosophy is the
only science that can teach it. How, then, can anyone hang the truth or the
untruth of the Occultist's proposition that "the Kosmos is eternal in its
unconditioned collectivity, and finite but in its conditioned
manifestations" on this one-sided physical enunciation that "it is a
necessity of Nature to run down?"
---------------------
With
these verses -- the 4th Sloka of Stanza VI. -- ends that portion of the Stanzas
which relates to the Universal Cosmogony after the last Mahapralaya or
Universal destruction, which, when it comes, sweeps out of Space every
differentiated thing, Gods as atoms, like so many dry leaves. From this verse
onwards, the Stanzas are concerned only with our Solar System in general, with
the planetary chains therein, inferentially, and with the history of our globe
(the 4th and its chain) especially. All the Stanzas and verses which follow in
this Book I. refer only to the evolution of, and on, our Earth. With regard to
the latter, a strange tenet -- strange from the modern scientific stand-point
only, of course -- is held, which ought to be made known.
But
before entirely new and rather startling theories are presented to the reader,
they must be prefaced by a few words of explanation. This is absolutely
necessary, as these theories clash not only with modern science, but
contradict, on certain points, earlier statements made by other Theosophists,
who claim to base their explanations and renderings of these teachings on the
same authority as we do.*
This
may give rise to the idea that there is a decided contradiction between the
expounders of the same doctrine; whereas the difference, in reality, arises
from the incompleteness of the information given to earlier writers, who thus
drew some erroneous conclusions and indulged in premature speculations, in
their endeavour to present a complete system to the public. Thus the reader,
who is already a student of Theosophy, must not be surprised to find in these
pages the rectification of certain statements made in various Theosophical
works, and also the explanation of certain points which have remained obscure,
because they were necessarily left incomplete. Many are the questions upon
which even the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" (the best and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Esoteric Buddhism" and "Man."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
most
accurate of all such works) has not touched. On the other hand, even he has
introduced several mistaken notions which must now be presented in their true
mystic light, as far as the present writer is capable of doing so.
Let
us then make a short break between the Slokas just explained and those which
follow, for the Cosmic periods which separate them are of immense duration.
This will afford us ample time to take a bird's eye view of some points
pertaining to the Secret Doctrine, which have been presented to the public
under a more or less uncertain and sometimes mistaken light.
-------
A
FEW EARLY THEOSOPHICAL MISCONCEPTIONS CONCERNING PLANETS, ROUNDS, AND MAN.
Among
the eleven Stanzas omitted* there is one which gives a full description of the
formation of the planetary chains one after another, after the first Cosmic and
Atomic differentiation had commenced in the primitive Acosmism. It is idle to
speak of "laws arising when Deity prepares to create" for (a) laws or
rather LAW is eternal and uncreated; and (b) that Deity is Law, and vice versa.
Moreover, the one eternal LAW unfolds everything in the (to be) manifested
Nature on a sevenfold principle; among the rest, the countless circular chains
of worlds, composed of seven globes, graduated on the four lower planes of the
world of formation (the three others belonging to the Archetypal Universe). Out
of these seven only one, the lowest and the most material of those globes, is
within our plane or means of perception, the six others lying outside of it and
being therefore invisible to the terrestrial eye. Every such chain of worlds is
the progeny and creation of another, lower, and dead chain -- its
reincarnation, so to say. To make it clearer: we are told of the planets -- of
which seven only were held as sacred, as being ruled by the highest regents or
gods, and not at all because the ancients knew nothing of the others** -- that
each of these, whether known or unknown, is a septenary, as is the chain to
which the Earth belongs (see "Esoteric
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the note which follows the Commentary on the preceding page, and also the
summary of the Stanzas in the Proem, page 22.
**
Many more planets are enumerated in the Secret Books than in modern
astronomical works.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 153 DESCENDING AND RE-ASCENDING STATES.
Buddhism").
For instance, all such planets as Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, etc.,
etc., or our Earth, are as visible to us as our globe, probably, is to the
inhabitants of the other planets, if any, because they are all on the same
plane; while the superior fellow-globes of these planets are on other planes
quite outside that of our terrestrial senses. As their relative position is
given further on, and also in the diagram appended to the Comments on Verse 7
of Stanza VI., a few words of explanation is all that is needed at present.
These invisible companions correspond curiously to that which we call "the
principles in Man." The seven are on three material planes and one
spiritual plane, answering to the three Upadhis (material bases) and one spiritual
vehicle (Vahan) of our seven principles in the human division. If, for the sake
of a clearer mental conception, we imagine the human principles to be arranged
as in the following scheme, we shall obtain the annexed diagram of
correspondences:--
HUMAN
PRINCIPLES.
(1)
Spirit*
(2)
Soul
Vehicle
of Spirit
(3)
Mind
(4)
Animal Soul
Upadhi
of Mind
(5)
Life
(6)
Astral Body
Upadhi
of Life
(7)
Physical Body**
The
Upadhi of all the 6 Princ.
PLANETARY
DIVISION.
Descending
into matter
1
2
3
4
D Our Earth or any (Visible) Planet
Ascending
to Spirit
4
D Our Earth or any (Visible) Planet
5
6
7
DIAGRAM
I.
[[above
is in diagram format in the original text]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As we are proceeding here from Universals to Particulars, instead of using the
inductive or Aristotelean method, the numbers are reversed. Spirit is
enumerated the first instead of seventh, as is usually done, but, in truth,
ought not to be done.
**
Or as usually named after the manner of Esoteric Buddhism and others: 1, Atma;
2, Buddhi (or Spiritual Soul); 3, Manas (Human Soul); 4, Kama Rupa (Vehicle of
Desires and Passions); 5, Linga Sarira; 6, Prana; 7, Sthula Sarira.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 154 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
dark horizontal lines of the lower planes are the Upadhis in one case, and the
planes in the case of the planetary chain. Of course, as regards the human
principles, the diagram does not place them quite in order, yet it shows the
correspondence and analogy to which attention is now drawn. As the reader will
see, it is a case of descent into matter, the adjustment -- in both the mystic
and the physical senses -- of the two, and their interblending for the great
coming "struggle of life" that awaits both the entities.
"Entity" may be thought a strange term to use in the case of a globe;
but the ancient philosophers, who saw in the earth a huge "animal,"
were wiser in their generation than our modern geologists are in theirs; and
Pliny, who called the Earth our kind nurse and mother, the only element which
is not inimical to man, spoke more truly than Watts, who fancied that he saw in
her the footstool of God. For Earth is only the footstool of man in his
ascension to higher regions; the vestibule --
".
. . . . . . to glorious mansions,
Through
which a moving crowd for ever press."
But
this only shows how admirably the occult philosophy fits everything in Nature,
and how much more logical are its tenets than the lifeless hypothetical
speculations of physical science.
Having
learned thus much, the mystic will be better prepared to understand the occult
teaching, though every formal student of modern science may, and probably will,
regard it as preposterous nonsense. The student of occultism, however, holds
that the theory at present under discussion is far more philosophical and
probable than any other. It is more logical, at any rate, than the theory
recently advanced which made of the moon the projection of a portion of our
Earth extruded when the latter was but a globe in fusion, a molten plastic
mass.*
It
is said that the planetary chains having their "Days" and their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says the author of "Modern Science and Modern Thought," Mr. Samuel
Laing: "The astronomical conclusions are theories based on data so
uncertain, that while in some cases they give results incredibly short, like
that of 15 millions of years for the whole past process of formation of the
solar system, in others they give results almost incredibly long, as in that
which supposes the moon to have been thrown off when the Earth was rotating in
three hours, while the utmost actual retardation obtained from observation
would require 600 millions of years to make it rotate in twenty-three hours
instead of twenty-four" (p. 48). And if physicists persist, why should the
chronology of the Hindus be laughed at as exaggerated?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 155 EXCHANGE OF LIFE-PRINCIPLES.
"Nights"
-- i.e., periods of activity or life, and of inertia or death -- and behave in
heaven as do men on Earth: they generate their likes, get old, and become
personally extinct, their spiritual principles only living in their progeny as
a survival of themselves.
Without
attempting the very difficult task of giving out the whole process in all its
cosmic details, enough may be said to give an approximate idea of it. When a
planetary chain is in its last Round, its Globe 1 or A, before finally dying
out, sends all its energy and "principles" into a neutral centre of
latent force, a "laya centre," and thereby informs a new nucleus of
undifferentiated substance or matter, i.e., calls it into activity or gives it
life. Suppose such a process to have taken place in the lunar
"planetary" chain; suppose again, for argument's sake (though Mr.
Darwin's theory quoted below has lately been upset, even if the fact has not
yet been ascertained by mathematical calculation) that the moon is far older
than the Earth. Imagine the six fellow-globes of the moon -- aeons before the
first globe of our seven was evolved -- just in the same position in relation
to each other as the fellow-globes of our chain occupy in regard to our Earth
now. (See in "Esoteric Buddhism," "The Constitution of
Man," and the "Planetary Chain.") And now it will be easy to
imagine further Globe A of the lunar chain informing Globe A of the terrestrial
chain, and -- dying; Globe B of the former sending after that its energy into
Globe B of the new chain; then Globe C of the lunar, creating its progeny
sphere C of the terrene chain; then the Moon (our Satellite*) pouring forth
into
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
She is the satellite, undeniably, but this does not invalidate the theory that
she has given to the Earth all but her corpse. For Darwin's theory to hold
good, besides the hypothesis just upset (vide last footnote), other still more
incongruous speculations had to be invented. The Moon, it is said, has cooled
nearly six times as rapidly as the Earth (Winchell's "World-Life"):
"The Moon, if the earth is 14,000,000 years old since its incrustation, is
only eleven and two thirds millions of years old since that stage . . ."
etc. And if our Moon is but a splash from our Earth, why can no similar
inference be established for the Moons of other planets? The Astronomers
"do not know." Why should Venus and Mercury have no satellites, and
by what, when they exist, were they formed? Because, we say, science has only
one key -- the key of matter -- to open the mysteries of nature withal, while
occult philosophy has seven keys and explains that which science fails to see.
Mercury and Venus have no satellites but they had "parents" just as
the earth had. Both are far older than the Earth and, before the latter reaches
her seventh Round, her mother Moon will have dissolved [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 156 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
lowest globe of our planetary ring -- Globe D, our Earth -- all its life,
energy and powers; and, having transferred them to a new centre becoming
virtually a dead planet, in which rotation has almost ceased since the birth of
our globe. The Moon is now the cold residual quantity, the shadow dragged after
the new body, into which her living powers and "principles" are
transfused. She now is doomed for long ages to be ever pursuing the Earth, to
be attracted by and to attract her progeny. Constantly vampirised by her child,
she revenges herself on it by soaking it through and through with the
nefarious, invisible, and poisoned influence which emanates from the occult
side of her nature. For she is a dead, yet a living body. The particles of her
decaying corpse are full of active and destructive life, although the body
which they had formed is soulless and lifeless. Therefore its emanations are at
the same time beneficent and maleficent -- this circumstance finding its
parallel on earth in the fact that the grass and plants are nowhere more juicy
and thriving than on the graves; while at the same time it is the graveyard or
corpse-emanations, which kill. And like all ghouls or vampires, the moon is the
friend of the sorcerers and the foe of the unwary. From the archaic aeons and
the later times of the witches of Thessaly, down to some of the present
tantrikas of Bengal, her nature and properties were known to every Occultist,
but have remained a closed book for physicists.
Such
is the moon from the astronomical, geological, and physical standpoints. As to
her metaphysical and psychic nature it must remain an occult secret in this work,
as it was in the volume on "Esoteric Buddhism," notwithstanding the
rather sanguine statement made therein on p. 113 (5th edition) that "there
is not much mystery left now in the riddle of the eighth sphere." These
are topics, indeed, "on which the adepts are very reserved in their
communications to uninitiated pupils," and since they have, moreover,
never sanctioned or permitted any published speculations upon them, the less
said the better.
Yet
without treading upon the forbidden ground of the "eighth sphere," it
may be useful to state some additional facts with regard to ex-monads of the
lunar chain -- the "lunar ancestors" -- as they play a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] into thin air, as the "Moons" of the
other planets have, or have not, as the case may be, since there are planets
which have several moons -- a mystery again which no OEdipus of astronomy has
solved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 157 OPINIONS DIFFER AND YET AGREE.
leading
part in the coming Anthropogenesis. This brings us directly to the septenary
constitution of man; and as some discussion has arisen of late about the best
classification to be adopted for the division of the microcosmic entity, two
systems are now appended with a view to facilitate comparison. The subjoined
short article is from the pen of Mr. T. Subba Row, a learned Vedantin scholar.
He prefers the Brahmanical division of the Raja Yoga, and from a metaphysical
point of view he is quite right. But, as it is a question of simple choice and
expediency, we hold in this work to the "time-honoured"
classification of the trans-Himalayan "Arhat Esoteric School." The
following table and its explanatory text are reprinted from the
"Theosophist" of Madras, and they are also contained in "Five
Years of Theosophy":--
SEPTENARY
DIVISION IN DIFFERENT INDIAN SYSTEMS.
"We
give below in a tabular form the classifications adopted by the Buddhist and
Vedantic teachers of the principles of man:--
CLASSIFICATION
IN ESOTERIC BUDDHISM.
1.
Sthula Sarira.
2.
Prana.**
3.
The vehicle of Prana.***
4.
Kama Rupa.
5.
Mind
(a)
Volitions and feelings, etc.
(b)
Vignanam.
6.
Spiritual Soul.*****
7.
Atma.
VEDANTIC
CLASSIFICATION.
[[1.]]
Annamaya kosa.*
[[2.,
3.]] Pranamaya kosa.
[[4.,
5.(a)]] Manomaya kosa.
[[5.(b)]]
Vignanamaya kosa.
[[6.]]
Anandamaya kosa.
[[7.]]
Atma.
CLASSIFICATION
IN TARAKA RAJA YOGA
[[1.,
2.]] Sthulopadhi.****
[[5.(a),
(b)]] Sukshmopadhi.
[[6.]]
Karanopadhi.
[[7.]]
Atma.
[[above
is in table format in the original text.]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Kosa (kosha) is "Sheath" literally, the sheath of every principle.
**
"Life."
***
The astral body or Linga Sarira.
****
Sthula-Upadhi, or basis of the principle.
*****
Buddhi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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From
the foregoing table it will be seen that the third principle in the Buddhist
classification is not separately mentioned in the Vedantic division, as it is
merely the vehicle of Prana. It will also be seen that the Fourth principle is
included in the third Kosa (Sheath), as the same principle is but the vehicle
of will-power, which is but an energy of the mind. It must also be noticed that
the Vignanamaya Kosa is considered to be distinct from the Manomaya Kosa, as a
division is made after death between the lower part of the mind, as it were,
which has a closer affinity with the fourth principle than with the sixth; and
its higher part, which attaches itself to the latter, and which is, in fact,
the basis for the higher spiritual individuality of man.
We
may also here point out to our readers that the classification mentioned in the
last column is, for all practical purposes, connected with Raja Yoga, the best
and simplest. Though there are seven principles in man, there are but three
distinct Upadhis (bases), in each of which his Atma may work independently of
the rest. These three Upadhis can be separated by an Adept without killing
himself. He cannot separate the seven principles from each other without
destroying his constitution."
The
student will now be better prepared to see that between the three Upadhis of
the Raja Yoga and its Atma, and our three Upadhis, Atma, and the additional
three divisions, there is in reality but very little difference. Moreover, as
every adept in cis-Himalayan or trans-Himalayan India, of the Patanjali, the
Aryasanga or the Mahayana schools, has to become a Raja Yogi, he must,
therefore, accept the Taraka Raja classification in principle and theory
whatever classification he resorts to for practical and occult purposes. Thus,
it matters very little whether one speaks of the three Upadhis with their three
aspects and Atma, the eternal and immortal synthesis, or calls them the
"seven principles."
For
the benefit of those who may not have read, or, if they have, may not have clearly
understood, in Theosophical writings, the doctrine of the septenary chains of
worlds in the Solar Kosmos, the teaching is briefly thus:--
1.
Everything in the metaphysical as in the physical Universe is septenary. Hence
every sidereal body, every planet, whether visible
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 159 THE TRANSMIGRATIONS OF THE EGO.
or
invisible, is credited with six companion globes. (See Diagram No. 3, after
verse 6 of this commentary.) The evolution of life proceeds on these seven
globes or bodies from the 1st to the 7th in Seven ROUNDS or Seven Cycles.
2.
These globes are formed by a process which the Occultists call the
"rebirth of planetary chains (or rings)." When the seventh and last
Round of one of such rings has been entered upon, the highest or first globe
"A," followed by all the others down to the last, instead of entering
upon a certain time of rest -- or "obscuration," as in their previous
Rounds -- begins to die out. The "planetary" dissolution (pralaya) is
at hand, and its hour has struck; each globe has to transfer its life and
energy to another planet. (See diagram No. 2 infra, "The Moon and the
Earth.")
3.
Our Earth, as the visible representative of its invisible superior fellow
globes, its "lords" or "principles" (see diagram No. 1),
has to live, as have the others, through seven Rounds. During the first three,
it forms and consolidates; during the fourth it settles and hardens; during the
last three it gradually returns to its first ethereal form: it is
spiritualised, so to say.
4.
Its Humanity develops fully only in the Fourth -- our present Round. Up to this
fourth Life-Cycle, it is referred to as "humanity" only for lack of a
more appropriate term. Like the grub which becomes chrysalis and butterfly,
Man, or rather that which becomes man, passes through all the forms and
kingdoms during the first Round and through all the human shapes during the two
following Rounds. Arrived on our Earth at the commencement of the Fourth in the
present series of life-cycles and races, MAN is the first form that appears
thereon, being preceded only by the mineral and vegetable kingdoms -- even the
latter having to develop and continue its further evolution through man. This
will be explained in Book II. During the three Rounds to come, Humanity, like
the globe on which it lives, will be ever tending to reassume its primeval
form, that of a Dhyan Chohanic Host. Man tends to become a God and then -- GOD,
like every other atom in the Universe.
"Beginning
so early as with the 2nd round, Evolution proceeds already on quite a different
plan. It is only during the 1st round that (heavenly) man becomes a human being
on globe A (rebecomes) a mineral, a plant, an animal, on globe B and C, etc.
The process changes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 160 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
entirely
from the second round -- but you have learned prudence . . . and I advise you
to say nothing before the time for saying it has come. . ." (Extract from
the Teacher's letters on various topics.)
5.
Every life-cycle on Globe D (our Earth)* is composed of seven root-races. They
commence with the Ethereal and end with the spiritual on the double line of
physical and moral evolution -- from the beginning of the terrestrial round to
its close. (One is a "planetary round" from Globe A to Globe G, the
seventh; the other, the "globe round," or the terrestrial).
This
is very well described in "Esoteric Buddhism" and needs no further
elucidation for the time being.
6.
The first root-race, i.e., the first "men" on earth (irrespective of
form) were the progeny of the "celestial men," called rightly in
Indian philosophy the "Lunar Ancestors" or the Pitris, of which there
are seven classes or Hierarchies. As all this will be sufficiently explained in
the following sections and in Book II., no more need be said of it here.
But
the two works already mentioned, both of which treat of subjects from the
occult doctrine, need particular notice. "Esoteric Buddhism" is too
well known in Theosophical circles, and even to the outside world, for it to be
necessary to enter at length upon its merits here. It is an excellent book, and
has done still more excellent work. But this does not alter the fact that it
contains some mistaken notions, and that it has led many Theosophists and
lay-readers to form an erroneous conception of the Secret Eastern Doctrines.
Moreover it seems, perhaps, a little too materialistic.
"MAN,"
which came later, was an attempt to present the archaic doctrine from a more
ideal standpoint, to translate some visions in and from the Astral Light, to
render some teachings partly gathered from a Master's thoughts, but
unfortunately misunderstood. This work also speaks of the evolution of the
early Races of men on Earth, and contains some excellent pages of a
philosophical character. But so far it is only an interesting little mystical
romance. It has failed in its mission, because the conditions required for a
correct translation of these visions were not present. Hence the reader must
not wonder if our Volumes contradict these earlier descriptions in several
particulars.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are not concerned with the other Globes in this work except incidentally.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 161 A RE-ADJUSTMENT OF FACTS.
Esoteric
"Cosmogony" in general, and the evolution of the human Monad especially,
differ so essentially in these two books and in other Theosophical works
written independently by beginners, that it becomes impossible to proceed with
the present work without special mention of these two earlier volumes, for both
have a number of admirers -- "Esoteric Buddhism" especially. The time
has arrived for the explanation of some matters in this direction. Mistakes
have now to be checked by the original teachings and corrected. If one of the
said works has too pronounced a bias toward materialistic science, the other is
decidedly too idealistic, and is, at times, fantastic.
From
the doctrine -- rather incomprehensible to western minds -- which deals with
the periodical "obscurations" and successive "Rounds" of
the Globes along their circular chains, were born the first perplexities and
misconceptions. One of such has reference to the "Fifth-" and even
"Sixth-Rounders." Those who knew that a Round was preceded and
followed by a long Pralaya, a pause of rest which created an impassable gulf
between two Rounds until the time came for a renewed cycle of life, could not
understand the "fallacy" of talking about "fifth and sixth
Rounders" in our Fourth Round. Gautama Buddha, it was held, was a
Sixth-Rounder, Plato and some other great philosophers and minds,
"Fifth-Rounders." How could it be? One Master taught and affirmed
that there were such "Fifth-Rounders" even now on Earth; and though
understood to say that mankind was yet "in the Fourth Round," in
another place he seemed to say that we were in the Fifth. To this an
"apocalyptic answer" was returned by another Teacher:-- "A few
drops of rain do not make a Monsoon, though they presage it." . . .
"No, we are not in the Fifth Round, but Fifth Round men have been coming
in for the last few thousand years." This was worse than the riddle of the
Sphinx! Students of Occultism subjected their brains to the wildest work of
speculation. For a considerable time they tried to outvie OEdipus and reconcile
the two statements. And as the Masters kept as silent as the stony Sphinx
herself, they were accused of inconsistency, "contradiction," and
"discrepancies." But they were simply allowing the speculations to go
on, in order to teach a lesson which the Western mind sorely needs. In their
conceit and arrogance, as in their habit of materializing every metaphysical
conception and term without allowing any margin for Eastern
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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metaphor
and allegory, the Orientalists have made a jumble of the Hindu exoteric
philosophy, and the Theosophists were now doing the same with regard to
esoteric teachings. To this day it is evident that the latter have utterly
failed to understand the meaning of the term "Fifth and Sixth
Rounders." But it is simply this: every "Round" brings about a
new development and even an entire change in the mental, psychic, spiritual and
physical constitution of man, all these principles evoluting on an ever
ascending scale. Thence it follows that those persons who, like Confucius and
Plato, belonged psychically, mentally and spiritually to the higher planes of
evolution, were in our Fourth Round as the average man will be in the Fifth
Round, whose mankind is destined to find itself, on this scale of Evolution,
immensely higher than is our present humanity. Similarly Gautama Buddha --
Wisdom incarnate -- was still higher and greater than all the men we have
mentioned, who are called Fifth Rounders, while Buddha and Sankaracharya are termed
Sixth Rounders, allegorically. Thence again the concealed wisdom of the remark,
pronounced at the time "evasive" -- that a few drops of rain do not
make the Monsoon, though they presage it."
And
now the truth of the remark made in "Esoteric Buddhism" by its author
will be fully apparent:--
"It
is impossible, when the complicated facts of an entirely unfamiliar science are
being presented to untrained minds for the first time, to put them forward with
all their appropriate qualifications . . . and abnormal developments. . . . We
must be content to take the broad rules first and deal with the exceptions
afterwards, and especially is this the case with study, in connection with
which the traditional methods of teaching, generally followed, aim at impressing
every fresh idea on the memory by provoking the perplexity it at last
relieves."
As
the author of the remark was himself, as he says, "an untrained mind"
in Occultism, his own inferences, and his better knowledge of modern
astronomical speculations than of archaic doctrines led him quite naturally,
and as unconsciously to himself, to commit a few mistakes of detail rather than
of any "broad rule." One such will now be noticed. It is a trifling
one, still it is calculated to lead many a beginner into erroneous conceptions.
But as the mistaken notions of the earlier editions were corrected in the
annotations of the fifth edition, so the sixth may be revised and perfected.
There were several reasons
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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for
such mistakes. (1) They were due to the necessity under which the teachers
laboured of giving what were considered as "evasive answers": the
questions being too persistently pressed to be left unnoticed, while, on the
other hand, they could only be partially answered. (2) This position
notwithstanding, the confession that "half a loaf is better than no
bread" was but too often misunderstood and hardly appreciated as it ought to
have been. As a result thereof gratuitous speculations were sometimes indulged
in by the European lay-chelas. Among such were (a) the "Mystery of the
Eighth Sphere" in its relation to the Moon; and (b) the erroneous
statement that two of the superior Globes of the terrestrial chain were two of
our well-known planets: "besides the Earth . . . there are only two other
worlds of our chain which are visible. . . . Mars and Mercury. . . ."
(Esoteric Buddhism; p. 136.)
This
was a great mistake. But the blame for it is to be attached as much to the
vagueness and incompleteness of the Master's answer as to the question of the
learner itself, which was equally vague and indefinite.
It
was asked: "What planets, of those known to ordinary science, besides
Mercury, belong to our system of worlds?" Now if by "System of
Worlds" our terrestrial chain or "string" was intended in the
mind of the querist, instead of the "Solar System of Worlds," as it
should have been, then of course the answer was likely to be misunderstood. For
the reply was: "Mars, etc., and four other planets of which astronomy
knows nothing. Neither A, B, nor YZ are known nor can they be seen through
physical means however perfected." This is plain: (a) Astronomy as yet
knows nothing in reality of the planets, neither the ancient ones, nor those
discovered in modern times. (b) No companion planets from A to Z, i.e., no
upper globes of any chain in the Solar System, can be seen.* As to Mars,
Mercury, and "the four other planets," they bear
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
With the exception of course of all the planets which come fourth in number, as
our earth, the moon, etc., etc. Copies of all the letters ever received or
sent, with the exception of a few private ones -- "in which there was no
teaching" the Master says -- are with the writer. As it was her duty, in
the beginning, to answer and explain certain points not touched upon, it is
more than likely that notwithstanding the many annotations on these copies, the
writer, in her ignorance of English and her fear of saying too much, may have
bungled the information given. She takes the whole blame for it upon herself in
any and every case. But it is impossible for her to allow students to remain
any longer under erroneous impressions, or to believe that the fault lies with
the esoteric system.
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[[Vol.
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a
relation to Earth of which no master or high Occultist will ever speak, much
less explain the nature.*
Let
it now be distinctly stated, then, that the theory broached is impossible, with
or without the additional evidence furnished by modern Astronomy. Physical
Science can supply corroborative, though still very uncertain, evidence, but
only as regards heavenly bodies on the same plane of materiality as our
objective Universe. Mars and Mercury, Venus and Jupiter, like every hitherto
discovered planet (or those still to be discovered), are all, per se, the
representatives on our plane of such chains. As distinctly stated in one of the
numerous letters of Mr. Sinnett's "Teacher," "there are other
and innumerable Manvantaric chains of globes which bear intelligent Beings both
in and outside our solar system." But neither Mars nor Mercury belong to
our chain. They are, along with the other planets, septenary Units in the great
host of "chains" of our system, and all are as visible as their upper
globes are invisible.
If
it is still argued that certain expressions in the Teacher's letters were
liable to mislead, the answer comes:-- Amen; so it was. The author of
"Esoteric Buddhism" understood it well when he wrote that such are
"the traditional modes of teaching . . . by provoking the perplexity"
. . . they do, or do not relieve -- as the case may be. At all events, if it is
urged that this might have been explained earlier, and the true nature of the
planets given out as they now are, the answer comes that: "it was not found
expedient to do so at the time, as it would have opened the way to a series of
additional questions which could never be answered on account of their esoteric
nature, and thus would only become embarrassing." It had been declared
from the first and has been repeatedly asserted since that (1st) no
Theosophist, not even as an accepted chela -- let alone lay students -- could
expect to have the secret teachings explained to him thoroughly and completely,
before he had irretrievably pledged himself to the Brotherhood and passed
through at least one initiation, because no figures and numbers could be given
to the public, for figures and numbers are the key to the esoteric system. (2.)
That
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In this same letter the impossibility is distinctly stated:-- . . . "Try
to understand that you are putting me questions pertaining to the highest
initiation; that I can give you (only) a general view, but that I dare not nor
will I enter upon details . . ." wrote one of the Teachers to the author
of "Esoteric Buddhism."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 165 AN AUTHORITATIVE LETTER.
what
was revealed was merely the esoteric lining of that which is contained in almost
all the exoteric Scriptures of the world-religions -- pre-eminently in the
Brahmanas, and the Upanishads of the Vedas and even in the Puranas. It was a
small portion of what is divulged far more fully now in the present volumes;
and even this is very incomplete and fragmentary.
When
the present work was commenced, the writer, feeling sure that the speculation
about Mars and Mercury was a mistake, applied to the Teachers by letter for
explanation and an authoritative version. Both came in due time, and verbatim
extracts from these are now given.
".
. . . . It is quite correct that Mars is in a state of obscuration at present,
and Mercury just beginning to get out of it. You might add that Venus is in her
last Round. . . . . . . . . . . If neither Mercury nor Venus have satellites,
it is because of the reasons . . . (vide footnote supra, where those reasons
are given), and also because Mars has two satellites to which he has no right.
. . . . Phobos, the supposed INNER satellite, is no satellite at all. As
remarked long ago by Laplace and now by Faye (see COMPTES RENDUS, Tome XC., p.
569), Phobos keeps a too short periodic time, and therefore there 'must exist
some defect in the mother idea of the theory' as Faye justly observes. . . . .
Again, both (Mars and Mercury) are septenary chains, as independent of the
Earth's sidereal lords and superiors as you are independent of the 'principles'
of Daumling (Tom Thumb) -- which were perhaps his six brothers, with or without
night-caps. . . . . . . . . . 'Gratification of curiosity is the end of
knowledge for some men,' was said by Bacon, who was as right in postulating
this truism, as those who were familiar with it before him were right in
hedging off WISDOM from Knowledge, and tracing limits to that which is to be
given out at one time. . . . Remember:--
'.
. . . . . . . . . . knowledge dwells
In
heads replete with thoughts of other men,
Wisdom
in minds attentive to their own. . . .'
You
can never impress it too profoundly on the minds of those to whom you impart
some of the esoteric teachings. . ."
Again,
here are more extracts from another letter written by the same authority. This
time it is in answer to some objections laid before the Teachers. They are
based upon extremely scientific, and as
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futile,
reasonings about the advisability of trying to reconcile the Esoteric theories
with the speculations of Modern Science, and were written by a young
Theosophist as a warning against the "Secret Doctrine" and in
reference to the same subject. He had declared that if there were such
companion Earths "they must be only a wee bit less material than our globe."
How then was it that they could not be seen? The answer was:--
".
. . . Were psychic and spiritual teachings more fully understood, it would
become next to impossible to even imagine such an incongruity. Unless less
trouble is taken to reconcile the irreconcileable -- that is to say, the
metaphysical and spiritual sciences with physical or natural philosophy,
'natural' being a synonym to them (men of science) of that matter which falls
under the perception of their corporeal senses -- no progress can be really
achieved. Our Globe, as taught from the first, is at the bottom of the arc of
descent, where the matter of our perceptions exhibits itself in its grossest
form. . . . . . . Hence it only stands to reason that the globes which
overshadow our Earth must be on different and superior planes. In short, as
Globes, they are in CO-ADUNITION but not IN CONSUBSTANTIALITY WITH OUR EARTH
and thus pertain to quite another state of consciousness. Our planet (like all
those we see) is adapted to the peculiar state of its human stock, that state
which enables us to see with our naked eye the sidereal bodies which are
co-essential with our terrene plane and substance, just as their respective
inhabitants, the Jovians, Martians and others can perceive our little world:
because our planes of consciousness, differing as they do in degree but being
the same in kind, are on the same layer of differentiated matter. . . . . What
I wrote was 'The minor Pralaya concerns only our little STRINGS OF GLOBES.' (We
called chains 'Strings' in those days of lip-confusion.) . . . 'To such a
string our Earth belongs.' This ought to have shown plainly that the other
planets were also 'strings' or CHAINS. . . If he (meaning the objector) would
perceive even the dim silhouette of one of such 'planets' on the higher planes,
he has to first throw off even the thin clouds of the astral matter that stands
between him and the next plane. . . . ."
It
becomes patent why we could not perceive, even with the help of the best
earthly telescopes, that which is outside our world of matter. Those alone,
whom we call adepts, who know how to direct their mental vision and to transfer
their consciousness -- physical and psychic both --
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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to
other planes of being, are able to speak with authority on such subjects. And
they tell us plainly:--
"Lead
the life necessary for the acquisition of such knowledge and powers, and Wisdom
will come to you naturally. Whenever your are able to attune your consciousness
to any of the seven chords of 'Universal Consciousness,' those chords that run
along the sounding-board of Kosmos, vibrating from one Eternity to another;
when you have studied thoroughly 'the music of the Spheres,' then only will you
become quite free to share your knowledge with those with whom it is safe to do
so. Meanwhile, be prudent. Do not give out the great Truths that are the
inheritance of the future Races, to our present generation. Do not attempt to
unveil the secret of being and non-being to those unable to see the hidden
meaning of Apollo's HEPTACHORD -- the lyre of the radiant god, in each of the
seven strings of which dwelleth the Spirit, Soul and Astral body of the Kosmos,
whose shell only has now fallen into the hands of Modern Science. . . . . . Be
prudent, we say, prudent and wise, and above all take care what those who learn
from you believe in; lest by deceiving themselves they deceive others . . . . .
for such is the fate of every truth with which men are, as yet, unfamiliar. . .
. Let rather the planetary chains and other super- and sub-cosmic mysteries
remain a dreamland for those who can neither see, nor yet believe that others
can. . . ."
It
is to be regretted that few of us have followed the wise advice; and that many
a priceless pearl, many a jewel of wisdom, has been cast to an enemy unable to
understand its value and who has turned round and rent us.
"
'Let us imagine,' wrote the same Master to his two 'lay chelas,' as he called
the author of 'Esoteric Buddhism' and another gentleman, his co-student for
some time -- 'let us imagine THAT OUR EARTH IS ONE OF A GROUP OF SEVEN PLANETS
OR MAN-BEARING WORLDS. . . . . . (The SEVEN planets are the sacred planets of antiquity,
and are all septenary.) Now the life-impulse reaches A, or rather that which is
destined to become A, and which so far is but cosmic dust (a "laya
centre") . . etc.' "
In
these early letters, in which the terms had to be invented and words coined,
the "Rings" very often became "Rounds," and the
"Rounds" life-cycles, and vice versa. To a correspondent who called a
"Round" a "World-Ring," the Teacher wrote: "I believe
this will lead to a further confusion. A Round we are agreed to call the
passage
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
a monad from Globe A to Globe G or Z. . . The 'World-Ring' is correct. . .
Advise Mr. . . . strongly, to agree upon a nomenclature before going any
further. . . "
Notwithstanding
this agreement, many mistakes, owing to this confusion, crept into the earliest
teachings. The Races even were occasionally mixed up with the
"Rounds" and "Rings," and led to similar mistakes in
"Man." From the first the Master had written --
"Not
being permitted to give you the whole truth, or divulge the number of isolated
fractions . . . I am unable to satisfy you."
This
in answer to the questions, "If we are right, then the total existence
prior to the man-period is 637," etc., etc. To all the queries relating to
figures, the reply was, "Try to solve the problem of 777 incarnations. . .
. Though I am obliged to withhold information . . . yet if you should work out
the problem by yourself, it will be my duty to tell you so."
But
they never were so worked out, and the results were -- never-ceasing perplexity
and mistakes.
Even
the teaching about the Septenary constitution of the sidereal bodies and of the
macrocosm -- from which the septenary division of the microcosm, or Man -- has
until now been among the most esoteric. In olden times it used to be divulged
only at the Initiation and along with the most sacred figures of the cycles. Now,
as stated in one of the Theosophical journals,* the revelation of the whole
system of Cosmogony had not been contemplated, nor even thought for one moment
possible, at a time when a few bits of information were sparingly given out in
answer to letters written by the author of "Esoteric Buddhism," in
which he put forward a multiplicity of questions. Among these were questions on
such problems as no MASTER, however high and independent he might be, would
have the right to answer, thus divulging to the world the most time-honoured
and archaic of the mysteries of the ancient college-temples. Hence only a few
of the doctrines were revealed in their broad outlines, while details were
constantly withheld, and all the efforts made to elicit more information about them
were systematically eluded from the beginning. This is perfectly natural. Of
the four Vidyas -- out of the seven branches of Knowledge mentioned in the
Puranas -- namely, "Yajna-Vidya" (the performance of religious rites
in order to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Lucifer," May, 1888.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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produce
certain results); "Maha-Vidya," the great (Magic) knowledge, now
degenerated into Tantrika worship; "Guhya-Vidya," the science of
Mantras and their true rhythm or chanting, of mystical incantations, etc. -- it
is only the last one, "Atma-Vidya," or the true Spiritual and Divine
wisdom, which can throw absolute and final light upon the teachings of the
three first named. Without the help of Atma-Vidya, the other three remain no
better than surface sciences, geometrical magnitudes having length and breadth,
but no thickness. They are like the soul, limbs, and mind of a sleeping man:
capable of mechanical motions, of chaotic dreams and even sleep-walking, of
producing visible effects, but stimulated by instinctual not intellectual
causes, least of all by fully conscious spiritual impulses. A good deal can be
given out and explained from the three first-named sciences. But unless the key
to their teachings is furnished by Atma-Vidya, they will remain for ever like
the fragments of a mangled text-book, like the adumbrations of great truths,
dimly perceived by the most spiritual, but distorted out of all proportion by
those who would nail every shadow to the wall.
Then,
again, another great perplexity was created in the minds of students by the
incomplete exposition of the doctrine of the evolution of the Monads. To be
fully realised, both this process and that of the birth of the Globes must be
examined far more from their metaphysical aspect than from what one might call
a statistical standpoint, involving figures and numbers which are rarely permitted
to be broadly used. Unfortunately, there are few who are inclined to handle
these doctrines only metaphysically. Even the best of the Western writers upon
our doctrine declares in his work that "on pure metaphysics of that sort
we are not now engaged," when speaking of the evolution of the Monads
("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 46). And in such case, as the Teacher
remarks in a letter to him, "Why this preaching of our doctrines, all this
uphill work and swimming in adversum flumen? Why should the West . . . learn .
. . from the East . . . that which can never meet the requirements of the
special tastes of the aesthetics?" And he draws his correspondent's
attention "to the formidable difficulties encountered by us (the Adepts)
in every attempt we make to explain our metaphysics to the Western mind."
And
well he may; for outside of metaphysics no occult philosophy, no esotericism is
possible. It is like trying to explain the aspirations and affections, the love
and hatred, the most private and sacred workings in
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
soul and mind of the living man, by an anatomical description of the chest and
brain of his dead body.
Let
us now examine two tenets mentioned above and hardly alluded to in
"Esoteric Buddhism," and supplement them as far as lies in our power.
---------------------
ADDITIONAL
FACTS AND EXPLANATIONS CONCERNING THE GLOBES AND THE MONADS.
Two
statements made in "Esoteric Buddhism" must be noticed and the
author's opinions quoted. On p. 47 (fifth edition) it is said:--
"
. . . the spiritual monads . . . do not fully complete their mineral existence
on Globe A, then complete it on Globe B, and so on. They pass several times
round the whole circle as minerals, and then again several times round as
vegetables, and several times as animals. We purposely refrain for the present
from going into figures," etc., etc.
This
was a wise course to adopt in view of the great secrecy maintained with regard
to figures and numbers. This reticence is now partially relinquished; but it
would perhaps have been better had the real numbers concerning Rounds and
evolutional gyrations been either entirely divulged at the time, or as entirely
withheld. Mr. Sinnett understood this difficulty well when saying (p. 140)
that: "For reasons which are not easy for the outsider to divine, the
possessors of occult knowledge are especially reluctant to give out facts
relating to Cosmogony, though it is hard for the uninitiated to understand why
they should be withheld."
That
there were such reasons is evident. Nevertheless, it is to this reticence that
most of the confused ideas of some Eastern as well as Western pupils are due.
The difficulties in the way of the acceptance of the two particular tenets
under consideration seemed great, just because of the absence of any data to go
upon. But there it was. For the figures belonging to the Occult calculations
cannot be given -- as the Masters have many times declared -- outside the
circle of pledged chelas, and not even these can break the rules.
To
make things plainer, without touching upon the mathematical aspects of the
doctrine, the teaching given may be expanded and some obscure
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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points
solved. As the evolution of the Globes and that of the Monads are so closely
interblended, we will make of the two teachings one. In reference to the
Monads, the reader is asked to bear in mind that Eastern philosophy rejects the
Western theological dogma of a newly-created soul for every baby born, as being
as unphilosophical as it is impossible in the economy of Nature. There must be
a limited number of Monads evolving and growing more and more perfect through
their assimilation of many successive personalities, in every new Manvantara.
This is absolutely necessary in view of the doctrines of Rebirth, Karma, and the
gradual return of the human Monad to its source -- absolute Deity. Thus,
although the hosts of more or less progressed Monads are almost incalculable,
they are still finite, as is everything in this Universe of differentiation and
finiteness.
As
shown in the double diagram of the human "principles" and the
ascending Globes of the world-chains, there is an eternal concatenation of
causes and effects, and a perfect analogy which runs through, and links
together, all the lines of evolution. One begets the other -- globes as
personalities. But, let us begin at the beginning.
The
general outline of the process by which the successive planetary chains are
formed has just been given. To prevent future misconceptions, some further details
may be offered which will also throw light on the history of humanity on our
own chain, the progeny of that of the Moon.
In
the diagrams on p. 172, Fig. 1 represents the "lunar-chain" of seven
planets at the outset of its seventh or last Round; while Fig. 2 represents the
"earth-chain" which will be, but is not yet in existence. The seven
Globes of each chain are distinguished in their cyclic order by the letters A
to G, the Globes of the Earth-chain being further marked by a cross -- + -- the
symbol of the Earth.
Now,
it must be remembered that the Monads cycling round any septenary chain are
divided into seven classes or hierarchies according to their respective stages
of evolution, consciousness, and merit. Let us follow, then, the order of their
appearance on planet A, in the first Round. The time-spaces between the
appearances of these hierarchies on any one Globe are so adjusted that when
Class 7, the last, appears on Globe A, Class 1, the first, has just passed on
to Globe B, and so on, step by step, all round the chain.
Again,
in the Seventh Round on the Lunar chain, when Class 7, the
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[[Vol.
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last,
quits Globe A, that Globe, instead of falling asleep, as it had done in
previous Rounds, begins to die (to go into its planetary pralaya);* and in
dying it transfers successively, as just said, its "principles," or
life-elements and energy, etc., one after the other to a new "laya-centre,"
which commences the formation of Globe A of the Earth Chain. A similar process
takes place for each of the Globes of the "lunar chain" one after the
other, each forming a fresh Globe of the "earth-chain." Our Moon was
the fourth Globe of the series, and was
EARTH
CHAIN.
FIG.
2.
A+
G+
B+
F+
C+
E+
D+
(Our Earth)
LUNAR
CHAIN.
FIG.
1.
A
G
B
F
C
E
D
(Our Moon)
DIAGRAM
II.
[[above
is in diagram format in the original text]]
on
the same plane of perception as our Earth. But Globe A of the lunar chain is not
fully "dead" till the first Monads of the first class have passed
from Globe G or Z, the last of the "lunar chain," into the Nirvana
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Occultism divides the periods of Rest (Pralaya) into several kinds; there is
the individual pralaya of each Globe, as humanity and life pass on to the next;
seven minor Pralayas in each Round; the planetary Pralaya, when seven Rounds
are completed; the Solar Pralaya, when the whole system is at an end; and
finally the Universal Maha -- or Brahma -- Pralaya at the close of the
"Age of Brahma." These are the three chief pralayas or
"destruction periods." There are many other minor ones, but with
these we are not concerned at present.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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which
awaits them between the two chains; and similarly for all the other Globes as
stated, each giving birth to the corresponding globe of the "earth-chain."
Further,
when Globe A of the new chain is ready, the first class or Hierarchy of Monads
from the Lunar chain incarnate upon it in the lowest kingdom, and so on
successively. The result of this is, that it is only the first class of Monads
which attains the human state of development during the first Round, since the
second class, on each planet, arriving later, has not time to reach that stage.
Thus the Monads of Class 2 reach the incipient human stage only in the Second
Round, and so on up to the middle of the Fourth Round. But at this point -- and
on this Fourth Round in which the human stage will be fully developed -- the
"Door" into the human kingdom closes; and henceforward the number of
"human" Monads, i.e., Monads in the human stage of development, is
complete. For the Monads which had not reached the human stage by this point
will, owing to the evolution of humanity itself, find themselves so far behind
that they will reach the human stage only at the close of the seventh and last
Round. They will, therefore, not be men on this chain, but will form the
humanity of a future Manvantara and be rewarded by becoming "Men" on
a higher chain altogether, thus receiving their Karmic compensation. To this
there is but one solitary exception, for very good reasons, of which we shall
speak farther on. But this accounts for the difference in the races.
It
thus becomes apparent how perfect is the analogy between the processes of
Nature in the Kosmos and in the individual man. The latter lives through his life-cycle,
and dies. His "higher principles," corresponding in the development
of a planetary chain to the cycling Monads, pass into Devachan, which
corresponds to the "Nirvana" and states of rest intervening between
two chains. The Man's lower "principles" are disintegrated in time
and are used by Nature again for the formation of new human principles, and the
same process takes place in the disintegration and formation of Worlds. Analogy
is thus the surest guide to the comprehension of the Occult teachings.
This
is one of the "seven mysteries of the Moon," and it is now revealed.
The seven "mysteries" are called by the Japanese Yamaboosis, the
mystics of the Lao-Tze sect and the ascetic monks of Kioto, the Dzenodoo -- the
"seven jewels." Only the Japanese and the Chinese
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Buddhist
ascetics and Initiates are, if possible, even more reticent in giving out their
"Knowledge" than are the Hindus.
But
the reader must not be allowed to lose sight of the Monads, and must be
enlightened as to their nature, as far as permitted, without trespassing upon
the highest mysteries, of which the writer does not in any way pretend to know
the last or final word.
The
Monadic Host may be roughly divided into three great classes:--
1.
The most developed Monads (the Lunar Gods or "Spirits," called, in
India, the Pitris), whose function it is to pass in the first Round through the
whole triple cycle of the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms in their most
ethereal, filmy, and rudimentary forms, in order to clothe themselves in, and
assimilate, the nature of the newly formed chain. They are those who first
reach the human form (if there can be any form in the realm of the almost
subjective) on Globe A in the first Round. It is they, therefore, who lead and
represent the human element during the second and third Rounds, and finally
evolve their shadows at the beginning of the Fourth Round for the second class,
or those who come behind them.
2.
Those Monads that are the first to reach the human stage during the three and a
half Rounds, and to become men.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are forced to use here the misleading word "Men," and this is a
clear proof of how little any European language is adapted to express these
subtle distinctions.
It
stands to reason that these "Men" did not resemble the men of to-day,
either in form or nature. Why then, it may be asked, call them "Men"
at all? Because there is no other term in any Western language which
approximately conveys the idea intended. The word "Men" at least
indicates that these beings were "MANUS," thinking entities, however
they differed in form and intellection from ourselves. But in reality they
were, in respect of spirituality and intellection, rather "gods" than
"Men."
The
same difficulty of language is met with in describing the "stages"
through which the Monad passes. Metaphysically speaking, it is of course an
absurdity to talk of the "development" of a Monad, or to say that it
becomes "Man." But any attempt to preserve metaphysical accuracy of
language in the use of such a tongue as the English would necessitate at least
three extra volumes of this work, and would entail an amount of verbal
repetition which would be wearisome in the extreme. It stands to reason that a
MONAD cannot either progress or develop, or even be affected by the changes of
states it passes through. It is not of this world or plane, and may be compared
only to an indestructible star of divine light and fire, thrown down on to our
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
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3.
The laggards; the Monads which are retarded, and which will not reach, by
reason of Karmic impediments, the human stage at all during this cycle or
Round, save one exception which will be spoken of elsewhere as already
promised.
Now
the evolution of the external form or body round the astral is produced by the
terrestrial forces, just as in the case of the lower kingdoms; but the
evolution of the internal or real MAN is purely spiritual. It is now no more a
passage of the impersonal Monad through many and various forms of matter --
endowed at best with instinct and consciousness on quite a different plane --
as in the case of external evolution, but a journey of the
"pilgrim-soul" through various states of not only matter but
Self-consciousness and self-perception, or of perception from apperception.
(See "Gods, Monads and Atoms.")
The
MONAD emerges from its state of spiritual and intellectual unconsciousness;
and, skipping the first two planes -- too near the ABSOLUTE to permit of any
correlation with anything on a lower plane -- it gets direct into the plane of
Mentality. But there is no plane in the whole universe with a wider margin, or
a wider field of action in its almost endless gradations of perceptive and apperceptive
qualities, than this plane, which has in its turn an appropriate smaller plane
for every "form," from the "mineral" monad up to the time
when that monad blossoms forth by evolution into the DIVINE MONAD. But all the
time it is still one and the same Monad, differing only in its incarnations,
throughout its ever succeeding cycles of partial or total obscuration of
spirit, or the partial or total obscuration of matter -- two polar antitheses
-- as it ascends into the realms of mental spirituality, or descends into the
depths of materiality.
To
return to "Esoteric Buddhism." It is there stated with regard to the
enormous period intervening between the mineral epoch on Globe A, and the
man-epoch,* that: "The full development of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Earth as a plank of salvation for the
personalities in which it indwells. It is for the latter to cling to it; and
thus partaking of its divine nature, obtain immortality. Left to itself the
Monad will cling to no one; but, like the "plank," be drifted away to
another incarnation by the unresting current of evolution.
*
The term "Man epoch" is here used because of the necessity of giving a
name to that fourth kingdom which follows the animal. But in truth the
"Man" on Globe A during the First Round is no Man, but only his
prototype or dimensionless image from the astral regions.
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mineral
epoch on Globe A, prepares the way for the vegetable development, and, as soon
as this begins, the mineral life-impulse overflows into Globe B. Then, when the
vegetable development on Globe A is complete and the animal development begins,
the vegetable life-impulse overflows to Globe B, and the mineral impulse passes
on to Globe C. Then finally comes the human life-impulse on Globe A."
(Page 49.)
And
so it goes on for three Rounds, when it slackens, and finally stops at the
threshold of our Globe, at the Fourth Round; because the human period (of the
true physical men to be), the seventh, is now reached. This is evident, for as
said, " . . . there are processes of evolution which precede the mineral
kingdom, and thus a wave of evolution, indeed several waves of evolution,
precede the mineral wave in its progress round the spheres" (ibid).
And
now we have to quote from another article, "The Mineral Monad" in
"Five Years of Theosophy," p. 273 et seq.
"There
are seven kingdoms. The first group comprises three degrees of elementals, or
nascent centres of forces -- from the first stage of differentiation of (from)
Mulaprakriti (or rather Pradhana, primordial homogeneous matter) to its third
degree -- i.e., from full unconsciousness to semi-perception; the second or
higher group embraces the kingdoms from vegetable to man; the mineral kingdom
thus forming the central or turning point in the degrees of the "Monadic
Essence," considered as an evoluting energy. Three stages (sub-physical)
on the elemental side; the mineral kingdom; three stages on the objective
physical* side -- these are the (first or preliminary) seven links of the
evolutionary chain."
"Preliminary"
because they are preparatory, and though belonging in fact to the natural, they
yet would be more correctly described as sub-natural evolution. This process
makes a halt in its stages at the Third, at the threshold of the Fourth stage,
when it becomes, on the plane of the natural evolution, the first really
manward stage, thus forming with the three elemental kingdoms, the ten, the
Sephirothal number. It is at this point that begins:--
"A
descent of spirit into matter equivalent to an ascent in physical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Physical" here means differentiated for cosmical purposes and work;
that "physical side," nevertheless, if objective to the apperception
of beings from other planes, is yet quite subjective to us on our plane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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evolution;
a re-ascent from the deepest depths of materiality (the mineral) towards its
status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete organism -- up to
Nirvana, the vanishing point of differentiated matter." ("Five Years
of Theosophy," p. 276.)
Therefore
it becomes evident why that which is pertinently called in Esoteric Buddhism
"Wave of Evolution," and mineral-, vegetable-, animal- and
man-"impulse," stops at the door of our Globe, at its Fourth cycle or
Round. It is at this point that the Cosmic Monad (Buddhi) will be wedded to and
become the vehicle of the Atmic Ray, i.e., it (Buddhi) will awaken to an
apperception of it (Atman); and thus enter on the first step of a new septenary
ladder of evolution, which will lead it eventually to the tenth (counting from
the lowest upwards) of the Sephirothal tree, the Crown.
Everything
in the Universe follows analogy. "As above, so below"; Man is the
microcosm of the Universe. That which takes place on the spiritual plane
repeats itself on the Cosmic plane. Concretion follows the lines of
abstraction; corresponding to the highest must be the lowest; the material to
the spiritual. Thus, corresponding to the Sephirothal Crown (or upper triad)
there are the three elemental Kingdoms, which precede the Mineral (see diagram
on p. 277 in Five Years of Theosophy), and which, using the language of the
Kabalists, answer in the Cosmic differentiation to the worlds of Form and
Matter from the Super-Spiritual to the Archetypal.
Now
what is a "Monad?" And what relation does it bear to an Atom? The
following reply is based upon the explanations given in answer to these questions
in the above-cited article: "The Mineral Monad," written by the
author.
"None
whatever," is answered to the second question, "to the atom or
molecule as existing in the scientific conception at present. It can neither be
compared with the microscopic organism, once classed among polygastric
infusoria, and now regarded as vegetable, and classed among Algae; nor is it
quite the Monas of the Peripatetics. Physically or constitutionally the mineral
monad differs, of course, from the human monad, which is neither physical nor
can its constitution be rendered by chemical symbols and elements." In
short, as the spiritual Monad is One, Universal, Boundless and Impartite, whose
rays, nevertheless, form what we, in our ignorance, call the "Individual
Monads" of men,
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so
the Mineral Monad -- being at the opposite point of the circle -- is also One
-- and from it proceed the countless physical atoms, which Science is beginning
to regard as individualized.
Otherwise
how could one account for and explain mathematically the evolutionary and
spiral progress of the Four Kingdoms? The "Monad" is the combination
of the last two "principles" in man, the 6th and the 7th, and,
properly speaking, the term "human monad" applies only to the dual
soul (Atma-Buddhi), not to its highest spiritual vivifying Principle, Atma,
alone. But since the Spiritual Soul, if divorced from the latter (Atma) could have
no existence, no being, it has thus been called . . . . Now the Monadic, or
rather Cosmic, Essence (if such a term be permitted) in the mineral, vegetable,
and animal, though the same throughout the series of cycles from the lowest
elemental up to the Deva Kingdom, yet differs in the scale of progression. It
would be very misleading to imagine a Monad as a separate Entity trailing its
slow way in a distinct path through the lower Kingdoms, and after an
incalculable series of transformations flowering into a human being; in short,
that the Monad of a Humboldt dates back to the Monad of an atom of horneblende.
Instead of saying a "Mineral Monad," the more correct phraseology in
physical Science, which differentiates every atom, would of course have been to
call it "the Monad manifesting in that form of Prakriti called the Mineral
Kingdom." The atom, as represented in the ordinary scientific hypothesis,
is not a particle of something, animated by a psychic something, destined after
aeons to blossom as a man. But it is a concrete manifestation of the Universal
Energy which itself has not yet become individualized; a sequential
manifestation of the one Universal Monas. The ocean (of matter) does not divide
into its potential and constituent drops until the sweep of the life-impulse
reaches the evolutionary stage of man-birth. The tendency towards segregation
into individual Monads is gradual, and in the higher animals comes almost to
the point. The Peripatetics applied the word Monas to the whole Kosmos, in the
pantheistic sense; and the Occultists, while accepting this thought for
convenience sake, distinguish the progressive stages of the evolution of the
concrete from the abstract by terms of which the "Mineral, Vegetable,
Animal, (etc.), Monad" are examples. The term merely means that the tidal
wave of spiritual evolution is passing through that arc of its circuit. The
"Monadic
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Essence"
begins to imperceptibly differentiate towards individual consciousness in the
Vegetable Kingdom. As the Monads are uncompounded things, as correctly defined
by Leibnitz, it is the spiritual essence which vivifies them in their degrees
of differentiation, which properly constitutes the Monad -- not the atomic
aggregation, which is only the vehicle and the substance through which thrill
the lower and the higher degrees of intelligence.
Leibnitz
conceived of the Monads as elementary and indestructible units endowed with the
power of giving and receiving with respect to other units, and thus of
determining all spiritual and physical phenomena. It is he who invented the
term apperception, which together with nerve- (not perception, but rather) --
sensation, expresses the state of the Monadic consciousness through all the
Kingdoms up to Man.
Thus
it may be wrong on strictly metaphysical lines to call Atma-Buddhi a MONAD,
since in the materialistic view it is dual and therefore compound. But as
Matter is Spirit, and vice versa; and since the Universe and the Deity which
informs it are unthinkable apart from each other; so in the case of
Atma-Buddhi. The latter being the vehicle of the former, Buddhi stands in the
same relation to Atma, as Adam-Kadmon, the Kabalistic Logos, does to En-Soph,
or Mulaprakriti to Parabrahm.
A
few words more of the Moon.
What,
it may be asked, are the "Lunar Monads," just spoken of? The
description of the seven classes of Pitris will come later, but now some
general explanations may be given. It must be plain to everyone that they are
Monads, who, having ended their life-cycle on the lunar chain, which is
inferior to the terrestrial chain, have incarnated on this one. But there are
some further details which may be added, though they border too closely on forbidden
ground to be treated of fully. The last word of the mystery is divulged only to
the adepts, but it may be stated that our satellite is only the gross body of
its invisible principles. Seeing then that there are 7 Earths, so there are 7
Moons, the last one alone being visible; the same for the Sun, whose visible
body is called a Maya, a reflection, just as man's body is. "The real Sun
and the real Moon are as invisible as the real man," says an occult maxim.
And
it may be remarked en passant that those ancients were not so foolish after all
who first started the idea of "the seven moons." For though
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this
conception is now taken solely as an astronomical measure of time, in a very
materialised form, yet underlying the husk there can still be recognised the
traces of a profoundly philosophical idea.
In
reality the Moon is only the satellite of the Earth in one respect, viz., that
physically the Moon revolves round the Earth. But in every other respect it is
the Earth which is the satellite of the Moon, and not vice versa. Startling as
the statement may seem it is not without confirmation from scientific knowledge.
It is evidenced by the tides, by the cyclic changes in many forms of disease
which coincide with the lunar phases; it can be traced in the growth of plants,
and is very marked in the phenomena of human gestation and conception. The
importance of the Moon and its influence on the Earth were recognized in every
ancient religion, notably the Jewish, and have been remarked by many observers
of psychical and physical phenomena. But, so far as Science knows, the Earth's
action on the Moon is confined to the physical attraction, which causes her to
circle in her orbit. And should an objector insist that this fact alone is
sufficient evidence that the Moon is truly the Earth's satellite on other
planes of action, one may reply by asking whether a mother, who walks round and
round her child's cradle keeping watch over the infant, is the subordinate of
her child or dependent upon it; though in one sense she is its satellite, yet
she is certainly older and more fully developed than the child she watches.
It
is, then, the Moon that plays the largest and most important part, as well in
the formation of the Earth itself, as in the peopling thereof with human
beings. The "Lunar Monads" or Pitris, the ancestors of man, become in
reality man himself. They are the "Monads" who enter on the cycle of
evolution on Globe A, and who, passing round the chain of planets, evolve the
human form as has just been shown. At the beginning of the human stage of the
Fourth Round on this Globe, they "ooze out" their astral doubles from
the "ape-like" forms which they had evolved in Round III. And it is
this subtle, finer form, which serves as the model round which Nature builds
physical man. These "Monads" or "divine sparks" are thus
the "Lunar" ancestors, the Pitris themselves. For these "Lunar
Spirits" have to become "Men" in order that their
"Monads" may reach a higher plane of activity and self-consciousness,
i.e., the plane of the Manasa-Putras, those who
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[[Vol.
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endow
the "senseless" shells, created and informed by the Pitris, with
"mind" in the latter part of the Third Root-Race.
In
the same way the "Monads" or Egos of the men of the seventh Round of
our Earth, after our own Globes A, B, C, D, et seq., parting with their
life-energy, will have informed and thereby called to life other laya-centres
destined to live and act on a still higher plane of being -- in the same way
will the Terrene "Ancestors" create those who will become their
superiors.
It
now becomes plain that there exists in Nature a triple evolutionary scheme, for
the formation of the three periodical Upadhis; or rather three separate schemes
of evolution, which in our system are inextricably interwoven and interblended
at every point. These are the Monadic (or spiritual), the intellectual, and the
physical evolutions. These three are the finite aspects or the reflections on
the field of Cosmic Illusion of ATMA, the seventh, the ONE REALITY.
1.
The Monadic is, as the name implies, concerned with the growth and development
into still higher phases of activity of the Monad in conjunction with:--
2.
The Intellectual, represented by the Manasa-Dhyanis (the Solar Devas, or the
Agnishwatta Pitris) the "givers of intelligence and consciousness"*
to man and:--
3.
The Physical, represented by the Chhayas of the lunar Pitris, round which
Nature has concreted the present physical body. This body serves as the vehicle
for the "growth" (to use a misleading word) and the transformations
through Manas and -- owing to the accumulation of experiences -- of the finite
into the INFINITE, of the transient into the Eternal and Absolute.
Each
of these three systems has its own laws, and is ruled and guided by different
sets of the highest Dhyanis or "Logoi." Each is represented in the
constitution of man, the Microcosm of the great Macrocosm; and it is the union
of these three streams in him which makes him the complex being he now is.
"Nature,"
the physical evolutionary Power, could never evolve intelligence unaided -- she
can only create "senseless forms," as will be seen in our
"ANTHROPOGENESIS." The "Lunar Monads" cannot progress, for
they have not yet had sufficient touch with the forms
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide CONCLUSION in Part II. of this Book.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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created
by "Nature" to allow of their accumulating experiences through its
means. It is the Manasa-Dhyanis who fill up the gap, and they represent the
evolutionary power of Intelligence and Mind, the link between
"Spirit" and "Matter" -- in this Round.
Also
it must be borne in mind that the Monads which enter upon the evolutionary
cycle upon Globe A, in the first Round, are in very different stages of
development. Hence the matter becomes somewhat complicated. . . . Let us
recapitulate.
The
most developed Monads (the lunar) reach the human germ-stage in the first
Round; become terrestrial, though very ethereal human beings towards the end of
the Third Round, remaining on it (the globe) through the
"obscuration" period as the seed for future mankind in the Fourth Round,
and thus become the pioneers of Humanity at the beginning of this, the Fourth
Round. Others reach the Human stage only during later Rounds, i.e., in the
second, third, or first half of the Fourth Round. And finally the most retarded
of all, i.e., those still occupying animal forms after the middle turning-point
of the Fourth Round -- will not become men at all during this Manwantara. They
will reach to the verge of humanity only at the close of the seventh Round to
be, in their turn, ushered into a new chain after pralaya -- by older pioneers,
the progenitors of humanity, or the Seed-Humanity (Sishta), viz., the men who
will be at the head of all at the end of these Rounds.
The
student hardly needs any further explanation on the part played by the fourth
Globe and the fourth Round in the scheme of evolution.
From
the preceding diagrams, which are applicable, mutatis mutandis, to Rounds,
Globes or Races, it will be seen that the fourth member of a series occupies a
unique position. Unlike the others, the Fourth has no "sister" Globe
on the same plane as itself, and it thus forms the fulcrum of the
"balance" represented by the whole chain. It is the sphere of final
evolutionary adjustments, the world of Karmic scales, the Hall of Justice,
where the balance is struck which determines the future course of the Monad
during the remainder of its incarnations in the cycle. And therefore it is,
that, after this central turning-point has been passed in the Great Cycle, --
i.e., after the middle point of the Fourth Race in the Fourth Round on our
Globe -- no more Monads can enter the human kingdom. The door is closed for
this Cycle and the balance struck. For were it otherwise -- had there been a
new soul
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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created
for each of the countless milliards of human beings that have passed away, and
had there been no reincarnation -- it would become difficult indeed to provide
room for the disembodied "Spirits;" nor could the origin and cause of
suffering ever be accounted for. It is the ignorance of the occult tenets and
the enforcement of false conceptions under the guise of religious education,
which have created materialism and atheism as a protest against the asserted
divine order of things.
The
only exceptions to the rule just stated are the "dumb races," whose
Monads are already within the human stage, in virtue of the fact that these
"animals" are later than, and even half descended from man, their last
descendants being the anthropoid and other apes. These "human
presentments" are in truth only the distorted copies of the early
humanity. But this will receive full attention in the next Book.
As
the Commentary, broadly rendered, says:--
1.
"Every form on earth, and every speck (atom) in Space strives in its
efforts towards self-formation to follow the model placed for it in the '
HEAVENLY MAN.' . . . Its (the atom's) involution and evolution, its external
and internal growth and development, have all one and the same object -- man;
man, as the highest physical and ultimate form on this earth; the MONAD, in its
absolute totality and awakened condition -- as the culmination of the divine
incarnations on Earth."
2.
"The Dhyanis (Pitris) are those who have evolved their BHUTA (doubles)
from themselves, which RUPA (form) has become the vehicle of monads (seventh
and sixth principles) that had completed their cycle of transmigration in the
three preceding Kalpas (Rounds). Then, they (the astral doubles) became the men
of the first Human Race of the Round. But they were not complete, and were
senseless."
This
will be explained in the Books that follow. Meanwhile man -- or rather his
Monad -- has existed on the earth from the very beginning of this Round. But, up
to our own Fifth Race, the external shapes which covered those divine astral
doubles changed and consolidated with every sub-race; the form and physical
structure of the fauna changing at the same time, as they had to be adapted to
the ever-changing conditions of life on this globe during the geological
periods of its formative cycle. And thus shall they go on changing with every
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[[Vol.
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Root
Race and every chief sub-race down to the last one of the Seventh in this
Round.
3.
"The inner, now concealed, man, was then (in the beginnings) the external
man. The progeny of the Dhyanis (Pitris), he was 'the son like unto his
father.' Like the lotus, whose external shape assumes gradually the form of the
model within itself, so did the form of man in the beginning evolve from within
without. After the cycle in which man began to procreate his species after the
fashion of the present animal kingdom, it became the reverse. The human foetus
follows now in its transformations all the forms that the physical frame of man
had assumed throughout the three Kalpas (Rounds) during the tentative efforts
at Plastic formation around the monad by senseless, because imperfect, matter,
in her blind wanderings. In the present age, the physical embryo is a plant, a
reptile, an animal, before it finally becomes man, evolving within himself his
own ethereal counterpart, in his turn. In the beginning it was that counterpart
(astral man) which, being senseless, got entangled in the meshes of
matter."
But
this "man" belongs to the fourth Round. As shown, the MONAD had
passed through, journeyed and been imprisoned in, every transitional form
throughout every kingdom of nature during the three preceding Rounds. But the
monad which becomes human is not the Man. In this Round -- with the exception
of the highest mammals after man, the anthropoids destined to die out in this
our race, when their monads will be liberated and pass into the astral human
forms (or the highest elementals) of the Sixth* and the Seventh Races, and then
into lowest human forms in the fifth Round -- no units of either of the
kingdoms are animated any longer by monads destined to become human in their
next stage, but only by the lower Elementals of their respective realms.**
The
last human Monad incarnated before the beginning of the 5th
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nature never repeats herself, therefore the anthropoids of our day have not
existed at any time since the middle of the Miocene period; when, like all
cross breeds, they began to show a tendency, more and more marked as time went
on, to return to the type of their first parent, the black and yellow gigantic
Lemuro-Atlantean. To search for the "Missing Link" is useless. To the
scientists of the closing sixth Root-race, millions and millions of years
hence, our modern races, or rather their fossils, will appear as those of small
insignificant apes -- an extinct species of the genus homo.
**
These "Elementals" will become human Monads, in their turn, only at
the next great planetary Manvantara.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Root-Race.*
The cycle of metempsychosis for the human monad is closed, for we are in the
Fourth Round and the Fifth Root-Race. The reader will have to bear in mind --
at any rate one who has made himself acquainted with "Esoteric
Buddhism" -- that the Stanzas which follow in this Book and Book II speak
of the evolution in our Fourth Round only. The latter is the cycle of the
turning-point, after which, matter,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Such anthropoids form an exception because they were not intended by Nature,
but are the direct product and creation of "senseless" man. The
Hindus give a divine origin to the apes and monkeys because the men of the
Third Race were gods from another plane who had become "senseless"
mortals. This subject had already been touched upon in "Isis
Unveiled" twelve years ago as plainly as was then possible. On pp.
278-279, the reader is referred "to the Brahmins, if he would know the
reason of the regard they have for the monkeys. For then he (the reader) would
perhaps learn -- were the Brahman to judge him worthy of an explanation -- that
the Hindu sees in the ape but what Manu desired he should: the transformation
of species most directly connected with that of the human family, a bastard
branch engrafted on their own stock before the final perfection of the latter.
He might learn, further, that in the eyes of the educated 'heathen' the
spiritual or inner man is one thing, and his terrestrial physical casket
another. That physical nature, the great combination of physical correlations
of forces, ever creeping onward towards perfection, has to avail herself of the
material at hand; she models and remodels as she proceeds, and finishing her
crowning work in man, presents him alone as a fit tabernacle for the
overshadowing of the divine Spirit."
Moreover,
a German scientific work is mentioned in a footnote on the same page. It says
that a Hanoverian scientist had recently published a Book entitled "Ueber
die Auflosung der Arten durch Naturliche Zucht-wahl," in which he shows,
with great ingenuity, that Darwin was wholly mistaken in tracing man back to
the ape. On the contrary, he maintains that it is the ape which is evolved from
man. He shows that, in the beginning, mankind were morally and physically the
types and prototypes of our present Race, and of our human dignity, by their
beauty of form, regularity of feature, cranial development, nobility of
sentiments, heroic impulses, and grandeur of ideal conception. This is a purely
Brahmanic, Buddhistic and Kabalistic philosophy. The Book is copiously
illustrated with diagrams, tables, etc. It asserts that the gradual debasement
and degradation of man, morally and physically, can be readily traced
throughout the ethnological transformation down to our time. And, as one
portion has already degenerated into apes, so the civilized man of the present
day will at last, under the action of the inevitable law of necessity, be also
succeeded by like descendants. If we may judge of the future by the actual
Present, it certainly does seem possible that so unspiritual and materialistic
a body should end as Simia rather than as Seraphs. But though the apes descend
from man, it is certainly not the fact that the human Monad, which has once
reached the level of humanity, ever incarnates again in the form of an animal.
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having
reached its lowest depths, begins to strive onward and to get spiritualized
with every new Race and with every fresh cycle. Therefore the student must take
care not to see contradiction where there is none, as in "Esoteric
Buddhism" Rounds are spoken of in general, while here only the Fourth, or
our present Round, is meant. Then it was the work of formation; now it is that
of reformation and evolutionary perfection.
Finally,
to close this chapter anent various, but unavoidable misconceptions, we must
refer to a statement in "Esoteric Buddhism" which has produced a very
fatal impression upon the minds of many Theosophists. One unfortunate sentence
from the work just referred to is constantly brought forward to prove the
materialism of the doctrine. On p. 48, 5th Edition, the Author, referring to
the progress of organisms on the Globes, says that "the mineral kingdom
will no more develop the vegetable . . . than the Earth was able to develop man
from the ape, till it received an impulse."
Whether
this sentence renders literally the thought of the author, or is simply (as we
believe it is) a lapsus calami, may remain an open question.
It
is really with surprise that we have ascertained the fact that "Esoteric
Buddhism" was so little understood by some Theosophists, as to have led
them into the belief that it thoroughly supported Darwinian evolution, and
especially the theory of the descent of man from a pithecoid ancestor. As one
member writes: "I suppose you realise that three-fourths of Theosophists
and even outsiders imagine that, as far as the evolution of man is concerned,
Darwinism and Theosophy kiss one another." Nothing of the kind was ever
realised, nor is there any great warrant for it, so far as we know, in
"Esoteric Buddhism." It has been repeatedly stated that evolution as
taught by Manu and Kapila was the groundwork of the modern teachings, but
neither Occultism nor Theosophy has ever supported the wild theories of the
present Darwinists -- least of all the descent of man from an ape. Of this, more
hereafter. But one has only to turn to p. 47 of "Esoteric Buddhism,"
5th edition, to find there the statement that "Man belongs to a kingdom
distinctly separate from that of the animals." With such a plain and
unequivocal statement before him, it is very strange that any careful student
should have been so misled unless he is prepared to charge the author with a
gross contradiction.
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[[Vol.
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Every
Round repeats on a higher scale the evolutionary work of the preceding Round.
With the exception of some higher anthropoids, as just mentioned, the Monadic
inflow, or inner evolution, is at an end till the next Manvantara. It can never
be too often repeated, that the full-blown human Monads have to be first
disposed of, before the new crop of candidates appears on this Globe at the
beginning of the next cycle. Thus there is a lull; and this is why, during the
Fourth Round, man appears on Earth earlier than any animal creation, as will be
described.
But
it is still urged that the author of "Esoteric Buddhism" has
"preached Darwinism" all along. Certain passages would undoubtedly
seem to lend countenance to this inference. Besides which the Occultists
themselves are ready to concede partial correctness to the Darwinian
hypothesis, in later details, bye-laws of Evolution, and after the midway point
of the Fourth Race. Of that which has taken place, physical science can really
know nothing, for such matters lie entirely outside of its sphere of
investigation. But what the Occultists have never admitted, nor will they ever
admit, is that man was an ape in this or in any other Round; or that he ever
could be one, however much he may have been "ape-like." This is vouched
for by the very authority from whom the author of "Esoteric Buddhism"
got his information.
Thus
to those who confront the Occultists with these lines from the above-named
volume: "It is enough to show that we may as reasonably -- and that we
must, if we would talk about these matters at all -- conceive a life-impulse
giving birth to mineral form, as of the same sort of impulse concerned to raise
a race of apes into a race of rudimentary men." To those who bring this
passage forward as showing "decided Darwinism," the Occultists answer
by pointing to the explanation of the Master (Mr. Sinnett's
"teacher") which would contradict these lines, were they written in
the spirit attributed to them. A copy of this letter was sent to the writer, together
with others, two years ago (1886), with additional marginal remarks, to quote
from, in the "Secret Doctrine." It begins by considering the
difficulty experienced by the Western student, in reconciling some facts,
previously given, with the evolution of man from the animal, i.e., from the
mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms, and advises the student to hold to the
doctrine of analogy and correspondences. Then it touches upon the mystery of
the Devas,
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and
even Gods, having to pass through states which it was agreed to refer to as
"Inmetallization, Inherbation, Inzoonization and finally
Incarnation," and explains this by hinting at the necessity of failures
even in the ethereal races of Dhyan Chohans. Concerning this it says:
"Still,
as these 'failures' are too far progressed and spiritualized to be thrown back
forcibly from Dhyan Chohanship into the vortex of a new primordial evolution
through the lower kingdoms. . . . ." After which only a hint is given
about the mystery contained in the allegory of the fallen Asuras, which will be
expanded and explained in Book II. When Karma has reached them at the stage of
human evolution, "they will have to drink it to the last drop in the
bitter cup of retribution. Then they become an active force and commingle with
the Elementals, the progressed entities of the pure animal kingdom, to develop
little by little the full type of humanity."
These
Dhyan Chohans, as we see, do not pass through the three kingdoms as do the
lower Pitris; nor do they incarnate in man until the Third Root Race. Thus, as
the teaching stands:
"Man
in the First Round and First Race on Globe D, our Earth, was an ethereal being
(a Lunar Dhyani, as man), non-intelligent but superspiritual; and
correspondingly, on the law of analogy, in the First Race of the Fourth Round.
In each of the subsequent races and sub-races . . . he grows more and more into
an encased or incarnate being, but still preponderatingly ethereal. . . . He is
sexless, and, like the animal and vegetable he develops monstrous bodies
correspondential with his coarser surroundings.
"II.
Round. He (Man) is still gigantic and ethereal but growing firmer and more condensed
in body, a more physical man. Yet still less intelligent than spiritual (1),
for mind is a slower and more difficult evolution than is the physical frame .
. .
"III.
Round. He has now a perfectly concrete or compacted body, at first the form of a
giant-ape, and now more intelligent, or rather cunning, than spiritual. For, on
the downward arc, he has now reached a point where his primordial spirituality
is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent mentality (2). In the last half of the
Third Round his gigantic stature decreases, and his body improves in texture,
and he becomes a more rational being, though still more an ape than a
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[[Vol.
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Deva.
. . . (All this is almost exactly repeated in the third Root-Race of the Fourth
Round.)
"IV.
Round. Intellect has an enormous development in this Round. The (hitherto) dumb
races acquire our (present) human speech on this globe, on which, from the
Fourth Race, language is perfected and knowledge increases. At this half-way
point of the Fourth Round (as of the Fourth Root, or Atlantean, race) humanity
passes the axial point of the minor Manvantara cycle . . . . the world teeming
with the results of intellectual activity and spiritual decrease . . . ."
This
is from the authentic letter; what follows are the later remarks and additional
explanations traced by the same hand in the form of footnotes.
(1.)
" . . . The original letter contained general teaching -- a 'bird's eye
view' -- and particularized nothing. . . . To speak of 'physical man' while
limiting the statement to the early Rounds would be drifting back to the
miraculous and instantaneous 'coats of skin.' . . . The first 'Nature,' the
first 'body,' the first 'mind' on the first plane of perception, on the first
Globe in the first Round, is what was meant. For Karma and evolution have --
'
. . . centred in our make such strange extremes!
From
different Natures* marvellously mixed . . .'
(2.)
"Restore: he has now reached the point (by analogy, and as the Third Root
Race in the Fourth Round) where his ("the angel"-man's) primordial
spirituality is eclipsed and overshadowed by nascent human mentality, and you
have the true version on your thumb-nail. . . ."
These
are the words of the Teacher -- text, words and sentences in brackets, and
explanatory footnotes. It stands to reason that there must be an enormous
difference in such terms as "objectivity" and
"subjectivity," "materiality" and "spirituality,"
when the same terms are applied to different planes of being and perception.
All this must be taken in its relative sense. And therefore there is little to
be wondered at, if, left to his own speculations, an author, however eager to
learn, yet quite inexperienced in these abstruse teachings, has fallen
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Natures of the seven hierarchies or classes of Pitris and Dhyan Chohans
which compose our nature and Bodies are here meant.
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[[Vol.
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into
an error. Neither was the difference between the "Rounds" and the
"Races" sufficiently defined in the letters received, nor was there anything
of the kind required before, as the ordinary Eastern disciple would have found
out the difference in a moment. Moreover, to quote from a letter of the
Master's (188-), "the teachings were imparted under protest. . . . They
were, so to say, smuggled goods . . . and when I remained face to face with
only one correspondent, the other, Mr. . . . ., had so far tossed all the cards
into confusion, that little remained to be said without trespassing upon
law." Theosophists, "whom it may concern," will understand what
is meant.
The
outcome of all this is that nothing had ever been said in the
"letters" to warrant the assurance that the Occult doctrine has ever
taught, or any Adept believed in, the preposterous modern theory of the descent
of man from a common ancestor with the ape -- an anthropoid of the actual
animal kind, unless metaphorically. To this day the world is more full of
"ape-like men" than the woods are of "men-like apes." The
ape is sacred in India because its origin is well known to the Initiates,
though concealed under a thick veil of allegory. Hanuman is the son of Pavana
(Vayu, "the god of the wind") by Anjana, a monster called Kesari,
though his genealogy varies. The reader who bears this in mind will find in
Book II. passim, the whole explanation of this ingenious allegory. The
"Men" of the Third Race (who separated) were "Gods" by
their spirituality and purity, though senseless, and as yet destitute of mind,
as men.
These
"Men" of the Third Race -- the ancestors of the Atlanteans -- were
just such ape-like, intellectually senseless giants as were those beings, who,
during the Third Round, represented Humanity. Morally irresponsible, it was
these third Race "men" who, through promiscuous connection with
animal species lower than themselves, created that missing link which became
ages later (in the tertiary period only) the remote ancestor of the real ape as
we find it now in the pithecoid family.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And if this is found clashing with that other statement which shows the animal
later than man, then the reader is asked to bear in mind that the placental
mammal only is meant. In those days there were animals of which zoology does
not even dream in our own; and the modes of reproduction were not identical
with the notions which modern physiology has upon the subject. It is not
altogether convenient to touch upon such questions in public, but there is no
contradiction or impossibility in this whatever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Thus
the earlier teachings, however unsatisfactory, vague and fragmentary, did not
teach the evolution of "man" from the "ape." Nor does the
author of "Esoteric Buddhism" assert it anywhere in his work in so
many words; but, owing to his inclination towards modern science, he uses
language which might perhaps justify such an inference. The man who preceded
the Fourth, the Atlantean race, however much he may have looked physically like
a "gigantic ape" -- "the counterfeit of man who hath not the
life of a man" -- was still a thinking and already a speaking man. The
"Lemuro-Atlantean" was a highly civilized race, and if one accepts
tradition, which is better history than the speculative fiction which now
passes under that name, he was higher than we are with all our sciences and the
degraded civilization of the day: at any rate, the Lemuro-Atlantean of the
closing Third Race was so.
And
now we may return to the Stanzas.
-------
STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
5.
AT THE FOURTH (Round, or revolution of life and being around "the seven
smaller wheels") (a), THE SONS ARE TOLD TO CREATE THEIR IMAGES. ONE THIRD
REFUSES. TWO (thirds) OBEY.
The
full meaning of this sloka can be fully comprehended only after reading the
detailed additional explanations in the "Anthropogenesis" and its
commentaries, in Book II. Between this Sloka and the last, Sloka 4 in this same
Stanza, extend long ages; and there now gleams the dawn and sunrise of another
aeon. The drama enacted on our planet is at the beginning of its fourth act,
but for a clearer comprehension of the whole play the reader will have to turn
back before he can proceed onward. For this verse belongs to the general
Cosmogony given in the archaic volumes, whereas Book II. will give a detailed
account of the "Creation" or rather the formation, of the first human
beings, followed by the second humanity, and then by the third; or, as they are
called, "the first, second, and the third Root-Races." As the solid
Earth began by being a ball of liquid fire, of fiery dust and its protoplasmic
phantom, so did man.
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(a)
That which is meant by the qualification the "Fourth" is explained as
the "fourth Round" only on the authority of the Commentaries. It can
equally mean fourth "Eternity" as "Fourth Round," or even
the fourth (our) Globe. For, as will repeatedly be shown, it is the fourth
Sphere on the fourth or lowest plane of material life. And it so happens that
we are in the Fourth Round, at the middle point of which the perfect
equilibrium between Spirit and Matter had to take place.* Says the Commentary
explaining the verse:--
"The
holy youths (the gods) refused to multiply and create species after their
likeness, after their kind. They are not fit forms (rupas) for us. They have to
grow. They refuse to enter the chhayas (shadows or images) of their inferiors.
Thus had selfish feeling prevailed from the beginning, even among the gods, and
they fell under the eye of the Karmic Lipikas."
They
had to suffer for it in later births. How the punishment reached the gods will
be seen in the second volume.
-------
STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
6.
THE CURSE IS PRONOUNCED (a): THEY WILL BE BORN IN THE FOURTH (Race), SUFFER AND
CAUSE SUFFERING (b). THIS IS THE FIRST WAR (c).
(a)
It is a universal tradition that, before the physiological "Fall,"
propagation of one's kind, whether human or animal, took place through the WILL
of the Creators, or of their progeny. It was the Fall of Spirit into
generation, not the Fall of mortal man. It has already been stated that, to
become a Self-Conscious Spirit, the latter must pass through every cycle of
being, culminating in its highest point on earth in Man.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It was, as we shall see, at this period -- during the highest point of
civilization and knowledge, as also of human intellectuality, of the fourth,
Atlantean Race -- that, owing to the final crisis of physiologico-spiritual
adjustment of the races, humanity branched off into its two diametrically
opposite paths: the RIGHT- and the LEFT-hand paths of knowledge or of Vidya. "Thus
were the germs of the White and the Black Magic sown in those days. The seeds
lay latent for some time, to sprout only during the early period of the Fifth
(our Race)." (Commentary.)
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[[Vol.
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Spirit
per se is an unconscious negative ABSTRACTION. Its purity is inherent, not
acquired by merit; hence, as already shown, to become the highest Dhyan Chohan
it is necessary for each Ego to attain to full self-consciousness as a human,
i.e., conscious Being, which is synthesized for us in Man. The Jewish Kabalists
arguing that no Spirit could belong to the divine hierarchy unless Ruach
(Spirit) was united to Nephesh (living Soul), only repeat the Eastern Esoteric
teaching. "A Dhyani has to be an Atma-Buddhi; once the Buddhi-Manas breaks
loose from its immortal Atma of which it (Buddhi) is the vehicle, Atman passes
into NON-BEING, which is absolute Being." This means that the purely
Nirvanic state is a passage of Spirit back to the ideal abstraction of Be-ness
which has no relation to the plane on which our Universe is accomplishing its
cycle.
(b)
"The curse is pronounced" does not mean, in this instance, that any
personal Being, god, or superior Spirit, pronounced it, but simply that the
cause which could but create bad results had been generated, and that the
effects of a Karmic cause could lead the "Beings" that counteracted
the laws of Nature, and thus impeded her legitimate progress, only to bad
incarnations, hence to suffering.
(c)
"There were many wars" refers to several struggles of adjustment,
spiritual, cosmical, and astronomical, but chiefly to the mystery of the
evolution of man as he is now. Powers -- pure Essences -- "that were told
to create" is a sentence that relates to a mystery explained, as already
said, elsewhere. It is not only one of the most hidden secrets of Nature --
that of generation, over whose solution the Embryologists have vainly put their
heads together -- but likewise a divine function that involves that other
religious, or rather dogmatic, mystery, the "Fall" of the Angels, as
it is called. Satan and his rebellious host would thus prove, when the meaning
of the allegory is explained, to have refused to create physical man, only to
become the direct Saviours and the Creators of "divine Man." The
symbolical teaching is more than mystical and religious, it is purely
scientific, as will be seen later on. For, instead of remaining a mere blind,
functioning medium, impelled and guided by fathomless LAW, the
"rebellious" Angel claimed and enforced his right of independent
judgment and will, his
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[[Vol.
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right
of free-agency and responsibility, since man and angel are alike under Karmic
Law.*
"And
there was war in Heaven. . . . Michael and his angels fought against the
Dragon; and the Dragon fought and his angels, and prevailed not; neither was
their place found any more in Heaven. And the Dragon was cast out, that old
serpent, called the devil and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world."
The
Kabalistic version of the same story is given in the Codex Nazareus, the
scripture of the Nazarenes, the real mystic Christians of John the Baptist and
the Initiates of Christos. Bahak-Zivo, the "Father of the Genii," is
ordered to construct creatures (to create). But, as he is "ignorant of
Orcus," he fails to do so, and calls in Fetahil, a still purer spirit, to
his aid, who fails still worse. This is a repetition of the failure of the
"Fathers," the lords of light who fail one after the other. (Book II,
Sloka 17.)
We
will now quote from our earlier Volumes:--
"Then
steps on the stage of creation the spirit** (of the Earth so-called, or the
Soul, Psyche, which St. James calls 'devilish') the lower portion the Anima
Mundi or Astral Light. (See the close of this Sloka). With the Nazarenes and
the Gnostics this Spirit was
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Explaining Kabalistic views, the author of the "New Aspects of Life"
says of the Fallen Angels that, "According to the symbolical teaching,
Spirit, from being simply a functionary agent of God, became volitional in its
developed and developing action; and, substituting its own will for the Divine
desire in its regard, so fell. Hence the Kingdom and reign of Spirits and
spiritual action, which flow from and are the product of Spirit-volition, are
outside, and contrasted with, and in contradiction to the Kingdom of Souls and
Divine action." So far, so good; but what does the Author mean by saying,
"When man was created, he was human in constitution, with human
affections, human hopes and aspirations. From this state he fell -- into the
brute and savage"? This is diametrically opposite to our Eastern teaching,
and even to the Kabalistic notion so far as we understand it, and to the Bible
itself. This looks like Corporealism and Substantialism colouring positive
philosophy, though it is rather hard to feel quite sure of the Author's meaning
(see p. 235). A FALL, however, "from the natural into the supernatural and
the animal" -- supernatural meaning the purely spiritual in this case --
means what we suggest.
**
On the authority of Irenaeus, of Justin Martyr and the "Codex"
itself, Dunlap shows that the Nazarenes regarded "Spirit" as a female
and Evil Power in its connection with our Earth. (Dunlap: "Sod," the
Son of the Man, p. 52).
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[[Vol.
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feminine.
Thus the spirit of the Earth perceiving that for Fetahil,* the newest man (the
latest), the splendour was 'changed,' and that for splendour existed 'decrease
and damage,' she awakes Karabtanos,** 'who was frantic and without sense and
judgment,' and says to him:-- 'Arise, see, the splendour (light) of the newest
man (Fetahil) has failed (to produce or create men), the decrease of this
splendour is visible. Rise up, come with thy MOTHER (the Spiritus) and free
thee from limits by which thou art held, and those more ample than the whole
world.' After which follows the union of the frantic and blind matter, guided
by the insinuations of the spirit (not the Divine breath but the Astral spirit,
which by its double essence is already tainted with matter); and the offer of
the MOTHER being accepted, the Spiritus conceives "Seven Figures,"
and the seven stellars (planets) which represent also the seven capital sins,
the progeny of an astral soul separated from its divine source (spirit) and
matter, the blind demon of concupiscence. Seeing this, Fetahil extends his hand
towards the abyss of matter, and says:-- 'Let the Earth exist, just as the
abode of the powers has existed.' Dipping his hand in the chaos, which he
condenses, he creates our planet.***"
"Then
the Codex proceeds to tell how Bahak-Zivo was separated from the Spiritus, and
the Genii or angels from the rebels.**** Then Mano***** (the greatest), who
dwells with the greatest FERHO, call Kebar-Zivo (known also by the name of
Nebat-Iavar bar Iufin Ifafin), Helm and Vine of the food of life,****** he
being the third life, and commiserating the rebellious and foolish Genii, on
account of the magnitude of their ambition, says: 'Lord of the Genii*******
(AEons), see what the Genii, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Fetahil is identical with the host of the Pitris who "created Man" as
only a "shell." He was, with the Nazarenes, the king of light, and
the creator; but in this instance he is the unlucky Prometheus, who fails to
get hold of the Living Fire necessary for the formation of the divine Soul, as
he is ignorant of the secret name, the ineffable or incommunicable name of the
Kabalists.
**
The spirit of Matter and Concupiscence; "Kamarupa" minus
"Manas," Mind.
***
See Franck's "Codex Nazaraeus," and Dunlap's "Sod, the Son of
the Man."
****
Codex Nazaraeus, ii., 233.
*****
This Mano of the Nazarenes strangely resembles the Hindu Manu, the Heavenly Man
of the "Rig Vedas."
******
"I am the true Vine, and my father is the husbandman." (John xv., 1.)
*******
With the Gnostics, Christ, as well as Michael who is identical with him in some
respects, was the "Chief of the AEons."
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[[Vol.
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rebellious
angels do, and about what they are consulting.* They say, 'Let us call for the
world, and let us call the 'powers' into existence." The Genii are the
Principes, the "Sons of Light," but thou art the "Messenger of
Life."**
And
in order to counteract the influence of the seven "badly disposed"
principles, the progeny of Spiritus, CABAR-ZIO, the mighty Lord of Splendor,
produces seven other lives (the cardinal virtues) who shine in their own form
and light "from on high"*** and thus re-establish the balance between
good and evil, light and darkness.
Here
one finds a repetition of the early allegorical, dual systems, as the
Zoroastrian, and detects a germ of the dogmatic and dualistic religions of the
future, a germ which has grown into such a luxuriant tree in ecclesiastical
Christianity. It is already the outline of the two "Supremes" -- God
and Satan. But in the Stanzas no such idea exists.
Most
of the Western Christian Kabalists -- pre-eminently Eliphas Levi -- in their
desire to reconcile the Occult Sciences with Church dogmas, did their best to
make of the "Astral Light" only and preeminently the Pleroma of early
Church Fathers, the abode of the Hosts of the Fallen Angels, of the
"Archons" and "Powers." But the Astral Light, while only
the lower aspect of the Absolute, is yet dual. It is the Anima Mundi, and ought
never to be viewed otherwise, except for Kabalistic purposes. The difference
which exists between its "light" and its "Living Fire"
ought to be ever present in the mind of the Seer and the "Psychic."
The higher aspect, without which only creatures of matter from that Astral
Light can be produced, is this Living Fire, and it is the Seventh Principle. It
is said in "Isis Unveiled," in a complete description of it:--
"The
Astral Light or Anima Mundi is dual and bisexual. The (ideal) male part of it
is purely divine and spiritual, it is the Wisdom, it is Spirit or Purusha;
while the female portion (the Spiritus of the Nazarenes) is tainted, in one
sense, with matter, is indeed matter, and therefore is evil already. It is the
life-principle of every living creature, and furnishes the astral soul, the
fluidic perisprit, to men, animals, fowls of the air, and everything living.
Animals have only the latent germ of the highest immortal soul in them. . . . .
This latter will develop
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Codex Nazaraeus, i, 135.
**
Ibid.
***
See the Cosmogony of Pherecydes.
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[[Vol.
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only
after a series of countless evolutions; the doctrine of which evolution is
contained in the Kabalistic axiom: 'A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a beast;
a beast, a man; a man, a spirit; and the spirit, a god.'" (Vol. I., p.
301, note.)
The
seven principles of the Eastern Initiates had not been explained when
"Isis" was written, but only the three Kabalistic Faces of the
semi-exoteric Kabala.* But these contain the description of the mystic natures
of the first group of Dhyan Chohans in the regimen ignis, the region and
"rule (or government) of fire," which group is divided into three
classes, synthesized by the first, which makes four or the
"Tetraktis." (See Comments on Stanza VII. Book I.) If one studies the
Comments attentively he will find the same progression in the angelic natures,
viz., from the passive down to the active, the last of these Beings being as
near to the Ahamkara element (the region or plane wherein Egoship or the
feeling of I-am-ness is beginning to be defined) as the first ones are near to
the undifferentiated essence. The former are Arupa, incorporeal; the latter,
Rupa, corporeal.
In
Volume II. of Isis (p. 183 et seq.) the philosophical systems of the Gnostics
and the primitive Jewish Christians, the Nazarenes and the Ebionites, are fully
considered. They show the views held in those days -- outside the circle of
Mosaic Jews -- about Jehovah. He was identified by all the Gnostics with the
evil, rather than with the good principle. For them, he was Ilda-Baoth,
"the son of Darkness," whose mother, Sophia Achamoth, was the
daughter of Sophia, the Divine Wisdom (the female Holy Ghost of the early
Christians) -- Akasa;** while Sophia Achamoth personified the lower Astral
Light or Ether. Ilda-Baoth,*** or Jehovah, is simply one of the Elohim, the
seven
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
They are found, however, in the Chaldean Book of Numbers.
**
The astral light stands in the same relation to Akasa and Anima Mundi, as Satan
stands to the Deity. They are one and the same thing seen from two aspects: the
spiritual and the psychic -- the super-ethereal or connecting link between
matter and pure spirit, and the physical. See for the difference between nous,
the higher divine wisdom, and psyche, the lower and terrestrial (St. James iii.
v. 15-17). Vide "Demon est Deus inversus," Part II. of this volume.
***
Ilda-Baoth is a compound name made up of Ilda, [[hebrew]], "a child,"
and Baoth; both from [[hebrew]] the egg, and [[hebrew]] Baoth,
"chaos," emptiness, void, or desolation; or the child born in the egg
of Chaos, like Brahma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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creative
Spirits, and one of the lower Sephiroth. He produces from himself seven other
Gods, "Stellar Spirits" (or the lunar ancestors*), for they are all
the same.** They are all in his own image (the "Spirits of the
Face"), and the reflections one of the other, and have become darker and
more material as they successively receded from their originator. They also
inhabit seven regions disposed like a ladder, as its rungs slope up and down
the scale of spirit and matter.*** With Pagans and Christians, with Hindus and
Chaldeans, with the Greek as with the Roman Catholics -- with a slight
variation of the texts in their interpretations -- they all were the Genii of
the seven planets, as of the seven planetary spheres of our septenary chain, of
which Earth is the lowest. (See Isis, Vol. II. p. 186.) This connects the
"Stellar" and "Lunar" Spirits with the higher planetary
Angels and the Saptarishis (the seven Rishis of the Stars) of the Hindus -- as
subordinate Angels (Messengers) to these "Rishis," the emanations, on
the descending scale, of the former. Such, in the opinion of the philosophical
Gnostics, were the God and the Archangels now worshipped by the Christians! The
"Fallen Angels" and the legend of the "War in Heaven" is
thus purely pagan in its origin and comes from India via Persia and Chaldea.
The only reference to it in the Christian canon is found in Revelations xii.,
as quoted a few pages back.
Thus
"SATAN," once he ceases to be viewed in the superstitious, dogmatic,
unphilosophical spirit of the Churches, grows into the grandiose image of one
who made of terrestrial a divine MAN; who gave him, throughout the long cycle
of Maha-kalpa the law of the Spirit of Life, and made him free from the Sin of
Ignorance, hence of death. (See the Section On Satan in Part II. Vol. II.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Jehovah's connection with the moon in the Kabala is well known to students.
**
About the Nazarenes see Isis, Vol. II. p. 131 and 132; the true followers of
the true Christos were all Nazarenes and Christians, and were the opponents of
the later Christians.
***
Vide supra, the diagram of the lunar ring of seven worlds, where, as in our or
any other chain, the upper worlds are spiritual, while the lowest, whether
Moon, Earth, or any planet, is dark with matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
6.
THE OLDER WHEELS ROTATED DOWNWARD AND UPWARD (a). . . . THE MOTHER'S SPAWN
FILLED THE WHOLE (Kosmos).* THERE WERE BATTLES FOUGHT BETWEEN THE CREATORS AND
THE DESTROYERS, AND BATTLES FOUGHT FOR SPACE; THE SEED APPEARING AND
REAPPEARING CONTINUOUSLY (b).**
(a)
Here, having finished for the time being with our side-issues -- which, however
they may break the flow of the narrative, are necessary for the elucidation of
the whole scheme -- the reader must return once more to Cosmogony. The phrase
"Older wheels" refers to the worlds or Globes of our chain as they
were during the "previous Rounds." The present Stanza, when explained
esoterically, is found embodied entirely in the Kabalistic works. Therein will
be found the very history of the evolution of those countless Globes which
evolve after a periodical Pralaya, rebuilt from old material into new forms.
The previous Globes disintegrate and reappear transformed and perfected for a
new phase of life. In the Kabala, worlds are compared to sparks which fly from
under the hammer of the great Architect -- LAW, the law which rules all the
smaller Creators.
The
following comparative diagram shows the identity between the two systems, the
Kabalistic and the Eastern. The three upper are the three higher planes of
consciousness, revealed and explained in both schools only to the Initiates,
the lower ones represent the four lower planes -- the lowest being our plane,
or the visible Universe.
These
seven planes correspond to the seven states of consciousness in man. It remains
with him to attune the three higher states in himself to the three higher
planes in Kosmos. But before he can attempt to attune, he must awaken the three
"seats" to life and activity. And how many are capable of bringing themselves
to even a superficial comprehension of Atma-Vidya (Spirit-Knowledge), or what
is called by the Sufis, Rohanee! In Section the VIIth of this Book, in
Sub-section 3,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The reader is reminded that Kosmos often means in our Stanzas only our own
Solar System, not the Infinite Universe.
**
This is purely astronomical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
reader will find a still clearer explanation of the above in the Commentary
upon Saptaparna -- the man-plant. See also the Section of that name in Part II.
1st
Plane
2nd
P.
The
Three higher Planes of the Septenary Kosmos
The
Divine & Formless World of Spirit*
3rd
Plane
Eastern
Gupta Vidya [[--]] Chaldean Kabala
1st
P The Archetypal World**
Globe
A [[/]] G [[--]] Geburah A [[/]] Chesed G or Z
[[--]]
Tephireth F
2nd
Plane The Intellectual World
B
[[/]] F [[--]] Hod B [[/]] Netzah E
3rd
Plane The Substantial or Formative World
C
[[/]] E [[--]] Yesod C
4th
Plane The Material*** World
The
Earth Globe D [[--]] The Earth Malkuth D
[[above
is in diagram format in the original text]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Arupa or "formless," there where form ceases to exist, on the
objective plane.
**
The word "Archetypal" must not be taken here in the sense that the
Platonists gave to it, i.e., the world as it existed in the Mind of the Deity;
but in that of a world made as a first model, to be followed and improved upon
by the worlds which succeed it physically -- though deteriorating in purity.
***
These are the four lower planes of Cosmic Consciousness, the three higher
planes being inaccessible to human intellect as developed at present. The seven
states of human consciousness pertain to quite another question.
[[-------]]
(b)
"The Seed appears and disappears continuously." Here "Seed"
stands for "the World-germ," viewed by Science as material particles
in a highly attenuated condition, but in Occult physics as "Spiritual
particles," i.e., supersensuous matter existing in a state of primeval
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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differentiation.*
In theogony, every Seed is an ethereal organism, from which evolves later on a
celestial being, a God.
In
the "beginning," that which is called in mystic phraseology
"Cosmic Desire" evolves into absolute Light. Now light without any
shadow would be absolute light -- in other words, absolute darkness -- as
physical science seeks to prove. That shadow appears under the form of
primordial matter, allegorized -- if one likes -- in the shape of the Spirit of
Creative Fire or Heat. If, rejecting the poetical form and allegory, science
chooses to see in this the primordial Fire-Mist, it is welcome to do so.
Whether one way or the other, whether Fohat or the famous FORCE of Science,
nameless, and as difficult of definition as our Fohat himself, that Something
"caused the Universe to move with circular motion," as Plato has it;
or, as the Occult teaching expresses it:
"The
Central Sun causes Fohat to collect primordial dust in the form of balls, to
impel them to move in converging lines and finally to approach each other and
aggregate." (Book of Dzyan) . . . . . "Being scattered in Space,
without order or system, the world-germs come into frequent collision until
their final aggregation, after which they become wanderers (Comets). Then the
battles and struggles begin. The older (bodies) attract the younger, while
others repel them. Many perish, devoured by their stronger companions. Those
that escape become worlds."**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To see and appreciate the difference -- the immense gulf that separates
terrestrial matter from the finer grades of supersensuous matter -- every
astronomer, every chemist and physicist ought to be a psychometer, to say the
least; he ought to be able to sense for himself that difference in which he now
refuses to believe. Mrs. Elizabeth Denton, one of the most learned, and also
one of the most materialistic and sceptical women of her age -- the wife of
Professor Denton, the well-known American geologist and the author of "The
Soul of Things" -- was, nevertheless, one of the most wonderful
psychometers some years ago. This is what she described in one of her
experiments; with a particle of a meteorite placed on her forehead, in an
envelope, the lady, not being aware of what it contained, said:
"What
a difference between that which we recognise as matter here and that which
seems like matter there! In the one, the elements are so coarse and so angular,
I wonder that we can endure it all, much more that we can desire to continue our
present relations to it; in the other, all the elements are so refined, they
are so free from those great, rough angularities, which characterize the
elements here, that I can but regard that as by so much the more than this, the
real existence." (Vol. III. p. 345-6.)
**
When carefully analysed and reflected upon, this will be found as scientific as
Science could make it, even at our late period.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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We
have been assured that there exist several modern works of speculative fancy
upon such struggles for life in sidereal heaven, especially in the German
language. We rejoice to hear it, for ours is an Occult teaching lost in the darkness
of archaic ages. We have treated of it fully in "Isis Unveiled," and
the idea of Darwinian-like evolution, of struggle for life and supremacy, and
of the "survival of the fittest" among the Hosts above as the Hosts
below, runs throughout both the volumes of our earlier work, written in 1876
(See Index in "Isis Unveiled" at the words "Evolution" --
"Darwin" -- "Kapila" -- "Battle of Life," etc.
etc.) But the idea was not ours, it is that of antiquity. Even the Puranic
writers have ingeniously interwoven allegory with Cosmic facts and human
events. Any symbologist may discern the astro-cosmical allusion even though he
be unable to grasp the whole meaning. The great "Wars in Heaven," in
the Puranas; the wars of the Titans, in Hesiod and other classical writers; the
"struggles," also in the Egyptian legend between Osiris and Typhon,
and even those in the Scandinavian legends, all refer to the same subject.
Northern Mythology refers to it as the battle of the Flames, the sons of Muspel
who fought on the field of Wigred. All these relate to Heaven and Earth, and
have a double and often even a triple meaning, and esoteric application to
things above as to things below. They relate severally to astronomical,
theogonical and human struggles; to the adjustment of orbs, and the supremacy
among nations and tribes. The "Struggle for Existence" and the
"Survival of the Fittest" reigned supreme from the moment that Kosmos
manifested into being, and could hardly escape the observant eye of the ancient
Sages. Hence the incessant fights of Indra, the god of the Firmament, with the
Asuras -- degraded from high gods into Cosmic demons; and with Vritri or Ah-hi;
the battles fought between stars and constellations, between Moon and planets
-- later on incarnated as kings and mortals. Hence also the War in Heaven of
Michael and his Host against the Dragon (Jupiter and Lucifer-Venus), when a
third of the stars of the rebellious host was hurled down into Space, and
"its place was found no more in Heaven." As said long ago -- "This
is the basic and fundamental stone of the secret cycles. It shows that the
Brahmins and Tanaim . . . speculated on the creation and development of the
world quite in a Darwinian way, both anticipating him and his school in the
natural selection of species, the survival of the fittest,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and
transformation. . . . There were old worlds that perished conquered by the
new," etc., etc. ("Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 260.) The
assertion that all the worlds (Stars, planets, etc.) -- as soon as a nucleus of
primordial substance in the laya (undifferentiated) state is informed by the
freed principles, of a just deceased sidereal body -- become first comets, and
then Suns to cool down to inhabitable worlds, is a teaching as old as the
Rishis.
Thus
the Secret Books distinctly teach, as we see, an astronomy that would not be
rejected even by modern speculation could the latter thoroughly understand its
teachings.
For,
archaic astronomy, and the ancient, physical and mathematical sciences,
expressed views identical with those of modern science, and many of far more
momentous import. A "struggle for life" as a "survival of the
fittest" in the worlds above, as on our planet here below, are distinctly
taught. This teaching, however, although it would not be "entirely
rejected" by Science, is sure to be repudiated as an integral whole. For
it avers that there are only seven Self-born primordial "gods" emanated
from the trinitarian ONE. In other words, it means that all the worlds or
sidereal bodies (always on strict analogy) are formed one from the other, after
the primordial manifestation at the beginning of the "Great Age" is
accomplished. The birth of the celestial bodies in Space is compared to a crowd
or multitude of "pilgrims" at the festival of the "Fires."
Seven ascetics appear on the threshold of the temple with seven lighted sticks
of incense. At the light of these the first row of pilgrims light their incense
sticks. After which every ascetic begins whirling his stick around his head in
space, and furnishes the rest with fire. Thus with the heavenly bodies. A
laya-centre is lighted and awakened into life by the fires of another
"pilgrim," after which the new "centre" rushes into space
and becomes a comet. It is only after losing its velocity, and hence its fiery
tail, that the "Fiery Dragon" settles down into quiet and steady life
as a regular respectable citizen of the sidereal family. Therefore it is
said:--
Born
in the unfathomable depths of Space, out of the homogeneous Element called the
World-Soul, every nucleus of Cosmic matter, suddenly launched into being,
begins life under the most hostile circumstances. Through a series of countless
ages, it has to conquer
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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for
itself a place in the infinitudes. It circles round and round between denser
and already fixed bodies, moving by jerks, and pulling towards some given point
or centre that attracts it, trying to avoid, like a ship drawn into a channel
dotted with reefs and sunken rocks, other bodies that draw and repel it in
turn; many perish, their mass disintegrating through stronger masses, and, when
born within a system, chiefly within the insatiable stomachs of various Suns.
(See Comm. to Stanza IV). Those which move slower and are propelled into an
elliptic course are doomed to annihilation sooner or later. Others moving in
parabolic curves generally escape destruction, owing to their velocity.
Some
very critical readers will perhaps imagine that this teaching, as to the
cometary stage passed through by all heavenly bodies, is in contradiction with
the statements just made as to the moon being the mother of the earth. They
will perhaps fancy that intuition is needed to harmonize the two. But no
intuition is in truth required. What does Science know of Comets, their
genesis, growth, and ultimate behaviour? Nothing -- absolutely nothing! And
what is there so impossible that a laya centre -- a lump of cosmic protoplasm,
homogeneous and latent, when suddenly animated or fired up -- should rush from
its bed in Space and whirl throughout the abysmal depths in order to strengthen
its homogeneous organism by an accumulation and addition of differentiated
elements? And why should not such a comet settle in life, live, and become an
inhabited globe!
"The
abodes of Fohat are many," it is said. "He places his four fiery
(electro-positive) Sons in the "Four circles"; these Circles are the
Equator, the Ecliptic, and the two parallels of declination, or the tropics --
to preside over the climates of which are placed the Four mystical Entities.
Then again: "Other seven (sons) are commissioned to preside over the seven
hot, and seven cold lokas (the hells of the orthodox Brahmins) at the two ends
of the Egg of Matter (our Earth and its poles). The seven lokas are also called
the "Rings," elsewhere, and the "Circles." The ancients made
the polar circles seven instead of two, as Europeans do; for Mount Meru, which
is the North Pole, is said to have seven gold and seven silver steps leading to
it.
The
strange statement made in one of the Stanzas: "The Songs of Fohat and his
Sons were radiant as the noon-tide Sun and the Moon combined;" and that
the four Sons on the middle four-fold
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Circle
"saw their father's songs and heard his Solar-selenic radiance;" is
explained in the Commentary in these words: "The agitation of the Fohatic
Forces at the two cold ends (North and South Poles) of the Earth which resulted
in a multicoloured radiance at night, have in them several of the properties of
Akasa (Ether) colour and sound as well." . . . . . . "Sound is the
characteristic of Akasa (Ether): it generates air, the property of which is
Touch; which (by friction) becomes productive of Colour and Light." . . .
. . . (Vishnu Purana.)
Perhaps
the above will be regarded as archaic nonsense, but it will be better
comprehended, if the reader remembers the Aurora Borealis and Australis, both
of which take place at the very centres of terrestrial electric and magnetic
forces. The two poles are said to be the store-houses, the receptacles and
liberators, at the same time, of Cosmic and terrestrial Vitality (Electricity);
from the surplus of which the Earth, had it not been for these two natural
"safety-valves," would have been rent to pieces long ago. At the same
time it is now a theory that has lately become an axiom, that the phenomenon of
polar lights is accompanied by, and productive of, strong sounds, like
whistling, hissing, and cracking. (But see Professor Trumholdt's works on the
Aurora Borealis, and his correspondence regarding this moot question.)
-------
STANZA
VI. -- Continued.
7.
MAKE THY CALCULATIONS, O LANOO, IF THOU WOULDST LEARN THE CORRECT AGE OF THY
SMALL WHEEL (chain). ITS FOURTH SPOKE IS OUR MOTHER (Earth) (a). REACH THE
FOURTH "FRUIT" OF THE FOURTH PATH OF KNOWLEDGE THAT LEADS TO NIRVANA,
AND THOU SHALT COMPREHEND, FOR THOU SHALT SEE (b).
(a)
The "small wheel" is our chain of spheres, and the fourth spoke is
our Earth, the fourth in the chain. It is one of those on which the "hot
(positive) breath of the Sun" has a direct effect.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The seven fundamental transformations of the globes or heavenly spheres, or
rather of their constituent particles of matter, is described as follows: (1)
The homogeneous; (2) the aeriform and radiant (gaseous); (3) Curd-like
(nebulous); (4) Atomic, Ethereal [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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To
calculate its age, however, as the pupil is asked to do in the Stanza, is
rather difficult, since we are not given the figures of the Great Kalpa, and
are not allowed to publish those of our small Yugas, except as to the approximate
duration of these. "The older wheels rotated for one Eternity and one half
of an Eternity," it says. We know that by "Eternity" the seventh
part of 311,040,000,000,000 years, or an age of Brahma is meant. But what of
that? We also know that, to begin with, if we take for our basis the above
figures, we have first of all to eliminate from the 100 years of Brahma (or
311,040,000,000,000 years) two years taken up by the Sandhyas (twilights),
which leaves 98, as we have to bring it to the mystical combination 14 x 7. But
we have no knowledge at what time precisely the evolution and formation of our
little earth began. Therefore it is impossible to calculate its age, unless the
time of its birth is given -- which the TEACHERS refuse to do, so far. At the
close of this Book and in Book II., however, some chronological hints will be
given. We must remember, moreover, that the law of Analogy holds good for the
worlds, as it does for man; and that as "The ONE (Deity) becomes Two (Deva
or Angel) and Two becomes Three (or man)," etc., etc., so we are taught
that the Curds (world-stuff) become wanderers, (Comets), these become stars,
and the stars (the centres of vortices) our sun and planets -- to put it
briefly.*
(b)
There are four grades of initiation mentioned in exoteric works, which are
known respectively in Sanskrit as "Srotapanna,"
"Sagardagan," "Anagamin," and "Arhan" -- the four
paths to Nirvana, in this, our fourth Round, bearing the same appellations. The
Arhan, though he can see the Past, the Present, and the Future, is not yet the
highest Initiate; for the Adept himself, the initiated candidate, becomes chela
(pupil) to a higher Initiate. Three further higher grades have to be conquered
by the Arhan who would reach the apex of the ladder of Arhatship. There are
those who have reached it even in this fifth race of ours, but the faculties
necessary for the attainment of these higher
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] (beginning of motion, hence of differentiation);
(5) Germinal, fiery, (differentiated, but composed of the germs only of the
Elements, in their earliest states, they having seven states, when completely
developed on our earth); (6) Four-fold, vapoury (the future Earth); (7) Cold
and depending (on the Sun for life and light).
*
This cannot be so very unscientific, since Descartes thought also that
"the planets rotate on their axes because they were once lucid stars, the
centres of Vortices."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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grades
will be fully developed in the average ascetic only at the end of this
Root-Race, and in the Sixth and Seventh. Thus there will always be Initiates and
the Profane till the end of this minor Manvantara, the present life-cycle. The
Arhats of the "fire-mist" of the 7th rung are but one remove from the
Root-Base of their Hierarchy -- the highest on Earth, and our Terrestrial
chain. This "Root-Base" has a name which can only be translated by
several compound words into English" -- "the
ever-living-human-Banyan." This "Wondrous Being" descended from
a "high region," they say, in the early part of the Third Age, before
the separation of the sexes of the Third Race.
This
Third Race is sometimes called collectively "the Sons of Passive
Yoga," i.e., it was produced unconsciously by the second Race, which, as
it was intellectually inactive, is supposed to have been constantly plunged in
a kind of blank or abstract contemplation, as required by the conditions of the
Yoga state. In the first or earlier portion of the existence of this third
race, while it was yet in its state of purity, the "Sons of Wisdom,"
who, as will be seen, incarnated in this Third Race, produced by Kriyasakti a
progeny called the "Sons of Ad" or "of the Fire-Mist," the
"Sons of Will and Yoga," etc. They were a conscious production, as a
portion of the race was already animated with the divine spark of spiritual,
superior intelligence. It was not a Race, this progeny. It was at first a
wondrous Being, called the "Initiator," and after him a group of
semi-divine and semi-human beings. "Set apart" in Archaic genesis for
certain purposes, they are those in whom are said to have incarnated the highest
Dhyanis, "Munis and Rishis from previous Manvantaras" -- to form the
nursery for future human adepts, on this earth and during the present cycle.
These "Sons of Will and Yoga" born, so to speak, in an immaculate
way, remained, it is explained, entirely apart from the rest of mankind.
The
"BEING" just referred to, which has to remain nameless, is the Tree
from which, in subsequent ages, all the great historically known Sages and
Hierophants, such as the Rishi Kapila, Hermes, Enoch, Orpheus, etc., etc., have
branched off. As objective man, he is the mysterious (to the profane -- the
ever invisible) yet ever present Personage about whom legends are rife in the
East, especially among the Occultists and the students of the Sacred Science.
It is he who changes form, yet remains ever the same. And it is he again who
holds spiritual sway over the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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initiated
Adepts throughout the whole world. He is, as said, the "Nameless One"
who has so many names, and yet whose names and whose very nature are unknown.
He is the "Initiator," called the "GREAT SACRIFICE." For,
sitting at the threshold of LIGHT, he looks into it from within the circle of
Darkness, which he will not cross; nor will he quit his post till the last day
of this life-cycle. Why does the solitary Watcher remain at his self-chosen
post? Why does he sit by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, of which he drinks no
longer, as he has naught to learn which he does not know -- aye, neither on
this Earth, nor in its heaven? Because the lonely, sore-footed pilgrims on
their way back to their home are never sure to the last moment of not losing
their way in this limitless desert of illusion and matter called Earth-Life.
Because he would fain show the way to that region of freedom and light, from
which he is a voluntary exile himself, to every prisoner who has succeeded in
liberating himself from the bonds of flesh and illusion. Because, in short, he
has sacrificed himself for the sake of mankind, though but a few Elect may
profit by the GREAT SACRIFICE.
It
is under the direct, silent guidance of this MAHA -- (great) -- GURU that all
the other less divine Teachers and instructors of mankind became, from the first
awakening of human consciousness, the guides of early Humanity. It is through
these "Sons of God" that infant humanity got its first notions of all
the arts and sciences, as well as of spiritual knowledge; and it is they who
have laid the first foundation-stone of those ancient civilizations that puzzle
so sorely our modern generation of students and scholars.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Let those who doubt this statement explain the mystery of the extraordinary
knowledge possessed by the ancients -- alleged to have developed from lower and
animal-like savages, the cave-men of the Palaeolithic age -- on any other
equally reasonable grounds. Let them turn to such works as those of Vitruvius
Pollio of the Augustan age, on architecture, for instance, in which all the
rules of proportion are those taught anciently at initiations, if he would
acquaint himself with the truly divine art, and understand the deep esoteric
significance hidden in every rule and law of proportion. No man descended from
a Palaeolithic cave-dweller could ever evolve such a science unaided, even in
millenniums of thought and intellectual evolution. It is the pupils of those
incarnated Rishis and Devas of the third Root Race, who handed their knowledge
from one generation to another, to Egypt and Greece with its now lost canon of
proportion; as it is the Disciples of the Initiates of the 4th, the Atlanteans,
who handed it over to their Cyclopes, the "Sons of Cycles" or of the
"Infinite," from whom the name passed to the still later generations
of Gnostic priests. "It is owing to the divine perfection [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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Although
these matters were barely hinted at in "Isis Unveiled," it will be
well to remind the reader of what was said in Vol. I., pp. 587 to 593,
concerning a certain Sacred Island in Central Asia, and to refer him for
further details to the chapter in Book II. on "The Sons of God and the
Sacred Island." A few more explanations, however, though thrown out in a
fragmentary form, may help the student to obtain a glimpse into the present
mystery.
To
state at least one detail concerning these mysterious "Sons of God"
in plain words. It is from them, these Brahmaputras, that the high Dwijas, the
initiated Brahmins of old justly claimed descent, while the modern Brahmin
would have the lowest castes believe literally that they issued direct from the
mouth of Brahma. This is the esoteric teaching, which adds moreover that,
although these descendants (spiritually of course) from the "sons of Will
and Yoga," became in time divided into opposite sexes, as their
"Kriyasakti" progenitors did themselves, later on; yet even their
degenerate descendants have down to the present day retained a veneration and
respect for the creative
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of those architectural proportions that the
Ancients could build those wonders of all the subsequent ages, their Fanes,
Pyramids, Cave-Temples, Cromlechs, Cairns, Altars, proving they had the powers
of machinery and a knowledge of mechanics to which modern skill is like a
child's play, and which that skill refers to itself as the 'works of
hundred-handed giants.'" (See "Book of God," Kenealy.) Modern
architects may not altogether have neglected those rules, but they have
superadded enough empirical innovations to destroy those just proportions. It
is Vitruvius who gave to posterity the rules of construction of the Grecian
temples erected to the immortal gods; and the ten books of Marcus Vitruvius
Pollio on Architecture, of one, in short, who was an initiate, can only be
studied esoterically. The Druidical circles, the Dolmen, the Temples of India,
Egypt and Greece, the Towers and the 127 towns in Europe which were found
"Cyclopean in origin" by the French Institute, are all the work of
initiated Priest-Architects, the descendants of those primarily taught by the
"Sons of God," justly called "The Builders." This is what
appreciative posterity says of those descendants. "They used neither
mortar nor cement, nor steel nor iron to cut the stones with; and yet they were
so artfully wrought that in many places the joints are not seen, though many of
the stones, as in Peru, are 18 ft. thick, and in the walls of the fortress of
Cuzco there are stones of a still greater size." (Acosta, vi., 14.)
"Again, the walls of Syene, built 5,400 years ago, when that spot was
exactly under the tropic, which it has now ceased to be, were so constructed
that at noon, at the precise moment of the solar solstice, the entire disc of
the Sun was seen reflected on their surface -- a work which the united skill of
all the astronomers of Europe would not now be able to effect." --
(Kenealy, "Book of God.")
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[[Vol.
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function,
and still regard it in the light of a religious ceremony, whereas the more
civilized nations consider it as a mere animal function. Compare the western
views and practice in these matters with the Institutions of Manu in regard to
the laws of Grihasta and married life. The true Brahmin is thus indeed "he
whose seven forefathers have drunk the juice of the moon-plant (Soma),"
and who is a "Trisuparna," for he has understood the secret of the
Vedas.
And,
to this day, such Brahmins know that, during its early beginnings, psychic and
physical intellect being dormant and consciousness still undeveloped, the
spiritual conceptions of that race were quite unconnected with its physical
surroundings. That divine man dwelt in his animal -- though externally human --
form; and, if there was instinct in him, no self-consciousness came to
enlighten the darkness of the latent fifth principle. When, moved by the law of
Evolution, the Lords of Wisdom infused into him the spark of consciousness, the
first feeling it awoke to life and activity was a sense of solidarity, of
one-ness with his spiritual creators. As the child's first feeling is for its
mother and nurse, so the first aspirations of the awakening consciousness in
primitive man were for those whose element he felt within himself, and who yet
were outside, and independent of him. DEVOTION arose out of that feeling, and
became the first and foremost motor in his nature; for it is the only one which
is natural in our heart, which is innate in us, and which we find alike in
human babe and the young of the animal. This feeling of irrepressible,
instinctive aspiration in primitive man is beautifully, and one may say
intuitionally, described by Carlyle. "The great antique heart," he
exclaims, "how like a child's in its simplicity, like a man's in its
earnest solemnity and depth! heaven lies over him wheresoever he goes or stands
on the earth; making all the earth a mystic temple to him, the earth's business
all a kind of worship. Glimpses of bright creatures flash in the common
sunlight; angels yet hover, doing God's messages among men . . . . . Wonder,
miracle, encompass the man; he lives in an element of miracle* . . . . A great
law of duty, high as these two infinitudes (heaven and hell), dwarfing all
else, annihilating all else -- it was a reality, and it is one: the garment
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
That which was natural in the sight of primitive man has become only now
miracle to us; and that which was to him a miracle could never be expressed in
our language.
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[[Vol.
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only
of it is dead; the essence of it lives through all times and all
eternity!"
It
lives undeniably, and has settled in all its ineradicable strength and power in
the Asiatic Aryan heart from the Third Race direct through its first
"mind-born" sons, -- the fruits of Kriyasakti. As time rolled on the
holy caste of Initiates produced but rarely, and from age to age, such perfect
creatures: beings apart, inwardly, though the same as those who produced them,
outwardly.
While
in the infancy of the third primitive race:--
"A
creature of a more exalted kind
Was
wanting yet, and therefore was designed;
Conscious
of thought, of more capacious breast
For
empire formed and fit to rule the rest. . . . ."
It
was called into being, a ready and perfect vehicle for the incarnating denizens
of higher spheres, who took forthwith their abodes in these forms born of
Spiritual WILL and the natural divine power in man. It was a child of pure
Spirit, mentally unalloyed with any tincture of earthly element. Its physical
frame alone was of time and of life, as it drew its intelligence direct from
above. It was the living tree of divine wisdom; and may therefore be likened to
the Mundane Tree of the Norse Legend, which cannot wither and die until the
last battle of life shall be fought, while its roots are gnawed all the time by
the dragon Nidhogg; for even so, the first and holy Son of Kriyasakti had his
body gnawed by the tooth of time, but the roots of his inner being remained for
ever undecaying and strong, because they grew and expanded in heaven not on
earth. He was the first of the FIRST, and he was the seed of all the others. There
were other "Sons of Kriyasakti" produced by a second Spiritual
effort, but the first one has remained to this day the Seed of divine
Knowledge, the One and the Supreme among the terrestrial "Sons of
Wisdom." Of this subject we can say no more, except to add that in every
age -- aye, even in our own -- there have been great intellects who have
understood the problem correctly.
How
comes our physical body to the state of perfection it is found in now? Through
millions of years of evolution, of course, yet never through, or from, animals,
as taught by materialism. For, as Carlyle says:-- ". . . The essence of
our being, the mystery in us that calls itself 'I,' -- what words have we for
such things? -- it is a breath of Heaven,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
highest Being reveals himself in man. This body, these faculties, this life of
ours, is it not all as a vesture for the UNNAMED?"
The
breath of heaven, or rather the breath of life, called in the Bible Nephesh, is
in every animal, in every animate speck as in every mineral atom. But none of
these has, like man, the consciousness of the nature of that highest Being,* as
none has that divine harmony in its form which man possesses. It is, as Novalis
said, and no one since has said it better, as repeated by Carlyle:--
"There
is but one temple in the universe, and that is the body of man. Nothing is
holier than that high form . . . . We touch heaven when we lay our hand on a
human body!" "This sounds like a mere flourish of rhetoric,"
adds Carlyle, "but it is not so. If well meditated it will turn out to be
a scientific fact; the expression . . . of the actual truth of the thing. We
are the miracle of miracles, -- the great inscrutable Mystery."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There is no nation in the world in which the feeling of devotion or of
religious mysticism is more developed and prominent than in the Hindu people.
See what Max Muller says of this idiosyncracy and national feature in his
works. This is direct inheritance from the primitive conscious men of the Third
Race.
---------------------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
VII.
1.
BEHOLD THE BEGINNING OF SENTIENT FORMLESS LIFE (a).
FIRST,
THE DIVINE (vehicle) (b), THE ONE FROM THE MOTHER-SPIRIT (Atman); THEN THE
SPIRITUAL -- (Atma-Buddhi, Spirit-soul)* (c); (again) THE THREE FROM THE ONE
(d), THE FOUR FROM THE ONE (e), AND THE FIVE (f), FROM WHICH THE THREE, THE
FIVE AND THE SEVEN (g) -- THESE ARE THE THREE-FOLD AND THE FOUR-FOLD DOWNWARD;
THE "MIND-BORN SONS OF THE FIRST LORD (Avalokiteswara) THE SHINING SEVEN
(the "Builders").** IT IS THEY WHO ARE THOU, ME, HIM, O LANOO; THEY
WHO WATCH OVER THEE AND THY MOTHER, BHUMI (the Earth).
(a)
The hierarchy of Creative Powers is divided into seven (or 4 and 3) esoteric,
within the twelve great Orders, recorded in the twelve signs of the Zodiac; the
seven of the manifesting scale being connected, moreover, with the Seven
Planets. All this is subdivided into numberless groups of divine Spiritual,
semi-Spiritual, and ethereal Beings.
The
Chief Hierarchies among these are hinted at in the great Quaternary, or the
"four bodies and the three faculties" of Brahma exoterically, and the
Panchasyam, the five Brahmas, or the five Dhyani-Buddhas in the Buddhist
system.
The
highest group is composed of the divine Flames, so-called, also spoken of as
the "Fiery Lions" and the "Lions of Life," whose
esotericism is securely hidden in the Zodiacal sign of Leo. It is the nucleole
of the superior divine World (see Commentary in first pages of Addendum). They
are the formless Fiery Breaths, identical in one aspect with the upper
Sephirothal TRIAD, which is placed by the Kabalists in the "Archetypal
World."
The
same hierarchy, with the same numbers, is found in the Japanese system, in the
"Beginnings" as taught by both the Shinto and the Buddhist sects. In
this system, Anthropogenesis precedes Cosmogenesis, as the Divine merges into
the human, and creates --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This relates to the Cosmic principles.
**
The seven creative Rishis now connected with the constellation of the Great
Bear
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[[Vol.
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midway
in its descent into matter -- the visible Universe. The legendary personages --
remarks reverentially Omoie -- "having to be understood as the stereotyped
embodiment of the higher (secret) doctrine, and its sublime truths." To
state it at full length, however, would occupy too much of our space, but a few
words on this old system cannot be out of place. The following is a short
synopsis of this Anthropo-Cosmogenesis, and it shows how closely the most
separated notions echoed one and the same Archaic teaching.
When
all was as yet Chaos (Kon-ton) three spiritual Beings appeared on the stage of
future creation: (1) Ame no ani naka nushi no Kami, "Divine Monarch of the
Central Heaven"; (2) Taka mi onosubi no Kami, "Exalted, imperial
Divine offspring of Heaven and the Earth"; and (3) Kamu mi musubi no Kami,
"Offspring of the Gods," simply.
These
were without form or substance (our arupa triad), as neither the celestial nor
the terrestrial substance had yet differentiated, "nor had the essence of
things been formed."
In
the Zohar -- which, as now arranged and re-edited by Moses de Leon, with the
help of Syrian and Chaldean Christian Gnostics in the XIIth century, and
corrected and revised still later by many Christian hands, is only a little
less exoteric than the Bible itself -- this divine "Vehicle" no
longer appears as it does in the "Chaldean Book of Numbers." True
enough, Ain-Soph, the ABSOLUTE ENDLESS NO-THING, uses also the form of the ONE,
the manifested "Heavenly man" (the FIRST CAUSE) as its chariot
(Mercabah, in Hebrew; Vahan, in Sanskrit) or vehicle to descend into, and
manifest through, in the phenomenal world. But the Kabalists neither make it
plain how the ABSOLUTE can use anything, or exercise any attribute whatever,
since, as the Absolute, it is devoid of attributes; nor do they explain that in
reality it is the First Cause (Plato's Logos) the original and eternal IDEA,
that manifests through Adam Kadmon, the Second Logos, so to speak. In the
"Book of Numbers" it is explained that EN (or Ain, Aior) is the only
self-existent, whereas its "Depth" (Bythos or Buthon of the Gnostics,
called Propator) is only periodical. The latter is Brahm as differentiated from
Brahma or Parabrahm. It is the Depth, the Source of Light, or Propator, which
is the unmanifested Logos or the abstract Idea, and not Ain-Soph, whose ray
uses Adam-Kadmon or the manifested Logos (the objective Universe) "male
and female" -- as a chariot through which to manifest. But in the Zohar we
read the following incongruity: "Senior
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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occultatus
est et absconditus; Microprosopus manifestus est, et non manifestus."
(Rosenroth; Liber Mysterii, IV., 1.) This is a fallacy, since Microprosopus or
the microcosm, can only exist during its manifestations, and is destroyed
during the Maha-Pralayas. Rosenroth's Kabala is no guide, but very often a
puzzle.
(b)
As in the Japanese system, in the Egyptian, and every old cosmogony -- at this
divine FLAME, The "One," are lit the three descending groups. Having
their potential being in the higher group, they now become distinct and
separate Entities. These are called the "Virgins of Life," the
"Great Illusion," etc., etc., and collectively the "Six-pointed
Star." The latter is the symbol, in almost every religion, of the Logos as
the first emanation. It is that of Vishnu in India (the Chakra, or wheel), and
the glyph of the Tetragrammaton, the "He of the four letters" or --
metaphorically -- "the limbs of Microprosopos" in the Kabala, which
are ten and six respectively. The later Kabalists however, especially the
Christian mystics, have played sad havoc with this magnificent symbol.* For the
"ten limbs" of the Heavenly Man are the ten Sephiroth; but the first
Heavenly Man is the unmanifested Spirit of the Universe, and ought never to be
degraded into Microprosopus -- the lesser Face or Countenance, the prototype of
man on the terrestrial plane.** Of this, however, later on. The six-pointed
Star refers to the six Forces or Powers of Nature, the six planes, principles,
etc., etc., all synthesized by the seventh, or the central point in the Star.
All these, the upper and lower hierarchies included, emanate from the
"Heavenly or Celestial Virgin,"*** the great mother in all religions,
the Androgyne, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Indeed, the Microprosopus -- who is, philosophically speaking, quite distinct
from the unmanifested eternal Logos "one with the Father," -- has
been finally brought, by centuries of incessant efforts, of sophistry and
paradoxes, to be considered as one with Jehovah, or the ONE living God (!),
whereas Jehovah is no better than Binah, a female Sephiroth. This fact cannot
be too frequently impressed upon the reader.
**
The Microprosopus is, as just said, the Logos manifested, and of such there are
many.
***
Sephira is the Crown, KETHER, in the abstract principle only, as a mathematical
x (the unknown quantity). On the plane of differentiated nature she is the
female counterpart of Adam Kadmon -- the first Androgyne. The Kabala teaches
that the word "Fiat Lux" (Genesis ch. i.) referred to the formation
and evolution of the Sephiroth, and not to light as opposed to darkness. Rabbi
Simeon says: "Oh com- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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Sephira-Adam-Kadmon.
In its Unity, primordial light is the seventh, or highest, principle, Daivi-prakriti,
the light of the unmanifested Logos. But in its differentiation it becomes
Fohat, or the "Seven Sons." The former is symbolised by the Central
point in the double-Triangle; the latter by the hexagon itself, or the
"six limbs" of the Microprosopus the Seventh being Malkuth, the
"Bride" of the Christian Kabalists, or our Earth. Hence the
expressions:
"The
first after the 'One' is divine Fire; the second, Fire and AEther; the third is
composed of Fire, AEther and Water; the fourth of Fire, AEther, Water, and
Air."* The One is not concerned with Man-bearing globes, but with the
inner invisible Spheres. "The 'First-Born' are the LIFE, the heart and
pulse of the Universe; the Second are its MIND or Consciousness,"**
as
said in the Commentary.
(c)
The second Order of Celestial Beings, those of Fire and AEther (corresponding
to Spirit and Soul, or the Atma-Buddhi) whose names are legion, are still
formless, but more definitely "substantial." They are the first
differentiation in the Secondary Evolution or "Creation" -- a
misleading word. As the name shows, they are the prototypes of the incarnating
Jivas or Monads, and are composed of the Fiery Spirit of Life. It is through
these that passes, like a pure solar beam, the ray which is furnished by them
with its future vehicle, the Divine Soul, Buddhi. These are directly concerned
with the Hosts of the higher world of our system. From these twofold Units
emanate the threefold.
In
the cosmogony of Japan, when, out of the chaotic mass, an egglike nucleus appears,
having within itself the germ and potency of all the universal as well as of
all terrestrial life, it is the "three-fold" just named, which
differentiates. "The male aethereal" (Yo) principle
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] panions, companions, man as an emanation was
both man and woman, Adam Kadmon verily, and this is the sense of the words 'Let
there be Light, and it was Light.' And this is the two-fold man." (Auszuge
aus dem Zohar, pp. 13-15.)
*
See next footnote. These elements of Fire, Air, etc., are not our compound
elements.
**
This "Consciousness" has no relation to our consciousness. The
consciousness of the "One manifested," if not absolute, is still
unconditioned. Mahat (the Universal Mind) is the first production of the
Brahma-Creator, but also of the Pradhana (undifferentiated matter).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 217 TEACHINGS CONTRASTED.
ascends
and the female grosser or more material principle (In) is precipitated into the
Universe of substance, when a separation occurs between the celestial and the
terrestrial. From this the female, the mother, the first rudimentary objective
being is born. It is ethereal, without form or sex, and yet it is from this and
the mother that the Seven Divine Spirits are born, from whom will emanate the
seven creations, just as in the Codex Nazaraeus from Karabtanos and the Mother
Spiritus the seven evilly disposed (material) spirits are born. It would be too
long to give here the Japanese names, but once translated they stand in this
order:--
(1.)
The "Invisible Celibate," which is the creative logos of the
noncreating "father," or the creative potentiality of the latter made
manifest.
(2.)
"The Spirit (or the God) of the rayless depths" (of Chaos); which
becomes differentiated matter, or the world-stuff; also the mineral realm.
(3.)
"The Spirit of the Vegetable Kingdom," of the "Abundant
Vegetation."
(4.)
This one is of dual nature, being at the same time "The Spirit of the
Earth" and "the Spirit of the Sands," the former containing the
potentiality of the male element, the latter that of the female element, the
two forming a combined nature.
These
two were ONE; yet unconscious of being two.
In
this duality were contained (a) the male, dark and muscular Being, Isu no gai
no Kami; and (b) Eku gai no Kami, the female, fair and weaker or more delicate
Being. Then, the:--
(5th
and 6th.) Spirits who were androgynous or dual-sexed, and, finally:--
(7.)
The Seventh Spirit, the last emanated from the "mother," appears as
the first divine human form distinctly male and female. It was the seventh
creation, as in the Puranas, wherein man is the seventh creation of Brahma.
These,
Tsanagi-Tsanami, descended into the Universe by the celestial Bridge (the milky
way), and "Tsanagi, perceiving far below a chaotic mass of cloud and
water, thrust his jewelled spear into the depths, and dry land appeared."
Then the two separated to explore Onokoro, the newly-created island-world;
etc., etc. (Omoie).
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[[Vol.
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Such
are the Japanese exoteric fables, the rind that conceals the kernel of the same
one truth of the Secret Doctrine. Turning back to the esoteric explanations in
every cosmogony:--
(d)
The Third order corresponds to the Atma-Buddhi-Manas: Spirit, Soul and
Intellect, and is called the "Triads."
(e)
The Fourth are substantial Entities. This is the highest group among the Rupas
(Atomic Forms*). It is the nursery of the human, conscious, spiritual Souls.
They are called the "Imperishable Jivas," and constitute, through the
order below their own, the first group of the first septenary** host -- the
great mystery of human conscious and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is worthy of notice that, while rejecting as a superstition of Occultism,
and religion too, the theory of substantial and invisible Beings called Angels,
Elementals, etc. -- without, of course, having ever looked into the philosophy
of these incorporeal Entities, or thought over them -- modern chemistry, owing
to observation and discovery, should have unconsciously been forced to adopt
and recognize the same ratio of progression and order in the evolution of
chemical atoms as Occultism does, both for its Dhyanis and Atoms -- analogy
being its first law. As seen above, the very first group of the Rupa Angels is
quaternary, an element being added to each in descending order. So are the
atoms, adopting the phraseology of chemistry, monatomic, diatomic, and
tetratomic, progressing downwards. Let it be remembered that Fire, Water, and
Air, or the "Elements of primary Creation" so-called, are not the
compound Elements they are on Earth, but noumenal homogeneous Elements -- the
Spirits thereof. Then follow the septenary groups or hosts. Placed on parallel
lines in a diagram with Atoms, the Natures of those Beings would be seen to
correspond in their downward scale of progression to composite elements in a
mathematically identical manner, as to analogy. This refers, of course, only to
diagrams made by the Occultists; for were the scale of Angelic Beings to be
placed on a parallel line with the scale of the chemical atoms of Science --
from the hypothetical Helium down to Uranium -- they would of course be found
to differ. For these have, as correspondents on the Astral plane, only the four
lowest orders -- the higher three principles in the atom, or rather molecule or
chemical element, being perceptible only to the initiated Dangma's eye. But
then, if Chemistry desired to find itself on the right path, it would have to
correct its tabular arrangement by that of the Occultists -- which it may
refuse to do. In Esoteric Philosophy, every physical particle corresponds to
and depends on its higher noumenon -- the Being to whose essence it belongs;
and above as below, the Spiritual evolves from the Divine, the psycho-mental from
the Spiritual -- tainted from its lower plane by the astral -- the whole
animate and (seemingly) inanimate Nature evolving on parallel lines, and
drawing its attributes from above as well as from below.
**
The number seven does not imply only seven Entities, but seven groups or Hosts,
as explained before. The highest group, the Asuras born in Brahma's first body
-- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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intellectual
Being. For the latter are the field wherein lies concealed in its privation the
germ that will fall into generation. That germ will become the spiritual
potency in the physical cell that guides the development of the embryo, and
which is the cause of the hereditary transmission of faculties and all the
inherent qualities in man. The Darwinian theory, however, of the transmission
of acquired faculties, is neither taught nor accepted in Occultism. Evolution,
in it, proceeds on quite other lines; the physical, according to esoteric
teaching, evolving gradually from the spiritual, mental, and psychic. This
inner soul of the physical cell -- this "spiritual plasm" that
dominates the germinal plasm -- is the key that must open one day the gates of
the terra incognita of the Biologist, now called the dark mystery of
Embryology. (See text and note infra.)
(f)
The Fifth group is a very mysterious one, as it is connected with the
Microcosmic Pentagon, the five-pointed star representing man. In India and
Egypt these Dhyanis were connected with the Crocodile, and their abode is in
Capricornus. These are convertible terms in Indian astrology, as this (tenth)
sign of the Zodiac is called Makara, loosely translated "crocodile."
The word itself is occultly interpreted in various ways, as will be shown
further on. In Egypt the defunct man -- whose symbol is the pentagram or the
five-pointed star, the points of which represent the limbs of a man -- was
shown emblematically transformed into a crocodile: Sebakh or Sevekh "or
seventh," as Mr. Gerald Massey says, showing it as having been the type of
intelligence, is a dragon in reality, not a crocodile. He is the "Dragon
of Wisdom" or Manas, the "Human Soul," Mind, the Intelligent
principle, called in our esoteric philosophy the "Fifth" principle.
Says
the defunct "Osirified" in ch. lxxxviii., "Book of the
Dead," or the Ritual, under the glyph of a mummiform god with a
crocodile's head:--
(1)
"I am the god (crocodile) presiding at the fear . . . at the arrival of
his Soul among men. I am the god-crocodile brought for destruction" (an
allusion to the destruction of divine spiritual purity
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] which turned into "Night" -- are
septenary, i.e., divided like the Pitris into seven classes, three of which are
arupa (bodiless) and four with bodies. (See Vishnu Purana, Book I.) They are in
fact more truly our Pitris (ancestors) than the Pitris who projected the first
physical men. (See Book II.)
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[[Vol.
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when
man acquires the knowledge of good and evil; also to the "fallen"
gods, or angels of every theogony).
(2)
"I am the fish of the great Horus (as Mankara is the
"crocodile," the vehicle of Varuna). I am merged in Sekten."
This
last sentence gives the corroboration of, and repeats the doctrine of, esoteric
Buddhism, for it alludes directly to the fifth principle (Manas), or the most
spiritual part of its essence rather, which merges into, is absorbed by, and
made one with Atma-Buddhi after the death of man. For Se-khen is the residence
or loka of the god Khem (Horus-Osiris, or Father and Son), hence the
"Devachan" of Atma-Buddhi. In the Ritual of the Dead the defunct is
shown entering into Sekhem with Horus-Thot and "emerging from it as pure
spirit" (lxiv., 29). Thus the defunct says (v. 130): "I see the forms
of (myself, as various) men transforming eternally . . . I know this (chapter).
He who knows it . . . takes all kinds of living forms." . . .
And
in verse 35, addressing in magic formula that which is called, in Egyptian
esotericism, the "ancestral heart," or the re-incarnating principle,
the permanent EGO, the defunct says:--
"Oh
my heart, my ancestral heart necessary for my transformations, . . . . . . do
not separate thyself from me before the guardian of the Scales. Thou art my
personality within my breast, divine companion watching over my fleshes
(bodies). . . . . . ."
It
is in Sekhem that lies concealed "the Mysterious Face," or the real
man concealed under the false personality, the triple-crocodile of Egypt, the
symbol of the higher Trinity or human Triad, Atma, Buddhi and Manas.* In all
the ancient papyri the crocodile is called Sebek (Seventh), while the water is
the fifth principle esoterically; and, as already stated, Mr. Gerald Massey
shows that the crocodile was "the Seventh Soul, the supreme one of seven
-- the Seer unseen." Even exoterically Sekhem is the residence of the god
Khem, and Khem is Horus avenging the death of his father Osiris, hence
punishing the Sins of man when he becomes a disembodied Soul. Thus the defunct
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
One of the explanations of the real though hidden meaning of this Egyptian
religious glyph is easy. The crocodile is the first to await and meet the
devouring fires of the morning sun, and very soon came to personify the solar
heat. When the sun arose, it was like the arrival on earth and among men
"of the divine soul which informs the Gods." Hence the strange
symbolism. The mummy donned the head of a crocodile to show that it was a soul
arriving from the earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Osirified"
became the god Khem, who "gleans the field of Aanroo," i.e., he
gleans either his reward or punishment, as that field is the celestial locality
(Devachan) where the defunct is given wheat, the food of divine justice. The
fifth group of the celestial Beings is supposed to contain in itself the dual
attributes of both the spiritual and physical aspects of the Universe; the two
poles, so to say, of Mahat the Universal Intelligence, and the dual nature of
man, the spiritual and the physical. Hence its number Five, multiplied and made
into ten, connecting it with Makara, the 10th sign of Zodiac.
(g)
The sixth and seventh groups partake of the lower qualities of the Quaternary.
They are conscious, ethereal Entities, as invisible as Ether, which are shot
out like the boughs of a tree from the first central group of the four, and
shoot out in their turn numberless side groups, the lower of which are the
Nature-Spirits, or Elementals of countless kinds and varieties; from the
formless and unsubstantial -- the ideal THOUGHTS of their creators -- down to
the Atomic, though, to human perception, invisible organisms. The latter are considered
as the "Spirits of Atoms" for they are the first remove (backwards)
from the physical Atom -- sentient, if not intelligent creatures. They are all
subject to Karma, and have to work it out through every cycle. For, as the
doctrine teaches, there are no such privileged beings in the universe, whether
in our or in other systems, in the outer or the inner worlds,* as the angels of
the Western Religion and the Judean. A Dhyan Chohan has to become one; he
cannot be born or appear suddenly on the plane of life as a full-blown angel.
The Celestial Hierarchy of the present Manvantara will find itself transferred
in the next cycle of life into higher, superior worlds, and will make room for
a new hierarchy, composed of the elect ones of our mankind. Being is an endless
cycle within the one absolute eternity, wherein move numberless inner cycles
finite and conditioned. Gods, created as such, would evince no personal merit
in being gods. Such a class of beings, perfect only by virtue of the special
immaculate nature inherent in them, in the face of suffering and struggling
humanity, and even of the lower creation, would be the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A world when called "a higher world" is not higher by reason of its
location, but because it is superior in quality or essence. Yet such a world is
generally understood by the profane as "Heaven," and located above
our heads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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symbol
of an eternal injustice quite Satanic in character, an ever present crime. It
is an anomaly and an impossibility in Nature. Therefore the "Four"
and the "Three" have to incarnate as all other beings have. This
sixth group, moreover, remains almost inseparable from man, who draws from it
all but his highest and lowest principles, or his spirit and body, the five
middle human principles being the very essence of those Dhyanis.* Alone, the
Divine Ray (the Atman) proceeds directly from the One. When asked how that can
be? How is it possible to conceive that those "gods," or angels, can
be at the same time their own emanations and their personal selves? Is it in
the same sense in the material world, where the son is (in one way) his father,
being his blood, the bone of his bone and the flesh of his flesh? To this the
teachers answer "Verily it is so." But one has to go deep into the
mystery of BEING before one can fully comprehend this truth.
-------
STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
2.
THE ONE RAY MULTIPLIES THE SMALLER RAYS. LIFE PRECEDES FORM, AND LIFE SURVIVES
THE LAST ATOM (of Form, Sthula-sarira, external body). THROUGH THE COUNTLESS
RAYS THE LIFE-RAY, THE ONE, LIKE A THREAD THROUGH MANY BEADS (pearls) (a).
(a)
This sloka expresses the conception -- a purely Vedantic one, as already
explained elsewhere -- of a life-thread, Sutratma, running through successive
generations. How, then, can this be explained? By resorting to a simile, to a
familiar illustration, though necessarily imperfect, as all our available
analogies must be. Before resorting to it, however, I would ask whether it
seems unnatural, least of all "supernatural," to any one of us, when
we consider that process known as the growth and development of a foetus into a
healthy baby weighing several pounds evolves from what? From the segmentation
of an infinitesimally small ovum and a spermatozoon; and afterwards we see that
baby develop into a six-foot man! This refers to the atomic and physical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Paracelsus calls them the Flagae; the Christians, the "Guardian
Angels;" the Occultist, the "Ancestors, the Pitris;" they are
the sixfold Dhyan Chohans, having the six spiritual Elements in the composition
of their bodies -- in fact, men, minus the physical body.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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expansion
from the microscopically small into something very large, from the -- to the
naked eye -- unseen, into the visible and objective. Science has provided for
all this; and, I dare say, her theories, embryological, biological, and
physiological, are correct enough so far as exact observation of the material
goes. Nevertheless, the two chief difficulties of the science of embryology --
namely, what are the forces at work in the formation of the foetus, and the
cause of "hereditary transmission" of likeness, physical, moral or
mental -- have never been properly answered; nor will they ever be solved till
the day when scientists condescend to accept the Occult theories.* But if this
physical pheno-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The materialists and the evolutionists of the Darwinian school would be ill-advised
to accept the newly worked-out theories of Professor Weissmann, the author of
Beitrage zur Descendenzlehre, with regard to one of the two mysteries of
Embryology, as above specified, which he seems to have solved -- as he thinks.
For, when it is solved, Science will have stepped over into the domain of the
truly occult, and stepped for ever out of the realm of transformation, as
taught by Darwin. The two are irreconcileable, from the standpoint of
materialism. Regarded from that of the Occultists, it solves all these
mysteries. Those who are not acquainted with the new discovery of Professor
Weissman -- at one time a fervent Darwinist -- ought to hasten to repair the
deficiency. The German Embryologist-philosopher shows -- thus stepping over the
heads of the Greek Hippocrates and Aristotle, right back into the teachings of
the old Aryans -- one infinitesimal cell, out of millions of others at work in
the formation of an organism, determining alone and unaided, by means of
constant segmentation and multiplication, the correct image of the future man
(or animal) in its physical, mental, and psychic characteristics. It is that
cell which impresses on the face and form of the new individual the features of
the parents or of some distant ancestor; it is that cell again which transmits
to him the intellectual and mental idiosyncracies of his sires, and so on. This
Plasm is the immortal portion of our bodies -- simply through the process of
successive assimilations. Darwin's theory, viewing the embryological cell as an
essence or the extract from all other cells, is set aside; it is incapable of
accounting for hereditary transmission. There are but two ways of explaining
the mystery of heredity; either the substance of the germinal cell is endowed
with the faculty of crossing the whole cycle of transformations that lead to
the construction of a separate organism and then to the reproduction of
identical germinal cells; or, those germinal cells do not have their genesis at
all in the body of the individual, but proceed directly from the ancestral
germinal cell passed from father to son through long generations. It is the
latter hypothesis that Weissmann accepted and has worked upon; and it is to
this cell that he traces the immortal portion of man. So far, so good; and when
this almost correct theory is accepted, how will Biologists explain the first
appearance of this everlasting cell? Unless man "grew" like the
"immortal Topsy," and was not born at all, but fell from the clouds,
how was that embryological cell born in him?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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menon
astonishes no one, except in so far as it puzzles the Embryologists, why should
our intellectual and inner growth, the evolution of the human-spiritual to the
Divine-Spiritual, be regarded as, or seem, more impossible than the other? Now
to the simile.
Complete
the physical plasm, mentioned in the last foot-note, the "Germinal
Cell" of man with all its material potentialities, with the
"spiritual plasm," so to say, or the fluid that contains the five
lower principles of the six-principled Dhyan -- and you have the secret, if you
are spiritual enough to understand it.
"When
the seed of the animal man is cast into the soil of the animal woman, that seed
cannot germinate unless it has been fructified by the five virtues (the fluid
of, or the emanation from the principles) of the six-fold Heavenly man.
Wherefore the Microcosm is represented as a Pentagon, within the Hexagon Star, the
"Macrocosm." ("[[Anthropos]],") a work on Occult
Embryology, Book I.). Then: "The functions of Jiva on this Earth are of a
five-fold character. In the mineral atom it is connected with the lowest
principles of the Spirits of the Earth (the six-fold Dhyanis); in the vegetable
particle, with their second -- the Prana (life); in the animal, with all these
plus the third and the fourth; in man, the germ must receive the fruition of
all the five. Otherwise he will be born no higher than an animal"; namely,
a congenital idiot. Thus in man alone the Jiva is complete. As to his seventh
principle, it is but one of the Beams of the Universal Sun. Each rational
creature receives only the temporary loan of that which has to return to its
source; while his physical body is shaped by the lowest terrestrial lives,
through physical, chemical, and physiological evolution. "The Blessed Ones
have nought to do with the purgations of matter." (Kabala, Chaldean Book
of Numbers).
It
comes to this: Mankind in its first prototypal, shadowy form, is the offspring
of the Elohim of Life (or Pitris); in its qualitative and physical aspect it is
the direct progeny of the "Ancestors," the lowest Dhyanis, or Spirits
of the Earth; for its moral, psychic, and spiritual nature, it is indebted to a
group of divine Beings, the name and characteristics of which will be given in
Book II. Collectively, men are the handiwork of hosts of various spirits;
distributively, the tabernacles of those hosts; and occasionally and singly,
the vehicles of some of them. In our present all-material Fifth Race, the
earthly Spirit of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Fourth
is still strong in us; but we are approaching the time when the pendulum of
evolution will direct its swing decidedly upwards, bringing Humanity back on a
parallel line with the primitive third Root-Race in Spirituality. During its
childhood, mankind was composed wholly of that Angelic Host, who were the
indwelling Spirits that animated the monstrous and gigantic tabernacles of clay
of the Fourth Race built by (as they are now also) and composed of countless
myriads of lives.* This sentence will be explained later on in the present
Commentary. The "tabernacles" have improved in texture and symmetry
of form, growing and developing with the globe that bore them; but the physical
improvement took place at the expense of the spiritual inner man and nature.
The three middle principles in earth and man became with every race more
material; the Soul stepping back to make room for the physical intellect; the
essence of elements becoming the material and composite elements now known.
Man
is not, nor could he ever be, the complete product of the "Lord God";
but he is the child of the Elohim, so arbitrarily changed into the singular
masculine gender. The first Dhyanis, commissioned to "create" man in
their image, could only throw off their shadows, like a delicate model for the
Nature Spirits of matter to work upon. (See Book II.) Man is, beyond any doubt,
formed physically out of the dust of the Earth, but his creators and fashioners
were many. Nor can it be said that the "Lord God breathed into his
nostrils the breath of life," unless that God is identified with the
"ONE LIFE," Omnipresent though invisible, and unless the same
operation is attributed to "God" on behalf of every living Soul -- or
Nephesch, which is the vital Soul, not the divine Spirit or Ruach, which ensures
to man alone a divine degree of immortality, that no animal, as such, could
ever attain in this cycle of incarnation. It is the inadequate distinctions
made by the Jews, and now by our Western metaphysicians, who, not knowing of,
and being unable to understand, hence to accept, more than a triune man --
Spirit, Soul,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Science, dimly perceiving the truth, may find Bacteria and other infinitesimals
in the human body, and see in them but occasional and abnormal visitors to
which diseases are attributed. Occultism -- which discerns a life in every atom
and molecule, whether in a mineral or human body, in air, fire or water --
affirms that our whole body is built of such lives, the smallest bacteria under
the microscope being to them in comparative size like an elephant to the
tiniest infusoria.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Body
-- thus confuse the "breath of life" with immortal Spirit.* This
applies also directly to the Protestant theologians, who, in translating verse
8 of Ch. III. in the Fourth Gospel, have entirely perverted the meaning. Indeed
the verse is made to say "The wind bloweth where it listeth," instead
of "the Spirit goeth where it willeth," as in the original and also
in the translation of the Greek Eastern Church.
Thus
the philosophy of psychic, spiritual, and mental relations with man's physical
functions is in almost inextricable confusion. Neither the old Aryan, nor the
Egyptian psychology are now properly understood. Nor can they be assimilated
without accepting the esoteric septenary, or, at any rate, the Vedantic
quinquepartite division of the human inner principles. Failing which, it will
be for ever impossible to understand the metaphysical and purely psychic and
even physiological relations between the Dhyan-Chohans, or Angels, on the one
plane, and humanity on the other. No Eastern (Aryan) esoteric works are so far
published, but we possess the Egyptian papyri which speak clearly
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The learned and very philosophical author of "New Aspects of Life"
would impress upon his reader that the Nephesh chaiah (living soul), according
to the Hebrews, "proceeded from, or was produced by, the infusion of the
Spirit or Breath of Life into the quickening body of man, and was to supersede
and take the place of that spirit in the thus constituted self, so that the
spirit passed into, was lost sight of, and disappeared in the living
Soul." The human body, he thinks, ought to be viewed as a matrix in which,
and from which, the Soul (which he seems to place higher than the spirit) is
developed -- considered functionally and from the standpoint of activity, the
Soul stands undeniably higher in this finite and conditioned world of Maya --
the Soul, he says, "is ultimately produced from the animated body of
man." Thus the author identifies "Spirit" (Atma) simply with "the
breath of life." The Eastern Occultists will demur to this statement, for
it is based on the erroneous conception that Prana and Atma or Jivatma are one
and the same thing. The author supports the argument by showing that with the
ancient Hebrews, Greeks and even Latins, Ruach, Pneuma and Spiritus -- with the
Jews undeniably, and with the Greeks and Romans very probably -- meant Wind;
the Greek word Anemos (wind) and the Latin Anima "Soul" having a
suspicious relation.
This
is very far fetched. A legitimate battle-field for deciding this question is
hardly to be found, since Mr. Pratt seems to be a practical, matter-of-fact
metaphysician, a kind of Kabalist-Positivist, and the Eastern metaphysicians,
especially the Vedantins, are all Idealists. The Occultists are also of the extreme
esoteric Vedantin school, and they call the One Life (Parabrahm), the Great
Breath and the Whirlwind; but they disconnect the seventh principle entirely
from matter or any relation to, or connection with it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
the seven principles or the "Seven Souls of Man."* The Book of the
Dead gives a complete list of the "transformations" that every defunct
undergoes, while divesting himself, one by one, of all those principles --
materialised for the sake of clearness into ethereal entities or bodies. We
must, moreover, remind those who try to prove that the ancient Egyptians knew
nothing of and did not teach Reincarnation, that the "Soul" (the Ego
or Self) of the defunct is said to be living in Eternity: it is immortal,
"co-eval with, and disappearing with the Solar boat," i.e., for the
cycle of necessity. This "Soul" emerges from the Tiaou (the realm of
the cause of life) and joins the living on Earth by day, to return to Tiaou
every night. This expresses the periodical existences of the Ego. (Book of the
Dead, cvxliii.)
The
shadow, the astral form, is annihilated, "devoured by the Uraeus"
(cxlix., 51), the Manes will be annihilated; the two twins (the 4th and 5th
principles) will be scattered; but the Soul-bird, "the divine Swallow --
and the Uraeus of Flame" (Manas and Atma-Buddhi) will live in the
eternity, for they are their mother's husbands.**
Like
alone produces like. The Earth gives Man his body, the gods (Dhyanis) his five
inner principles, the psychic Shadow, of which those gods are often the
animating principle. SPIRIT (Atman) is one -- and indiscrete. It is not in the
Tiaou.
For
what is the Tiaou? The frequent allusion to it in the "Book of the
Dead" contains a mystery. Tiaou is the path of the Night Sun, the inferior
hemisphere, or the infernal region of the Egyptians, placed by them on the
concealed side of the moon. The human being, in their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide in Part II., Book II., "The Seven Souls of Man," the divisions
made respectively by Messrs. Gerald Massey and Franz Lambert.
**
Another suggestive analogy between the Aryan or Brahmanical and the Egyptian
esotericism. The former call the Pitris "the lunar ancestors" of men;
and the Egyptians made of the Moon-God, Taht-Esmun, the first human ancestor.
This "moon-god" "expressed the Seven nature-powers that were
prior to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls, of which he was
the manifestor as the eighth one (hence the eighth sphere). The seven rays of
the Chaldean Heptakis or Iao, on the Gnostic stones indicate the same septenary
of souls." . . . "The first form of the mystical SEVEN was seen to be
figured in heaven, by the seven large stars of the Great Bear, the
constellation assigned by the Egyptians to the Mother of Time, and of the seven
elemental powers." (See The Seven Souls, etc.) As well known to every Hindu,
this same constellation represents in India the Seven Rishis, and as such is
called Riksha, and Chitra-Sikhandinas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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esotericism,
came out from the moon (a triple mystery -- astronomical, physiological, and
psychical at once); he crossed the whole cycle of existence and then returned
to his birth-place before issuing from it again. Thus the defunct is shown
arriving in the West, receiving his judgment before Osiris, resurrecting as the
god Horus, and circling round the sidereal heavens, which is an allegorical
assimilation to Ra, the Sun; then having crossed the Noot (the celestial
abyss), returning once more to Tiaou: an assimilation to Osiris, who, as the
God of life and reproduction, inhabits the moon. Plutarch (Isis and Osiris, ch.
xliii.) shows the Egyptians celebrating a festival called "The Ingress of
Osiris into the moon." In chapter xli. life is promised after death; and
the renovation of life is placed under the patronage of Osiris-Lunus, because
the moon was the symbol of life-renewals or reincarnations, owing to its
growth, waning, dying, and reappearance every month. In the Dankmoe, (iv. 5) it
is said:-- "Oh, Osiris-Lunus! That renews to thee thy renewal." And
Safekh says to Seti I. (Mariette's Abydos, plate 51), "Thou renewest
thyself as the god Lunus when a babe." It is still better explained in a
Louvre papyrus (P. Pierret, "Etudes Egyptologiques"): "Couplings
and conceptions abound when he (Osiris-Lunus) is seen in heaven on that
day." Says Osiris: "Oh, sole radiant beam of the moon! I issue from
the circulating multitudes (of stars) . . . . . . Open me the Tiaou, for Osiris
N. I will issue by day to do what I have to do amongst the living"
("Book of the Dead," ch. ii.), -- i.e., to produce conceptions.
Osiris
was "God manifest in generation," because the ancients knew, far
better than the moderns, the real occult influences of the lunar body upon the
mysteries of conception.* Later on, when the moon became connected with female
goddesses** -- with Diana, Isis, Artemis,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the oldest systems we find the Moon always male. Thus Soma is, with the
Hindus, a kind of sidereal Don Juan, a "King," and the father, albeit
illegitimate, of Buddha -- Wisdom, which relates to Occult Knowledge, a wisdom
gathered through a thorough acquaintance with lunar mysteries including those
of sexual generation. (See "Holy of Holies.")
**
If instead of being taught in Sunday Schools useless lessons from the Bible,
the armies of the ragged and the poor were taught Astrology -- so far, at any
rate, as the occult properties of the Moon and its hidden influences on
generation are concerned, then there would be little need to fear increase of
the population nor to resort to the questionable literature of the Malthusians
for its arrest. For it is the Moon and her [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Juno,
etc., that connection was due to a thorough knowledge of physiology and female
nature, physical as much as psychic. But, primarily, the Sun and Moon were the only
visible and, so to say, tangible [by their effects] psychic and physiological
deities -- the Father and the Son, while Space and air in general, or that
expanse of Heaven called Noot by the Egyptians, was the concealed Spirit or
Breath of the two. These "Father and Son" were interchangeable in
their functions and worked harmoniously together in their effects upon
terrestrial nature and humanity; hence they were regarded as ONE, though TWO in
personified Entities. They were both males, and both had their distinct and
also collaborative work in the causative generation of Humanity. So much from
the astronomical and cosmic standpoints viewed and expressed in symbolical
language -- which became in our last races theological and dogmatic. But behind
this veil of Cosmic and Astrological symbols, there were the Occult mysteries
of Anthropography and the primeval genesis of man. And in this, no knowledge of
symbols -- or even the key to the post-diluvian symbolical language of the Jews
-- will, or can help, save only with reference to that which was laid down in
national scriptures for exoteric uses; the sum of which, however cleverly
veiled, was only the smallest portion of the real primitive history of each
people, often relating, moreover, -- as in the Hebrew Scriptures -- merely to
the terrestrial human, not divine life of that nation. That psychic and
spiritual element belonged to MYSTERY and INITIATION. There were things never
recorded in scrolls, but, as in Central Asia, on rocks and in subterranean
crypts.
Nevertheless,
there was a time when the whole world was "of one lip and of one
knowledge," and Man knew more of his origin than he does now, and thus
knew that the Sun and Moon, however large a part they do play in the
constitution, growth and development of the human body, were not the direct
causative agents of his appearance on Earth;
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] conjunctions that regulate conceptions, and
every astrologer in India knows it. During the previous and the present races,
at least at the beginning of this one, those who indulged in marital relations
during certain lunar phases that made those relations sterile were regarded as
sorcerers and sinners. But even now those sins of old, based on the Occult
knowledge and the abuse of it, would appear preferable to the crimes of to-day,
which are perpetrated because of the complete ignorance of, and disbelief in
all such occult influences.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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these
agents being, in truth, the living and intelligent Powers which the Occultists
call Dhyan Chohans.
As
to this, a very learned admirer of the Jewish Esotericism tells us that
"the Kabala says expressly that Elohim is a 'general abstraction'; what we
call in mathematics 'a constant co-efficient' or a 'general function' entering
into all construction, not particular; that is, by the general ratio 1 to
31415, (the astro-Dhyanic and) Elohistic figures." To this the Eastern
Occultist replies: Quite so, it is an abstraction to our physical senses. To
our spiritual perceptions, however, and to our inner spiritual eye, the Elohim
or Dhyanis are no more an abstraction than our soul and spirit are to us.
Reject the one and you reject the other -- since that which is the surviving
Entity in us is partly the direct emanation from, and partly those celestial
Entities themselves. One thing is sure; the Jews were perfectly acquainted with
sorcery and various maleficent forces; but, with the exception of some of their
great prophets and seers like Daniel and Ezekiel (Enoch belonging to a far
distant race and not to any nation but to all, as a generic character), they
knew little of, nor would they deal with, the real divine Occultism, their
national character being averse to anything which had no direct bearing upon
their own ethnical, tribal, and individual benefits -- witness their own
prophets, and the curses thundered by them against the "stiff-necked
race." But even the Kabala plainly shows the direct relation between the
Sephiroth, or Elohim, and men.
Therefore,
when it is proved to us that the Kabalistic identification of Jehovah with
Binah, a female Sephiroth, has still another, a sub-occult meaning in it, then
and then only the Occultist will be ready to pass the palm of perfection to the
Kabalist. Until then, it is asserted that, as Jehovah is in the abstract sense
of a "one living God," a single number, a metaphysical figment, and a
reality only when put in his proper place as an emanation and a Sephiroth -- we
have a right to maintain that the Zohar (as witnessed by the BOOK OF NUMBERS,
at any rate), gave out originally, before the Christian Kabalists had
disfigured it, and still gives out the same doctrine that we do; i.e., it makes
Man emanate, not from one Celestial MAN, but from a Septenary group of
Celestial men or Angels, just as in "Pymander, the Thought Divine."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
(3)
WHEN THE ONE BECOMES TWO -- THE "THREE-FOLD" APPEARS (a). THE THREE
ARE (linked into) ONE; AND IT IS OUR THREAD, O LANOO, THE HEART OF THE
MAN-PLANT, CALLED SAPTAPARNA (b).
(a)
"When the ONE becomes two, the three-fold appears": to wit, when the
One Eternal drops its reflection into the region of Manifestation, that
reflection, "the Ray," differentiates the "Water of Space";
or, in the words of the "Book of the Dead"; "Chaos ceases,
through the effulgence of the Ray of Primordial light dissipating total
darkness by the help of the great magic power of the WORD of the (Central)
Sun." Chaos becomes male-female, and Water, incubated through Light, and
the "three-fold being issues as its First-born." "Osiris-Ptah
(or RA) creates his own limbs (like Brahma) by creating the gods destined to
personify his phases" during the Cycle (xvii., 4). The Egyptian Ra,
issuing from the DEEP, is the Divine Universal Soul in its manifested aspect,
and so is Narayana, the Purusha, "concealed in Akasa and present in
Ether."
This
is the metaphysical explanation, and refers to the very beginning of Evolution,
or, as we should rather say, of Theogony. The meaning of the Stanza when
explained from another standpoint in its reference to the mystery of man and
his origin, is still more difficult to comprehend. In order to form a clear
conception of what is meant by the One becoming two, and then being transformed
into the "three-fold," the student has to make himself thoroughly
acquainted with what we call "Rounds." If he refers to "Esoteric
Buddhism" -- the first attempt to sketch out an approximate outline of
archaic Cosmogony -- he will find that by a "Round" is meant the
serial evolution of nascent material nature, of the seven globes of our chain*
with their mineral,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Several inimical critics are anxious to prove that no seven principles of man nor
septenary constitution of our chain were taught in our earlier volume,
"Isis Unveiled." Though in that work the doctrine could only be
hinted at, there are many passages, nevertheless, in which the septenary
constitution of both man and chain is openly mentioned. Speaking of the Elohim
in Vol. II., page 420, it is said: "They remain over the seventh heaven
(or spiritual world), for it is they who, according to the Kabalists, formed in
succession the six material worlds, or rather, attempts at worlds that preceded
our own, which, they say, is the seventh." Our globe is, of course, upon
the diagram representing the "chain," the seventh and the lowest;
though, [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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vegetable,
and animal kingdoms (man being there included in the latter and standing at the
head of it) during the whole period of a life-cycle. The latter would be called
by the Brahmins "a Day of Brahma." It is, in short, one revolution of
the "Wheel" (our planetary chain), which is composed of seven globes
(or seven separate "Wheels," in another sense this time). When
evolution has run downward into matter, from planet A to planet G, or Z, as the
Western students call it, it is one Round. In the middle of the Fourth
revolution, which is our present "Round": "Evolution has reached
its acme of physical development, crowned its work with the perfect physical
man, and, from this point, begins its work spirit-ward." All this needs
little repetition, as it is well explained in "Esoteric Buddhism."
That which was hardly touched upon, and of which the little that was said has
misled many, is the origin of man, and it is upon this that a little more light
may now be thrown, just enough to make the Stanza more comprehensible, as the
process will be fully explained only in its legitimate place, in Book II.
Now
every "Round" (on the descending scale) is but a repetition in a more
concrete form of the Round which preceded it, as every globe -- down to our
fourth sphere (the actual earth) -- is a grosser and more material copy of the
more shadowy sphere which precedes it in their successive order, on the three
higher planes. (See diagram in Stanza VI. Comm. 6). On its way upwards on the
ascending arc, Evolution spiritualises and etherealises, so to speak, the
general nature of all, bringing it on to a level with the plane on which the
twin globe on the opposite side is placed; the result being, that when the
seventh globe is reached (in whatever Round) the nature of everything that is
evolving returns to the condition it was in at its starting point -- plus,
every time, a new and superior degree in the states of consciousness. Thus it
becomes clear that the "origin of man," so-called, on this our
present
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] as the evolution on these globes is cyclic, it
is the fourth in descending the arc of matter. And again, on page 367, Vol.
II., it is written: "In the Egyptian notions, as in those of all other
faiths founded on philosophy, man was not merely . . . an union of soul and
body; he was a trinity when spirit was added to it; and besides that doctrine
made him consist of body, astral form, or shadow, the animal soul, the higher
soul, and terrestrial intelligence and a sixth principle, etc., etc. -- the
seventh -- SPIRIT." So clearly are these principles mentioned, that even
in the Index, one finds on page 683:-- "Six principles of man" -- the
seventh being the synthesis of the six, and not a principle but a ray of the
Absolute ALL -- in strict truth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 233 WHAT INCARNATES IN ANIMAL MAN.
Round,
or life-cycle on this planet, must occupy the same place in the same order --
save details based on local conditions and time -- as in the preceding Round.
Again, it must be explained and remembered that, as the work of each Round is
said to be apportioned to a different group of so-called "Creators"
or "Architects," so is that of every globe; i.e., it is under the
supervision and guidance of special "Builders" and
"Watchers" -- the various Dhyan-Chohans.
The
group of the hierarchy which is commissioned to "create"* men is a
special group, then; yet it evolved shadowy man in this cycle just as a higher
and still more spiritual group evolved him in the Third Round. But as it is the
Sixth -- on the downward scale of Spirituality -- the last and seventh being
the terrestrial Spirits (elementals) which gradually form, build, and condense
his physical body -- this Sixth group evolves no more than the future man's
shadowy form, a filmy, hardly visible transparent copy of themselves. It
becomes the task of the fifth Hierarchy -- the mysterious beings that preside
over the constellation Capricornus, Makara, or "Crocodile" in India
as in Egypt -- to inform the empty and ethereal animal form and make of it the
Rational Man. This is one of those subjects upon which very little may be said
to the general public. It is a MYSTERY, truly, but only to him who is prepared
to reject the existence of intellectual and conscious spiritual Beings in the
Universe, limiting full Consciousness to man alone, and that only as a
"function of the Brain." Many are those among the Spiritual Entities,
who have incarnated bodily in man, since the beginning of his appearance, and
who, for all that, still exist as independently as they did before, in the
infinitudes of Space. . . .
To
put it more clearly: the invisible Entity may be bodily present on earth
without abandoning, however, its status and functions in the supersensuous
regions. If this needs explanation, we can do no better than remind the reader
of like cases in Spiritualism, though such cases are very rare, at least as
regards the nature of the Entity incarnating,**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Creation is an incorrect word to use, as no religion, not even the sect of the
Visishta Adwaitees in India -- one which anthropomorphises even Parabrahmam --
believes in creation out of nihil as Christians and Jews do, but in evolution
out of preexisting materials.
**
The so-called "Spirits" that may occasionally possess themselves of the
bodies of mediums are not the Monads or Higher Principles of disembodied
personalities. Such a "Spirit" can only be either an Elementary, or
-- a Nirmanakaya.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
or
taking temporary possession of a medium. Just as certain persons -- men and
women, reverting to parallel cases among living persons -- whether by virtue of
a peculiar organization, or through the power of acquired mystic knowledge, can
be seen in their "double" in one place, while the body is many miles
away; so the same thing can occur in the case of superior Beings.
Man,
philosophically considered, is, in his outward form, simply an animal, hardly
more perfect than his pithecoid-like ancestor of the third round. He is a
living body, not a living being, since the realisation of existence, the
"Ego-Sum," necessitates self-consciousness, and an animal can only
have direct consciousness, or instinct. This was so well understood by the
Ancients that the Kabalist even made of soul and body two lives, independent of
each other.* The soul, whose body vehicle is the Astral, ethero-substantial
envelope, could die and man be still living on earth -- i.e., the soul could
free itself from and quit the tabernacle for various reasons -- such as
insanity, spiritual and physical depravity, etc.** Therefore, that which living
men (Initiates)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
On p. 340-351 (Genesis of the Soul) in the "New Aspects of Life," the
Author states the Kabalistic teaching: "They held that, functionally,
Spirit and Matter of corresponding opacity and density tended to coalesce; and
that the resultant created Spirits, in the disembodied state, were constituted
on a scale in which the differing opacities and transparencies of Elemental or
uncreated Spirit were reproduced. And that these Spirits in the disembodied
state attracted, appropriated, digested and assimilated Elemental Spirit and
Elemental Matter whose condition was conformed to their own." "They
therefore taught that there was a wide difference in the condition of created
Spirits; and that in the intimate association between the Spirit-world and the
world of Matter, the more opaque Spirits in the disembodied state were drawn
towards the more dense parts of the material world, and therefore tended
towards the centre of the Earth, where they found the conditions most suited to
their state; while the more transparent Spirits passed into the surrounding aura
of the planet, the most rarified finding their home in its satellite."
This
relates exclusively to our Elementary Spirits, and has naught to do with either
the Planetary, Sidereal, Cosmic or Inter-Etheric Intelligent Forces or
"Angels" as they are termed by the Roman Church. The Jewish
Kabalists, especially the practical Occultists who dealt with ceremonial magic,
busied themselves solely with the spirits of the Planets and the
"Elementals" so-called. Therefore this covers only a portion of the
Esoteric Teaching.
**
The possibility of the "Soul" (i.e., the eternal Spiritual Ego)
dwelling in the unseen worlds, while its body goes on living on Earth, is a
pre-eminently occult doctrine, especially in Chinese and Buddhist philosophy.
See "Isis Unveiled," vol. i., [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 235 DII SUNT DEMONES INVERSI.
can
do, the Dhyanis, who have no physical body to hamper them, can do still better.
This was the belief of the Antediluvians, and it is fast becoming that of
modern intellectual society, in Spiritualism, besides the Greek and Roman
Churches, which teach the ubiquity of their angels. The Zoroastrians regarded
their Amshaspends as dual entities (Ferouers), applying this duality -- in
esoteric philosophy, at any rate -- to all the spiritual and invisible denizens
of the numberless worlds in space which are visible to our eye. In a note of
Damascius (sixth century) on the Chaldean oracles, we have a triple evidence of
the universality of this doctrine, for he says: "In these oracles the
seven Cosmocratores of the world, ('The World-Pillars,') mentioned likewise by
St. Paul, are double -- one set being commissioned to rule the superior worlds
the spiritual and the sidereal, and the other to guide and watch over the
worlds of matter." Such is also the opinion of Jamblichus, who makes an
evident distinction between the archangels and the "Archontes." (See
"De Mysteriis," sec. ii., ch. 3.) The above may be applied, of
course, to the distinction made between the degrees or orders of spiritual
beings, and it is in this sense that the Roman Catholic Church tries to
interpret and teach the difference; for while the archangels are in her
teaching divine and holy, their doubles are denounced by her as devils.* But
the word "ferouer" is not to be understood in this sense, for it
means simply the reverse or the opposite side of some attribute or quality.
Thus when the Occultist says that the "Demon is the lining of God"
(evil, the reverse of the medal), he does not mean two separate
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] p. 602, for an illustration. Many are the
Soulless men among us, for the occurrence is found to take place in wicked
materialists as well as in persons "who advance in holiness and never turn
back." (See ibid and also "Isis," vol. ii., p. 369.)
*
This identity between the Spirit and its material "double" (in man it
is the reverse) explains still better the confusion, alluded to already in this
work, made in the names and individualities, as well as the numbers, of the
Rishis and the Prajapatis; especially between those of the Satyayuga and the
Mahabharatan period. It also throws additional light on what the Secret
Doctrine teaches with regard to the Root and the Seed Manus (see Book ii.
"On the primitive Manus of humanity"). Not only those progenitors of
our mankind, but every human being, we are taught, has its prototype in the Spiritual
Spheres; which prototype is the highest essence of his seventh principle. Thus
the seven Manus become 14, the Root Manu being the Prime Cause, and the
"Seed-Manu" its effect; and when the latter reach from Satyayuga (the
first stage) to the heroic period, these Manus or Rishis become 21 in number.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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actualities,
but the two aspects or facets of the same Unity. Now the best man living would
appear, side by side with an Archangel -- as described in Theology -- a fiend.
Hence a certain reason to depreciate a lower "double," immersed far
deeper in matter than its original. But there is still as little cause to
regard them as devils, and this is precisely what the Roman Catholics maintain
against all reason and logic.
(b)
The concluding sentence of this sloka shows how archaic is the belief and the
doctrine that man is seven-fold in his constitution. The thread of being which
animates man and passes through all his personalities, or rebirths on this
Earth (an allusion to Sutratma), the thread on which moreover all his
"Spirits" are strung -- is spun from the essence of the
"threefold," the "fourfold" and the "fivefold";
which contain all the preceding. Panchasikha, agreeably to Bhagavata Purana (V.
XX. 25-28), is one of the seven Kumaras who go to Sveta-Dvipa to worship
Vishnu. We shall see further on, what connection there is between the
"celibate" and chaste sons of Brahma, who refuse "to
multiply," and terrestrial mortals. Meanwhile it is evident that "the
Man-Plant," Saptaparna, thus refers to the seven principles, and man is
compared to the seven-leaved plant of this name* so sacred among Buddhists.
For
further details as to Saptaparna and the importance of the number seven in
occultism, as well as in symbology, the reader is referred to Part II., Book
II., on Symbolism: Sections on "Saptaparna," "The Septenary in
the Vedas," etc. etc.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Egyptian allegory in the "Book of the Dead" already mentioned,
the hymn that relates to the reward "of the Soul," is as suggestive
of our Septenary Doctrine as it is poetical. The deceased is allotted a piece
of land in the field of Aanroo, wherein the Manes, the deified shades of the
dead, glean, as the harvest they have sown by their actions in life, the corn
seven cubits high, which grows in a territory divided into 14 and 7 portions.
This corn is the food on which they live and prosper, or that will kill them,
in Amenti, the realm of which the Aanroo field is a domain. For, as said in the
hymn, (see chap. xxxii. 9) the deceased is either destroyed therein, or becomes
pure spirit for the Eternity, in consequence of the "Seven times
seventy-seven lives" passed or to be passed on Earth. The idea of the corn
reaped as the "fruit of our actions" is very graphic.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 237 THE IMMORTAL ROOT.
STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
4.
IT IS THE ROOT THAT NEVER DIES, THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME OF THE FOUR WICKS* (a)
. . . THE WICKS ARE THE SPARKS, THAT DRAW FROM THE THREE-TONGUED FLAME (their
upper triad) SHOT OUT BY THE SEVEN, THEIR FLAME; THE BEAMS AND SPARKS OF ONE
MOON REFLECTED IN THE RUNNING WAVES OF ALL THE RIVERS OF THE EARTH
("Bhumi," or "Prithivi")** (b).
(a)
The "Three-tongued flame" that never dies is the immortal spiritual
triad -- the Atma-Buddhi and Manas -- the fruition of the latter assimilated by
the first two after every terrestrial life. The "four wicks" that go
out and are extinguished, are the four lower principles, including the body.
"I
am the three-wicked Flame and my wicks are immortal," says the defunct.
"I enter into the domain of Sekhem (the God whose arm sows the seed of
action produced by the disembodied soul) and I enter the region of the Flames
who have destroyed their adversaries," i.e., got rid of the sin-creating
"four wicks." (See chap. i., vii., "Book of the Dead," and
the "Mysteries of Ro-stan.")
(b)
Just as milliards of bright sparks dance on the waters of an ocean above which
one and the same moon is shining, so our evanescent personalities -- the
illusive envelopes of the immortal MONAD-EGO -- twinkle and dance on the waves
of Maya. They last and appear, as the thousands of sparks produced by the
moon-beams, only so long as the Queen of the Night radiates her lustre on the
running waters of life: the period of a Manvantara; and then they disappear,
the beams -- symbols of our eternal Spiritual Egos -- alone surviving,
re-merged in, and being, as they were before, one with the Mother-Source.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The three-tongued flame of the four wicks corresponds to the four unities and
the three Binaries of the Sephirothal tree (see Commentary on Stanza VI.).
**
Useless to repeat again that the terms given here are Sanskrit translations; for
the original terms, unknown and unheard of in Europe, would only puzzle the
reader more, and serve no useful purpose.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 238 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
(5)
THE SPARK HANGS FROM THE FLAME BY THE FINEST THREAD OF FOHAT. IT JOURNEYS
THROUGH THE SEVEN WORLDS OF MAYA (a). IT STOPS IN THE FIRST (Kingdom), AND IS A
METAL AND A STONE; IT PASSES INTO THE SECOND (Kingdom), AND BEHOLD -- A PLANT;
THE PLANT WHIRLS THROUGH SEVEN FORMS AND BECOMES A SACRED ANIMAL; (the first
shadow of the physical man) (b).
FROM
THE COMBINED ATTRIBUTES OF THESE, MANU (man), THE THINKER, IS FORMED.
WHO
FORMS HIM? THE SEVEN LIVES; AND THE ONE LIFE (c). WHO COMPLETES HIM? THE FIVEFOLD
LHA. AND WHO PERFECTS THE LAST BODY? FISH, SIN, AND SOMA (the moon) (d).
(a)
The phrase "through the seven Worlds of Maya" refers here to the
seven globes of the planetary chain and the seven rounds, or the 49 stations of
active existence that are before the "Spark" or Monad, at the
beginning of every "Great Life-Cycle" or Manvantara. The "thread
of Fohat" is the thread of life before referred to.
This
relates to the greatest problem of philosophy -- the physical and substantial
nature of life, the independent nature of which is denied by modern science
because that science is unable to comprehend it. The reincarnationists and
believers in Karma alone dimly perceive that the whole secret of Life is in the
unbroken series of its manifestations: whether in, or apart from, the physical
body. Because if --
"Life,
like a dome of many-coloured glass,
Stains
the white radiance of Eternity" --
yet
it is itself part and parcel of that Eternity; for life alone can understand
life.
What
is that "Spark" which "hangs from the flame?" It is JIVA,
the MONAD in conjunction with MANAS, or rather its aroma -- that which remains
from each personality, when worthy, and hangs from Atma-Buddhi, the Flame, by
the thread of life. In whatever way interpreted, and into whatever number of
principles the human being is divided, it may easily be shown that this
doctrine is supported by all the ancient
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 239 CHALDEAN METAPHYSICS.
religions,
from the Vedic to the Egyptian, from the Zoroastrian to the Jewish. In the case
of the last-mentioned, the Kabalistic works offer abundant proof of this
statement. The entire system of the Kabalistic numerals is based on the divine
septenary hanging from the Triad (thus forming the Decade) and its permutations
7, 5, 4, and 3, which, finally, all merge into the ONE itself: an endless and
boundless Circle.
"The
Deity (the ever Invisible Presence)," says the Zohar, "manifests itself
through the ten Sephiroth which are its radiating witnesses. The Deity is like
the Sea from which outflows a stream called WISDOM, the waters of which fall
into a lake named Intelligence. From the basin, like seven channels, issue the
Seven Sephiroth. . . . . For ten equal seven: the Decade contains four Unities
and three Binaries." The ten Sephiroth correspond to the limbs of MAN.
"When I framed Adam Kadmon," the Elohim are made to say, "the
Spirit of the Eternal shot out of his Body like a sheet of lightning that
radiated at once on the billows of the Seven millions of skies, and my ten
splendours were his limbs." But neither the Head nor the shoulders of
Adam-Kadmon can be seen; therefore we read in the Sephra Dzenioutha (the
"Book of the Concealed Mystery"):--
"In
the beginning of Time, after the Elohim (the "Sons of Light and
Life," or the "Builders") had shaped out of the eternal Essence
the Heavens and the Earth, they formed the worlds six by six, the seventh being
Malkuth, which is our Earth (see Mantuan Codex) on its plane, and the lowest on
all the other planes of conscious existence. The Chaldean Book of Numbers
contains a detailed explanation of all this. "The first triad of the body
of Adam Kadmon (the three upper planes of the seven*) cannot be seen before the
soul stands in the presence of the Ancient of Days." The Sephiroth of this
upper triad are:-- "1, Kether (the Crown) represented by the brow of
Macroprosopos; 2, Chochmah (Wisdom, a male Principle) by his right shoulder; and
3, Binah (Intelligence, a female Principle) by the left shoulder." Then
come the seven limbs (or Sephiroth) on the planes of manifestation, the
totality of these four planes being represented by Microprosopus (the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The formation of the "living Soul" or man, would render the idea more
clearly. "A Living Soul" is a synonym of man in the Bible. These are
our seven "Principles."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 240 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
lesser
Face) or Tetragrammaton, the "four-lettered" Mystery. "The seven
manifested and the three concealed limbs are the Body of the Deity."
Thus
our Earth, Malkuth, is both the Seventh and the Fourth world, the former when
counting from the first globe above, the latter if reckoned by the planes. It
is generated by the sixth globe or Sephiroth called Yezod,
"foundation," or as said in the Book of Numbers "by Yezod, He
(Adam Kadmon) fecundates the primitive Heva" (Eve or our Earth). Rendered
in mystic language this is the explanation why Malkuth, called "the
inferior Mother," Matrona, Queen, and the Kingdom of the Foundation, is
shown as the Bride of Tetragrammaton or Microprosopus (the 2nd Logos) the Heavenly
Man. When free from all impurity she will become united with the Spiritual
Logos, i.e., in the 7th Race of the 7th Round -- after the regeneration, on the
day of "SABBATH." For the "seventh day" has again an occult
significance undreamt of by our theologians.
"When
Matronitha, the Mother, is separated and brought face to face with the King, in
the excellence of the Sabbath, all things become one body," says verse
746, in chapter xxii. of "Ha Idra Zuta Kadisha." "Becomes one
body" means that all is reabsorbed once more into the one element, the
spirits of men becoming Nirvanees and the elements of everything else becoming
again what they were before -- protyle or undifferentiated substance.
"Sabbath" means rest or Nirvana. It is not the seventh day after six
days but a period the duration of which equals that of the seven
"days" or any period made up of seven parts. Thus a pralaya is equal
in duration to the manwantara, or a night of Brahma is equal to this
"day." If the Christians will follow Jewish customs they ought to
adopt the spirit and not the dead letter thereof: i.e., to work one week of
seven days and rest seven days. That the word "Sabbath" had a mystic
significance is shown in the contempt shown by Jesus for the Sabbath day, and
by what is said in Luke xviii. 12. Sabbath is there taken for the whole week.
(See Greek text where the week is called Sabbath. "I fast twice in the
Sabbath.") Paul, an Initiate, knew it well when referring to the eternal
rest and felicity in heaven, as Sabbath; "and their happiness will be
eternal, for they will ever be (one) with the Lord and will enjoy an eternal
Sabbath." (Hebrew iv. 2.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 241 THE TRUE AND THE FALSE KABALA.
The
difference between the two systems, taking the Kabala as contained in the
Chaldean Book of Numbers, not as misrepresented by its now disfigured copy, the
Kabala of the Christian mystics --the Kabala and the archaic esoteric Vidya, is
very small indeed, being confined to unimportant divergences of form and
expression. Thus Eastern occultism refers to our earth as the fourth world, the
lowest of the chain, above which run upward on both its sides the six globes,
three on each side. The Zohar, on the other hand, calls the earth the lower, or
the Seventh, adding that upon the six depend all things which are in it,
"Microprosopus." The "smaller face," smaller because
manifested and finite, "is formed of six Sephiroth," says the same
work. "Seven kings come and die in the thrice-destroyed world" --
(Malkuth our earth, destroyed after each of the three rounds which it has gone
through). "And their reign (of the seven kings) will be broken up."
(Book of Numbers, 1. viii., 3.) This relates to the Seven Races, five of which
have already appeared, and two more have still to appear in this Round.
The
Shinto allegorical accounts of Cosmogony and the origin of man in Japan hint at
the same belief.
Captain
C. Pfoundes studied for nearly nine years in the monasteries of Japan the religion
underlying the various sects of the land. . . . . . "The Shinto idea of
creation," he says, "is as follows: Out of chaos (Konton) the earth
(in) was the sediment precipitated, and the Heavens (yo) the ethereal essences
which ascended: Maa (jin) appeared between the two. The first man was called
Kuni-to ko tatchi-no-mikoto, and five other names were given to him, and then
the human race appeared, male and female. Isanagi and Isanami begat Tenshoko
doijin, the first of the five gods of the Earth." These "gods"
are simply our five races, Isanagi and Isanami being the two kinds of the
"ancestors," the two preceding races which give birth to animal and
to rational man.
It
will be shown (Vol. II. Pt. II.) that the number seven, as well as the doctrine
of the septenary constitution of man, was pre-eminent in all the secret
systems. It plays as important a part in Western Kabala as in Eastern
Occultism. Eliphas Levi calls the number seven "the key to the Mosaic
creation and the symbols of every religion." He shows the Kabala following
faithfully even the septenary division of man, as the diagram he gives in his
"Clef des Grands Mysteres" is septenary. This
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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may
be seen at a glance on page 389, "Une prophetic et diverses pensees de
Paracelse," however cleverly the correct thought is veiled. One needs also
only to look at the diagram (Plate VII. in Mr. Mathers' Kabala) "the formation
of the Soul"* from the same "Key of the Great Mysteries" by Levi
to find the same, though with a different interpretation.
Thus
it stands with both the Kabalistic and the Occult names attached:--
7
Neschanah [[--]] Pure Spirit [[--]] Atma
6
Ruach [[--]] Spiritual Soul [[--]] Buddhi
5
Nephesch [[--]] Plastic Mediator [[--]] Manas
N.
B. -- Please remark that this triad is disconnected with the lower Quaternary,
as it disconnects itself always after death.
THE
UPPER TRIAD [[--]] The Immortal. E. Levi calls Nephesch what we name Manas, and
vice versa.*
4
Samael [[--]] Seat of Passion & Animal Desires [[--]] Kama
3
Mikael [[--]] the Sun Principle [[--]] whence Life Prana
2
Image of man [[--]] Astral Body [[--]] or Linga Sarira
1
Image of the Creators [[--]] Physical Body [[--]] Sthula Sarira [[--]] Rupa
The
lower Quarternary: the Transitory and the mortal.
Nephesch.
-- The Breath of animal life in man -- the breath of life instinctual in the
animal: and Manas is the 3rd Soul -- the human in its light side, -- animal, in
its connection with Samaelor Kama.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nephesch is the "breath of (animal) life" breathed into Adam, the man
of dust; it is consequently the Vital Spark, the informing element. Without
Manas, or what is miscalled in Levi's diagram Nephesch instead of Manas,
"the reasoning Soul," or mind, Atma-Buddhi are irrational on this
plane and cannot act. It is Buddhi which is the plastic mediator, not Manas,
"the intelligent medium between the upper Triad and the lower
Quaternary." But there are many such strange and curious transformations
to be found in the Kabalistic works -- a convincing proof that its literature
has become a sad jumble. We do not accept the classification except in this one
particular, in order to show the points of agreement.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 243 OCCULT AND KABALISTIC DOCTRINES.
We
will now give in tabular form what the very cautious Eliphas Levi says in
explanation of his diagram, and what the Esoteric Doctrine teaches -- and
compare the two. Levi, too, makes a distinction between Kabalistic and Occult
Pneumatics. (See "Histoire de la Magic," pp. 388, 389.)
[[first
column]]
Says
Eliphas Levi, the Kabalist:--
KABALISTIC
PNEUMATICS.
1.
The Soul (or EGO) is a clothed light; and this light is triple.
2.
Neschamah -- "pure Spirit."
3.
Ruach -- the Soul or Spirit.
4.
Nephesch -- plastic mediator.**
5.
The garment of the Soul is the rind (body) of the image (astral Soul).
6.
The image is double, because it reflects the good as the bad.
7.
Imago, body.
-------
OCCULT
PNEUMATICS.
As
given by Eliphas Levi.
1.
Nephesh is immortal because it renews its life by the destruction of forms.
[But
Nephesh, the "breath of
[[first
column continued on next page]]
[[second
column]]
Say
the Theosophists:--
ESOTERIC
PNEUMATICS.
1.
Ditto, for it is Atma-Buddhi-Manas.
2.
Ditto.*
3.
Spiritual Soul.
4.
Mediator between Spirit and its Man, the Seat of Reason, the Mind, in man.
5.
Correct.
6.
Too uselessly apocalyptic. Why not say that the astral reflects the good as
well as the bad man; man, who is ever tending to the upper triangle, or else
disappears with the Quaternary.
7.
Ditto, the earthly image.
-------
OCCULT
PNEUMATICS.
As
given by the Occultists.
1.
Manas is immortal, because after every new incarnation it adds to Atma-Buddhi
something of itself, and
[[second
column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Eliphas Levi has, whether purposely or otherwise, confused the numbers: with us
his No. 2 is No. 1. (Spirit); and by making of Nephesch both the plastic
mediator and Life, he thus makes in reality only six principles, because he
repeats the first two.
**
Esotericism teaches the same. But Manas is not Nephesch; nor is the latter the
astral, but the 4th principle, if also the 2nd prana, for Nephesch is the
"breath of life" in man, as in beast or insect, of physical, material
life, which has no spirituality in it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 244 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
[[first
column continued from previous page]]
life,"
is a misnomer and a useless puzzle to the student.]
2.
Ruach progresses by the evolution of ideas (! ?).
3.
Neschamah is progressive without oblivion and destruction.
4.
The soul has three dwellings.
5.
These dwellings are: the plane of the mortals: the Superior Eden; and the
Inferior Eden.
6.
The image (man) is a sphinx that offers the riddle of birth.
7.
The fatal image (the astral) endows Nephesch with its aptitudes; but Ruach is
able to substitute for this (vitiated) Nephesch the image
[[first
column continued on next page]]
[[second
column continued from previous page]]
thus,
assimilating itself to the Monad, shares its immortality.
2.
Buddhi becomes conscious by the accretions it gets from Manas after every new
incarnation and the death of man.
3.
Atma neither progresses, forgets, nor remembers. It does not belong to this
plane: it is but the ray of light eternal which shines upon and through the
darkness of matter -- when the latter is willing.
4.
The Soul (collectively, as the upper Triad) lives on three planes, besides its
fourth, the terrestrial sphere; and it exists eternally on the highest of the
three.
5.
These dwellings are: Earth for the physical man, or the animal Soul; Kama-loka
(Hades, the Limbo) for the disembodied man, or his Shell; Devachan for the
higher Triad.
6.
Correct.
7.
The astral through Kama (desire) is ever drawing Manas down into the sphere of
material passions and desires. But if the better man
[[second
column continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 245 OCCULTISTS AND KABALISTS DIFFER.
[[first
column continued from previous page]]
conquered
in accordance with the inspirations of Neschamah.
-------
[[second
column continued from previous page]]
or
Manas tries to escape the fatal attraction and turns its aspirations to Atma --
Spirit -- then Buddhi (Ruach) conquers, and carries Manas with it to the realm
of eternal Spirit.
-------
It
is very evident that the French Kabalist either did not know sufficiently the
real tenet, or distorted it to suit himself and his object. Thus he says again,
treating upon the same subject, and we, Occultists, answer the late Kabalist
and his admirers:--
[[first
column]]
1.
The body is the mould of Nephesch; Nephesch the mould of Ruach; Ruach the mould
of the garments of Neschamah.
2.
Light (the Soul) personifies in clothing itself (with a body); and personality
endures only when the garment is perfect.
3.
The angels aspire to become men; a perfect man, a man-god is above all the
angels.
4.
Every 14,000 years the soul rejuvenates and rests in the jubilean sleep of
oblivion.
[[second
column]]
1.
The body follows the whims, good or bad, of Manas; Manas tries to follow the
light of Buddhi, but often fails. Buddhi is the mould of the
"garments" of Atma, because Atma is no body, or shape, or anything,
and because Buddhi is its vehicle only figuratively.
2.
The Monad becomes a personal ego when it incarnates; and something remains of
that personality through Manas, when the latter is perfect enough to assimilate
Buddhi.
3.
Correct.
4.
Within a period, "a great age" or a day of Brahrna, 14 Manus reign;
after which comes Pralaya when all the Souls rest in Nirvana. (Souls = Egos).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 246 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Such
are the distorted copies of the esoteric doctrine in the Kabala. But see also
"The Primeval Manus of Humanity" in Book II.
To
return to Stanza VII.
(b)
The well-known Kabalistic aphorism runs:-- "A stone becomes a plant; a
plant, a beast; the beast, a man; a man a spirit; and the spirit a god."
The "spark" animates all the kingdoms in turn before it enters into
and informs divine man, between whom and his predecessor, animal man, there is
all the difference in the world. Genesis begins its anthropology at the wrong
end (evidently for a blind) and lands nowhere.* Had it begun as it ought, one
would have found in it, first, the celestial Logos, the "Heavenly
Man," which evolves as a Compound Unit of Logoi, out of whom after their
pralayic sleep -- a sleep that gathers the cyphers scattered on the Mayavic
plane into One, as the separate globules of quicksilver on a plate blend into
one mass -- the Logoi appear in their totality as the first "male and
female" or Adam Kadmon, the "Fiat Lux" of the Bible, as we have
already seen. But this transformation did not take place on our Earth, nor on
any material plane, but in the Spacial Depths of the first differentiation of
the eternal Root-matter. On our nascent globe things proceed differently. The
Monad or Jiva, as said in "Isis Unveiled," vol. i., p. 302, is, first
of all, shot down by the law of Evolution into the lowest form of matter -- the
mineral. After a sevenfold gyration encased in the stone (or that which will
become mineral and stone in the Fourth Round), it creeps out of it, say, as a
lichen. Passing thence, through all the forms of vegetable matter, into what is
termed animal matter, it has now reached the point in which it has become the
germ, so to speak, of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The introductory chapters of Genesis were never meant to represent even a
remote allegory of the creation of our Earth. They embrace a metaphysical
conception of some indefinite period in the eternity, when successive attempts
were being made by the law of evolution at the formation of universes. The idea
is plainly stated in the Zohar: "There were old worlds, which perished as
soon as they came into existence, were formless, and were called Sparks. Thus,
the smith, when hammering the iron, lets the sparks fly in all directions. The
sparks are the primordial worlds, which could not continue because the Sacred Aged
(Sephira) had not as yet assumed its form (of androgyne, or opposite sexes) of
King and Queen (Sephira and Kadmon), and the Master was not yet at his
work." See Zohar, "Idra Suta," Book iii., p. 292, b. The Supreme
consulting with the Architect of the world -- his Logos -- about creation.
("Isis Unveiled," vol. ii., p. 421.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 247 SPIRIT ALONE IS HELPLESS ON EARTH.
animal,
that will become the physical man. All this, up to the Third Round, is
formless, as matter, and senseless, as consciousness. For the Monad or Jiva per
se cannot be even called spirit: it is a ray, a breath of the ABSOLUTE, or the
Absoluteness rather, and the Absolute Homogeneity, having no relations with the
conditioned and relative finiteness, is unconscious on our plane. Therefore,
besides the material which will be needed for its future human form, the monad
requires (a) a spiritual model, or prototype, for that material to shape itself
into; and (b) an intelligent consciousness to guide its evolution and progress,
neither of which is possessed by the homogeneous monad, or by senseless though
living matter. The Adam of dust requires the Soul of Life to be breathed into
him: the two middle principles, which are the sentient life of the irrational
animal and the Human Soul, for the former is irrational without the latter. It
is only when, from a potential androgyne, man has become separated into male
and female, that he will be endowed with this conscious, rational, individual
Soul, (Manas) "the principle, or the intelligence, of the Elohim," to
receive which, he has to eat of the fruit of Knowledge from the Tree of Good
and Evil. How is he to obtain all this? The Occult doctrine teaches that while
the monad is cycling on downward into matter, these very Elohim -- or Pitris,
the lower Dhyan-Chohans -- are evolving pari passu with it on a higher and more
spiritual plane, descending also relatively into matter on their own plane of
consciousness, when, after having reached a certain point, they will meet the
incarnating senseless monad, encased in the lowest matter, and blending the two
potencies, Spirit and Matter, the union will produce that terrestrial symbol of
the "Heavenly Man" in space -- PERFECT MAN. In the Sankhya
philosophy, Purusha (spirit) is spoken of as something impotent unless he
mounts on the shoulders of Prakriti (matter), which, left alone, is --
senseless. But in the secret philosophy they are viewed as graduated. Though
one and the same thing in their origin, Spirit and Matter, when once they are
on the plane of differentiation, begin each of them their evolutionary progress
in contrary directions -- Spirit falling gradually into matter, and the latter
ascending to its original condition, that of a pure spiritual substance. Both
are inseparable, yet ever separated. In polarity, on the physical plane, two
like poles will always repel each other, while the negative and the positive
are mutually attracted, so do Spirit and Matter stand to each other -- the two
poles of the same homogeneous substance, the root-principle of the universe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 248 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Therefore,
when the hour strikes for Purusha to mount on Prakriti's shoulders for the
formation of the Perfect Man -- rudimentary man of the first 2 1/2 Races being
only the first, gradually evolving into the most perfect of mammals -- the
Celestial "Ancestors" (Entities from preceding worlds, called in
India the Sishta) step in on this our plane, as the Pitris had stepped in
before them for the formation of the physical or animal-man, and incarnate in
the latter. Thus the two processes -- for the two creations: the animal and the
divine man -- differ greatly. The Pitris shoot out from their ethereal bodies,
still more ethereal and shadowy similitudes of themselves, or what we should
now call "doubles," or "astral forms," in their own
likeness.* This furnishes the Monad with its first dwelling, and blind matter
with a model around and upon which to build henceforth. But Man is still
incomplete. From Swayambhuva Manu (in Manu, Book I.), from whom descended the
seven primitive Manus or Prajapati, each of whom gave birth to a primitive race
of men, down to the Codex Nazareus, in which Karabtanos or Fetahil (blind
concupiscent matter) begets on his Mother, "Spiritus," seven figures,
each of which stands as the progenitor of one of the primaeval seven races --
this doctrine has left its impress on every Archaic Scripture.
"Who
forms Manu (the Man) and who forms his body? The LIFE and the LIVES. Sin** and
the MOON." Here Manu stands for the spiritual, heavenly man, the real and
non-dying EGO in us, which is the direct emanation of the "One Life"
or the Absolute Deity. As to our outward physical bodies, the house of the
tabernacle of the Soul, the Doctrine teaches a strange lesson; so strange that
unless thoroughly explained and as rightly comprehended, it is only the exact
Science of the future that is destined to vindicate the theory fully.
It
has been stated before now that Occultism does not accept anything inorganic in
the Kosmos. The expression employed by Science, "inorganic
substance," means simply that the latent life slumbering in the molecules
of so-called "inert matter" is incognizable. ALL IS LIFE, and every
atom of even mineral dust is a LIFE, though beyond our comprehension and
perception, because it is outside the range of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Read in Isis, vol. ii., pp. 297-303, the doctrine of the Codex Nazaraeus --
every tenet of our teaching is found there under a different form and allegory.
**
The word "Sin" is curious, but has a particular Occult relation to
the Moon, besides being its Chaldean equivalent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 249 MATTER, LIFE AND SUBSTANCE.
laws
known to those who reject Occultism. "The very Atoms," says Tyndall,
"seem instinct with a desire for life." Whence, then, we would ask,
comes the tendency "to run into organic form"? Is it in any way
explicable except according to the teachings of Occult Science?
"The
worlds, to the profane," says a Commentary, "are built up of the
known Elements. To the conception of an Arhat, these Elements are themselves
collectively a divine Life; distributively, on the plane of manifestations, the
numberless and countless crores of lives.* Fire alone is ONE, on the plane of
the One
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Is Pasteur unconsciously taking the first step toward Occult Science in
declaring that, if he dared express his full idea upon this subject, he would
say that the Organic cells are endowed with a vital potency that does not cease
its activity with the cessation of a current of Oxygen towards them, and does
not, on that account, break off its relations with life itself, which is
supported by the influence of that gas? "I would add," goes on
Pasteur, "that the evolution of the germ is accomplished by means of
complicated phenomena, among which we must class processes of
fermentation"; and life, according to Claude Bernard and Pasteur, is
nothing else than a process of fermentation. That there exist in Nature Beings
or Lives that can live and thrive without air, even on our globe, was
demonstrated by the same men of science. Pasteur found that many of the lower
lives, such as Vibriones, and some microbes and bacteria, could exist without
air, which, on the contrary, killed them. They derived the oxygen necessary for
their multiplication from the various substances that surround them. He calls
them AErobes, living on the tissues of our matter when the latter has ceased to
form a part of an integral and living whole (then called very unscientifically
by science "dead matter"), and Anaerobes. The one kind binds oxygen,
and contributes vastly to the destruction of animal life and vegetable tissues,
furnishing to the atmosphere materials which enter later on into the constitution
of other organisms; the other destroys, or rather annihilates finally, the
so-called organic substance; ultimate decay being impossible without their
participation. Certain germ-cells, such as those of yeast, develop and multiply
in air, but when deprived of it, they will adapt themselves to life without air
and become ferments, absorbing oxygen from substances coming in contact with
them, and thereby ruining the latter. The cells in fruit, when lacking free
oxygen, act as ferments and stimulate fermentation. "Therefore the
vegetable cell manifests in this case its life as an anaerobic being. Why,
then, should an organic cell form in this case an exception"? asks
Professor Bogolubof. Pasteur shows that in the substance of our tissues and
organs, the cell, not finding sufficient oxygen for itself, stimulates
fermentation in the same way as the fruit-cell, and Claude Bernard thought that
Pasteur's idea of the formation of ferments found its application and
corroboration in the fact that Urea increases in the blood during
strangulation: LIFE therefore is everywhere in the Universe, and, Occultism
teaches us, it is also in the atom. Also see infra, at the close of this
Section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 250 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Reality:
on that of manifested, hence illusive, being, its particles are fiery lives
which live and have their being at the expense of every other life that they
consume. Therefore they are named the "DEVOURERS." . . . "Every
visible thing in this Universe was built by such LIVES, front conscious and
divine primordial man down to the unconscious agents that construct
matter." . . . "From the ONE LIFE formless and Uncreate, proceeds the
Universe of lives. First was manifested from the Deep (Chaos) cold luminous
fire (gaseous light?) which formed the curds in Space." (Irresolvable
nebulae, perhaps?). . . . . . ." . . . These fought, and a great heat was
developed by the encountering and collision, which produced rotation. Then came
the first manifested MATERIAL, Fire, the hot flames, the wanderers in heaven
(comets); heat generates moist vapour; that forms solid water (?); then dry
mist, then liquid mist, watery, that puts out the luminous brightness of the
pilgrims (comets?) and forms solid watery wheels (MATTER globes). Bhumi (the
Earth) appears with six sisters.* These produce by their continuous motion the
inferior fire, heat, and an aqueous mist, which yields the third World-Element
-- WATER; and from the breath of all (atmospheric) AIR is born. These four are
the four lives of the first four periods (Rounds) of Manvantara. The three last
will follow."
This
means that every new Round develops one of the Compound Elements, as now known
to Science, -- which rejects the primitive nomenclature, preferring to
subdivide them into constituents. If Nature is the "Ever-becoming" on
the manifested plane, then those Elements are to be regarded in the same light:
they have to evolve, progress, and increase to the Manvantaric end. Thus the
First Round, we are taught, developed but one Element, and a nature and
humanity in what may be called one aspect of Nature -- called by some, very
unscientifically, though it may be so de facto, "One-dimensional
Space."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is a Vedic teaching that "there are three Earths corresponding to three
Heavens, and our Earth (the fourth) is called Bhumi." This is the
explanation given by our exoteric Western Orientalists. But the esoteric
meaning and allusion to it in the Vedas is that it refers to our planetary
chain, three "Earths" on the descending arc, and three
"heavens" which are the three Earths or globes also, only far more
ethereal, on the ascending or spiritual arc: by the first three we descend into
matter, by the other three we ascend into Spirit; the lower one, Bhumi, our
Earth, forming the turning point, so to say, and containing potentially as much
of Spirit as it does of Matter. We shall treat of this hereafter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 251 THE FOUR DIMENSIONS OF SPACE.
The
Second Round brought forth and developed two Elements -- Fire and Earth -- and its
humanity, adapted to this condition of Nature, if we can give the name Humanity
to beings living under conditions unknown to men, was -- to use again a
familiar phrase in a strictly figurative sense (the only way in which it can be
used correctly) -- "a two-dimensional species." The processes of
natural development which we are now considering will at once elucidate and
discredit the fashion of speculating on the attributes of the two, three, and
four or more "dimensional Space;" but in passing, it is worth while
to point out the real significance of the sound but incomplete intuition that
has prompted -- among Spiritualists and Theosophists, and several great men of
Science, for the matter of that* -- the use of the modern expression, "the
fourth dimension of Space." To begin with, of course, the superficial
absurdity of assuming that Space itself is measurable in any direction is of
little consequence. The familiar phrase can only be an abbreviation of the
fuller form -- the "Fourth dimension of MATTER in Space."** But it is
an unhappy phrase even thus expanded, because while it is perfectly true that
the progress of evolution may be destined to introduce us to new
characteristics of matter, those with which we are already familiar are really
more numerous than the three dimensions. The faculties, or what is perhaps the
best available term, the characteristics of matter, must clearly bear a direct
relation always to the senses of man. Matter has extension, colour, motion
(molecular motion), taste, and smell, corresponding to the existing senses of
man, and by the time that it fully develops the next characteristic -- let us
call it for the moment PERMEABILITY -- this will correspond to the next sense
of man -- let us call it "NORMAL CLAIRVOYANCE;" thus, when some bold
thinkers have been thirsting for a fourth dimension to explain the passage of
matter through matter, and the production of knots upon an endless cord, what
they were really in want of, was a sixth characteristic of matter. The three
dimensions belong really but to one attribute or characteristic of matter --
extension; and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Professor Zollner's theory has been more than welcomed by several Scientists
--who are Spiritualists -- Professors Butlerof and Wagner, of St. Petersburg,
for instance.
**
"The giving reality to abstractions is the error of Realism. Space and
Time are frequently viewed as separated from all the concrete experiences of
the mind, instead of being generalizations of these in certain aspects."
(Bain, Logic, Part II., p. 389.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 252 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
popular
common sense justly rebels against the idea that under any condition of things
there can be more than three of such dimensions as length, breadth, and
thickness. These terms, and the term "dimension" itself, all belong
to one plane of thought, to one stage of evolution, to one characteristic of
matter. So long as there are foot-rules within the resources of Kosmos, to
apply to matter, so long will they be able to measure it three ways and no
more; and from the time the idea of measurement first occupied a place in the
human understanding, it has been possible to apply measurement in three
directions and no more. But these considerations do not militate in any way
against the certainty that in the progress of time -- as the faculties of
humanity are multiplied -- so will the characteristics of matter be multiplied
also. Meanwhile, the expression is far more incorrect than even the familiar
one of the "Sun rising or setting."
We
now return to the consideration of material evolution through the Rounds.
Matter in the second Round, it has been stated, may be figuratively referred to
as two-dimensional. But here another caveat must be entered. That loose and
figurative expression may be regarded -- in one plane of thought, as we have
just seen -- as equivalent to the second characteristic of matter corresponding
to the second perceptive faculty or sense of man. But these two linked scales
of evolution are concerned with the processes going on within the limits of a
single Round. The succession of primary aspects of Nature with which the
succession of Rounds is concerned, has to do, as already indicated, with the
development of the "Elements" (in the Occult sense) -- Fire, Air,
Water,* Earth. We are only in the fourth Round, and our catalogue so far stops
short. The centres of consciousness (destined to develop into humanity as we
know it) of the third Round arrived at a perception of the third Element
Water.** Those of the fourth Round have added
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The order in which these Elements are placed above is the correct one for
esoteric purposes and in the Secret Teachings. Milton was right when he spoke
of the "Powers of Fire, Air, Water, Earth"; the Earth, such as we
know it now, had no existence before the 4th Round, hundreds of million years
ago, the commencement of our geological Earth. The globe was "fiery, cool
and radiant as its ethereal men and animals during the first Round," says
the Commentary, uttering a contradiction or paradox in the opinion of our
present Science; "luminous and more dense and heavy during the second
Round; watery during the Third!" Thus are the elements reversed.
**
If we had to frame our conclusions according to the data furnished to us by the
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 253 THE GREAT ARCHAEUS.
earth
as a state of matter to their stock as well as the three other elements in
their present transformation. In short, none of the so-called elements were, in
the three preceding Rounds, as they are now. For all we know, FIRE may have
been pure AKASA, the first Matter of the Magnum Opus of the Creators and
"Builders," that Astral Light which the paradoxical Eliphas Levi
calls in one breath "the body of the Holy Ghost," and in the next
"Baphomet," the "Androgyne Goat of Mendes"*; AIR, simply
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] geologists, then we would say that there was no real
water -- even during the Carboniferous period. We are told that gigantic masses
of carbon, which existed formerly spread in the atmosphere as Carbonic Acid,
were absorbed by plants, while a large proportion of that gas was mixed in the
water. Now, if this be so, and we have to believe that all the Carbonic Acid
which went to compose those plants that formed bituminous coal, lignite, etc.,
and went towards the formation of limestone, and so on, that all this was at
that period in the atmosphere in gaseous form, then, there must have been seas
and oceans of liquid carbonic acid? But how then could the carboniferous period
be preceded by the Devonian and Silurian ages -- those of Fishes and Molluscs
-- on that assumption? Barometric pressure, moreover, must have exceeded
several hundred times the pressure of our present atmosphere. How could
organisms, even so simple as those of certain fishes and molluscs, stand that?
There is a curious work by Blanchard, on the Origin of Life, wherein he shows
some strange contradictions and confusions in the theories of his colleagues,
and which we recommend to the reader's attention.
*
Eliphas Levi shows it very truly "a force in Nature," by means of
which "a single man who can master it . . . might throw the world into
confusion and transform its face"; for it is the "great Arcanum of
transcendent Magic." Quoting the words of the great Western Kabalist in
their translated form (see The Mysteries of Magic, by A. E. Waite), we may
explain them perhaps the better by the occasional addition of a word or two to
show the difference between Western and Eastern explanations of the same
subject. The Author says of the great Magic Agent -- "This ambient and
all-penetrating fluid, this ray detached from the (Central or 'Spiritual')
Sun's splendour . . . fixed by the weight of the atmosphere (?!) and the power
of central attraction . . . the Astral Light, this electromagnetic ether, this
vital and luminous caloric, is represented on ancient monuments by the girdle
of Isis which twines round two poles and in ancient theogonies by the serpent
devouring its own tail, emblem of prudence and of Saturn" -- emblem of
infinity, immortality, and Kronos -- "Time" -- not the god Saturn or
the planet. "It is the winged dragon of Medea, the double serpent of the
caduceus, and the tempter of Genesis; but it is also the brazen snake of Moses
encircling the Tau lastly, it is the devil of exoteric dogmatism, and is really
the blind force (it is not blind, and Levi knew it), which souls must conquer in
order to detach themselves from the chains of Earth; 'for if they should not,'
they will be absorbed by the same power which first produced them and will
return to the central and eternal fire." This great archaeus is now
discovered by, and only for one man -- Mr. J. W. Keeley, of [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 254 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Nitrogen,
"the breath of the Supporters of the Heavenly Dome," as the Mohammedan
mystics call it; WATER, that primordial fluid which was required, according to
Moses, to make a living soul with. And this may account for the flagrant
discrepancies and unscientific statements found in Genesis. Separate the first
from the second chapter; read the former as a scripture of the Elohists, and
the latter as that of the far younger Jehovists; still one finds, if one reads
between the lines, the same order in which things created appear -- namely,
Fire (light), Air, Water, and MAN (or the Earth). For the sentence: "In
the beginning God created Heaven and Earth" is a mistranslation; it is not
"Heaven and Earth," but the duplex or dual Heaven, the upper and the
lower Heavens, or the separation of primordial substance that was light in its
upper and dark in its lower portions -- or the manifested Universe -- in its
duality of the invisible (to the senses) and the visible to our perceptions.
God divided the light from the Darkness (v. 4); and then made the firmament,
air (5), "a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the
waters from the waters," (6), i.e., "the waters which were under the
firmament (our manifested visible Universe) from the waters above the
firmament," or the (to us) invisible planes of being. In the second
chapter (the Jehovistic), plants and herbs are created before water, just as in
the first, light is produced before the Sun. "God made the Earth and the
Heavens and every plant of the field before it was in the Earth and every herb
of the field before it grew; for the Elohim ('gods') had not caused it to rain
upon the earth, etc." (v. 5) -- an absurdity unless the esoteric
explanation is accepted. The plants were created before they were in the earth
-- for there was no earth then such as it is now; and the herb of the field was
in existence before it grew as it does now in the fourth Round.
Discussing
and explaining the nature of the invisible Elements and the "primordial
fire" mentioned above, Eliphas Levi calls it invariably the "Astral
Light." It is the "grand Agent Magique" with him; undeniably it
is so, but -- only so far as Black Magic is concerned, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Philadelphia. For others, however, it is discovered,
yet must remain almost useless. "So far shalt thou go. . . ."
All
the above is as practical as it is correct, save one error, which we will
explain in the text further on. Eliphas Levi commits a great blunder in always
identifying the Astral Light with what we call Akasa. What it really is will be
given in Part II. of Vol. II.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 255 BUT WHY SLANDER THE INDIAN HIEROPHANTS?
on
the lowest planes of what we call Ether, the noumenon of which is Akasa; and
even this would be held incorrect by orthodox Occultists. The "Astral
Light" is simply the older "sidereal Light" of Paracelsus; and
to say that "everything which exists has been evolved from it, and it
preserves and reproduces all forms," as he writes, is to enunciate truth
only in the second proposition. The first is erroneous; for if all that exists
was evolved through (or via) it, it is not the astral light. The latter is not
the container of all things but only the reflector, at best, of this all.
Eliphas Levi writes:--
"The
great Magic agent is the fourth emanation of the life principle (we say -- it
is the first in the inner, and the second in the outer (our) Universe), of
which the Sun is the third form . . . for the day-star (the sun) is only the
reflection and material shadow of the Central Sun of truth, which illuminates
the intellectual (invisible) world of Spirit and which itself is but a gleam
borrowed from the ABSOLUTE."
So
far he is right enough. But when the great authority of the Western Kabalists
adds that nevertheless, "it is not the immortal Spirit as the Indian
Hierophants have imagined" -- we answer that he slanders the said
Hierophants, as they have said nothing of the kind; while even the Puranic
exoteric writings flatly contradict the assertion. No Hindu has ever mistaken
Prakriti -- the Astral Light being only above the lowest plane of Prakriti, the
material Kosmos -- for the "immortal Spirit." Prakriti is ever called
Maya, illusion, and is doomed to disappear with the rest, the gods included, at
the hour of the Pralaya; for it is shown that Akasa is not even the Ether,
least of all then, we imagine, can it be the Astral Light. Those unable to
penetrate beyond the dead letter of the Puranas, have occasionally confused
Akasa with Prakriti, with Ether, and even with the visible Sky! It is true also
that those who have invariably translated the term Akasa by "Ether"
(Wilson, for instance), finding it called "the material cause of sound"
possessing, moreover, this one single property (Vishnu Purana), have ignorantly
imagined it to be "material," in the physical sense. True, again,
that if the characteristics are accepted literally, then, since nothing
material or physical, and therefore conditioned and temporary can be immortal
-- according to metaphysics and philosophy -- it would follow that Akasa is
neither infinite nor immortal. But all this is erroneous, since both the words
Pradhana
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[[Vol.
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(primeval
matter) and sound, as a property, have been misunderstood; the former term
(Pradhana) being certainly synonymous with Mulaprakriti and Akasa, and the latter
(sound) with the Verbum, the Word or the Logos. This is easy to demonstrate;
for it is shown in the following sentences in Vishnu Purana: "In the
beginning there was neither day nor night, nor sky, nor earth, nor darkness,
nor light. . . . . Save only ONE, unapprehensible by intellect, or that which
is Brahma and Pums (Spirit) and Pradhana (primordial matter)." . . . .
(Book I., ch. ii.).
Now,
what is Pradhana, if it is not Mulaprakriti, the root of all, in another
aspect? For Pradhana, though said further on to merge into the Deity as
everything else does, in order to leave the ONE absolute during the Pralaya,
yet is held as infinite and immortal. The Commentator describes the Deity as:
"One Pradhanika Brahma Spirit: THAT, was," and interprets the compound
term as a substantive, not as a derivative word used attributively, i.e., like
something conjoined with Pradhana.* Hence Pradhana even in the Puranas is an
aspect of Parabrahmam, not an evolution, and must be the same as the Vedantic
Mulaprakriti. "Prakriti in its primary state is Akasa," says a
Vedantin scholar (see "Five Years of Theosophy," p. 169). It is
almost abstract Nature.
Akasa,
then, is Pradhana in another form, and as such cannot be Ether, the
ever-invisible agent, courted even by physical Science. Nor is it Astral Light.
It is, as said, the noumenon of the seven-fold differentiated Prakriti** -- the
ever immaculate "Mother" of the fatherless Son, who becomes
"Father" on the lower manifested plane. For MAHAT is the first
product of Pradhana, or Akasa, and Mahat -- Universal intelligence "whose
characteristic property is Buddhi" -- is no other than the Logos, for he
is called "Eswara" Brahma, Bhava, etc. (See Linga Purana, sec. lxx.
12 et seq.; and Vayu Purana, but especially the former Purana -- prior, section
viii., 67-74). He is, in short, the "Creator" or the divine mind in
creative operation, "the cause of all things." He is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The student has to note, moreover, that the Purana is a dualistic system, not
evolutionary, and that, in this respect, far more will be found, from an
esoteric standpoint, in Sankhya, and even in the Manava-dharma-Sastra, however
much the latter differs from the former.
**
In the Sankhya philosophy, the seven Prakritis or "productive
productions" are Mahat, Ahamkara, and the five tanmatras. See
"Sankhya-karika," III., and the Commentary thereon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 257 AKASA IS NOT ETHER.
the
"first-born" of whom the Puranas tell us that "Mahat and matter
are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe," or, in our language,
the negative and the positive poles of dual nature (abstract and concrete), for
the Purana adds: "In this manner -- as were the seven forms (principles)
of Prakriti reckoned from Mahat to Earth -- so at the time of pralaya
(pratyahara) these seven successively re-enter into each other. The egg of
Brahma (Sarva-mandala) is dissolved with its seven zones (dwipa), seven oceans,
seven regions, etc." (Vishnu Purana, Book vi., ch. iv.)*
These
are the reasons why the Occultists refuse to give the name of Astral Light to
Akasa, or to call it Ether. "In my Father's house are many mansions,"
may be contrasted with the occult saying, "In our Mother's house there are
seven mansions," or planes, the lowest of which is above and around us --
the Astral Light.
The
elements, whether simple or compound, could not have remained the same since
the commencement of the evolution of our chain. Everything in the Universe
progresses steadily in the Great Cycle, while incessantly going up and down in
the smaller cycles. Nature is never stationary during manvantara, as it is ever
becoming,** not simply being; and mineral, vegetable, and human life are always
adapting their organisms to the then reigning Elements, and therefore those
Elements were then fitted for them, as they are now for the life of present
humanity. It will only be in the next, or fifth, Round that the fifth Element,
Ether -- the gross body of Akasa, if it can be called even that --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
No use to say so to the Hindus, who know their Puranas by heart, but very
useful to remind our Orientalists and those Westerns who regard Wilson's
translations as authoritative, that in his English translation of the Vishnu
Purana he is guilty of the most ludicrous contradictions and errors. So on this
identical subject of the seven Prakritis or the seven zones of Brahma's egg,
the two accounts differ totally. In Vol. 1, page 40, the egg is said to be
externally invested by seven envelopes -- Wilson comments: "by Water, Air,
Fire, Ether, and Ahamkara" (which last word does not exist in the Sanskrit
texts); and in vol. v., p. 198, of the same Vishnu Purana it is written,
"in this manner were the seven forms of nature (Prakriti) reckoned from
Mahat to Earth" (?). Between Mahat or Maha-Buddhi and "Water,
etc.," the difference is very considerable.
**
According to the great metaphysician Hegel also. For him Nature was a perpetual
becoming. A purely esoteric conception. Creation or Origin, in the Christian
sense of the term, is absolutely unthinkable. As the above-quoted thinker said:
"God (the Universal Spirit) objectivises himself as Nature, and again
rises out of it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 258 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
will,
by becoming a familiar fact of Nature to all men, as air is familiar to us now,
cease to be as at present hypothetical, and also an "agent" for so
many things. And only during that Round will those higher senses, the growth
and development of which Akasa subserves, be susceptible of a complete
expansion. As already indicated, a partial familiarity with the characteristic
of matter -- permeability -- which should be developed concurrently with the
sixth sense, may be expected to develop at the proper period in this Round. But
with the next element added to our resources in the next Round, permeability
will become so manifest a characteristic of matter, that the densest forms of
this will seem to man's perceptions as obstructive to him as a thick fog, and
no more.
Let
us return to the life-cycle now. Without entering at length upon the description
given of the higher LIVES, we must direct our attention at present simply to
the earthly beings and the earth itself. The latter, we are told, is built up
for the first Round by the "Devourers" which disintegrate and
differentiate the germs of other lives in the Elements; pretty much, it must be
supposed, as in the present stage of the world, the aerobes do, when,
undermining and loosening the chemical structure in an organism, they transform
animal matter and generate substances that vary in their constitutions. Thus
Occultism disposes of the so-called Azoic age of Science, for it shows that
there never was a time when the Earth was without life upon it. Wherever there
is an atom of matter, a particle or a molecule, even in its most gaseous condition,
there is life in it, however latent and unconscious. "Whatsoever quits the
Laya State, becomes active life; it is drawn into the vortex of MOTION (the
alchemical solvent of Life); Spirit and Matter are the two States of the ONE,
which is neither Spirit nor Matter, both being the absolute life, latent."
(Book of Dzyan, Comm. III., par. 18). . . . "Spirit is the first
differentiation of (and in) SPACE; and Matter the first differentiation of
Spirit. That, which is neither Spirit nor matter -- that is IT -- the Causeless
CAUSE of Spirit and Matter, which are the Cause of Kosmos. And THAT we call the
ONE LIFE or the Intra-Cosmic Breath."
Once
more we will say -- like must produce like. Absolute Life cannot produce an
inorganic atom whether single or complex, and there is life
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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even
in laya just as a man in a profound cataleptic state -- to all appearance a
corpse -- is still a living being.
When
the "Devourers" (in whom the men of science are invited to see, with
some show of reason, atoms of the Fire-Mist, if they will, as the Occultist
will offer no objection to this); when the "Devourers," we say, have
differentiated "the fire-atoms" by a peculiar process of
segmentation, the latter become life-germs, which aggregate according to the
laws of cohesion and affinity. Then the life-germs produce lives of another
kind, which work on the structure of our globes. * * * *
Thus,
in the first Round, the globe, having been built by the primitive fire-lives,
i.e., formed into a sphere -- had no solidity, nor qualifications, save a cold
brightness, nor form nor colour; it is only towards the end of the First Round
that it developed one Element which from its inorganic, so to say, or simple
Essence became now in our Round the fire we know throughout the system. The
Earth was in her first rupa, the essence of which is the Akasic principle named
*** "that which is now known as, and very erroneously termed, Astral
Light, which Eliphas Levi calls "the imagination of Nature,"**
probably to avoid giving it its correct name, as others do.
"It
is through and from the radiations of the seven bodies of the seven orders of
Dhyanis, that the seven discrete quantities (Elements), whose motion and
harmonious Union produce the manifested Universe of Matter, are born."
(Commentary.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
**
Speaking of it in his Preface to the "History of Magic" Eliphas Levi
says: "It is through this Force that all the nervous centres secretly
communicate with each other; from it -- that sympathy and antipathy are born;
from it -- that we have our dreams; and that the phenomena of second sight and
extra-natural visions take place. . . . . Astral Light, acting under the
impulsion of powerful wills, destroys, coagulates, separates, breaks, gathers
in all things. . . . God created it on that day when he said: Fiat Lux, and it
is directed by the Egregores, i.e., the chiefs of the souls who are the spirits
of energy and action." Eliphas Levi ought to have added that the astral
light, or primordial substance, if matter at all, is that which, called Light,
LUX, esoterically explained, is the body of those Spirits themselves, and their
very essence. Our physical light is the manifestation on our plane and the
reflected radiance of the Divine Light emanating from the collective body of
those who are called the "LIGHTS" and the "FLAMES." But no
other Kabalist has ever had the talent of heaping up one contradiction on the
other, of making one paradox chase another in the same sentence and in such
flowing language, as Eliphas Levi. He leads his reader through the most lovely,
gorgeously blooming valleys, to strand him after all on a desert and barren
rocky island.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
Second Round brings into manifestation the second element AIR, that element,
the purity of which would ensure continuous life to him who would use it. There
have been two occultists only in Europe who have discovered and even partially
applied it in practice, though its composition has always been known among the
highest Eastern Initiates. The ozone of the modern chemists is poison compared
with the real universal solvent which could never be thought of unless it
existed in nature. "From the second Round, Earth -- hitherto a foetus in
the matrix of Space -- began its real existence: it had developed individual sentient
life, its second principle. The second corresponds to the sixth (principle);
the second is life continuous, the other, temporary."
The
Third Round developed the third Principle -- WATER; while the Fourth
transformed the gaseous fluids and plastic form of our globe into the hard,
crusted, grossly material sphere we are living on. "Bhumi" has
reached her fourth principle. To this it may be objected that the law of
analogy, so much insisted upon, is broken. Not at all. Earth will reach her
true ultimate form -- (inversely in this to man) -- her body shell -- only
toward the end of the manvantara after the Seventh Round. Eugenius Philalethes
was right when he assured his readers on his word of honour that no one had yet
seen the Earth (i.e., MATTER in its essential form). Our globe is, so far, in
its Kamarupic state -- the astral body of desires of Ahamkara, dark Egotism,
the progeny of Mahat, on the lower plane. . . .
It
is not molecularly constituted matter -- least of all the human body (sthulasarira)
-- that is the grossest of all our "principles," but verily the
middle principle, the real animal centre; whereas our body is but its shell,
the irresponsible factor and medium through which the beast in us acts all its
life. Every intellectual theosophist will understand my real meaning. Thus the
idea that the human tabernacle is built by countless lives, just in the same
way as the rocky crust of our Earth was, has nothing repulsive in it for the
true mystic. Nor can Science oppose the occult teaching, for it is not because
the microscope will ever fail to detect the ultimate living atom or life, that
it can reject the doctrine.
(c)
Science teaches us that the living as well as the dead organism of both man and
animal are swarming with bacteria of a hundred various
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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kinds;
that from without we are threatened with the invasion of microbes with every
breath we draw, and from within by leucomaines, aerobes, anaerobes, and what
not. But Science never yet went so far as to assert with the occult doctrine
that our bodies, as well as those of animals, plants, and stones, are
themselves altogether built up of such beings; which, except larger species, no
microscope can detect. So far, as regards the purely animal and material
portion of man, Science is on its way to discoveries that will go far towards
corroborating this theory. Chemistry and physiology are the two great magicians
of the future, who are destined to open the eyes of mankind to the great
physical truths. With every day, the identity between the animal and physical
man, between the plant and man, and even between the reptile and its nest, the
rock, and man -- is more and more clearly shown. The physical and chemical
constituents of all being found to be identical, chemical science may well say
that there is no difference between the matter which composes the ox and that
which forms man. But the Occult doctrine is far more explicit. It says:--- Not
only the chemical compounds are the same, but the same infinitesimal invisible
lives compose the atoms of the bodies of the mountain and the daisy, of man and
the ant, of the elephant, and of the tree which shelters him from the sun. Each
particle -- whether you call it organic or inorganic -- is a life. Every atom
and molecule in the Universe is both life-giving and death-giving to that form,
inasmuch as it builds by aggregation universes and the ephemeral vehicles ready
to receive the transmigrating soul, and as eternally destroys and changes the
forms and expels those souls from their temporary abodes. It creates and kills;
it is self-generating and self-destroying; it brings into being, and
annihilates, that mystery of mysteries -- the living body of man, animal, or
plant, every second in time and space; and it generates equally life and death,
beauty and ugliness, good and bad, and even the agreeable and disagreeable, the
beneficent and maleficent sensations. It is that mysterious LIFE, represented
collectively by countless myriads of lives, that follows in its own sporadic
way, the hitherto incomprehensible law of Atavism; that copies family
resemblances as well as those it finds impressed in the aura of the generators
of every future human being, a mystery, in short, that will receive fuller
attention elsewhere. For the present, one instance may be cited in
illustration. Modern science begins to find out that ptomaine (the alkaloid
poison generated by decaying matter and corpses -- a life also) extracted
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[[Vol.
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with
the help of volatile ether, yields a smell as strong and equal to that of the
freshest orange-blossoms; but that free from oxygen, these alkaloids yield
either a most sickening, disgusting smell, or the most agreeable aroma which
recalls that of the most delicately scented flowers. And it is suspected that
such blossoms owe their agreeable smell to the poisonous ptomaine; the venomous
essence of certain mushrooms (fungi) being nearly identical with the venom of
the cobra of India, the most deadly of serpents.* Thus, having discovered the
effects, Science has to find their PRIMARY CAUSES; and this it can never do without
the help of the old sciences, of alchemy, occult botany and physics. We are
taught that every physiological change, in addition to pathological phenomena;
diseases -- nay, life itself -- or rather the objective phenomena of life,
produced by certain conditions and changes in the tissues of the body which
allow and force life to act in that body; that all this is due to those unseen
CREATORS and DESTROYERS that are called in such a loose and general way,
microbes.** Such
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The French savants Arnaud, Gautier, and Villiers, have found in the saliva of
living men the same venomous alkaloid as in that of the toad, the salamander,
the cobra, and the trigonocephalus of Portugal. It is proven that venom of the
deadliest kind, whether called ptomaine, or leucomaine, or alkaloid, is
generated by living men, animals, and plants. The same savant, Gautier,
discovered an alkaloid in the fresh meat of an ox and in its brains, and a
venom which he calls Xanthocreatinine similar to the substance extracted from
the poisonous saliva of reptiles. It is the muscular tissues, as being the most
active organ in the animal economy, that are suspected of being the generators
or factors of venoms, having the same importance as carbonic acid and urea in
the functions of life, which venoms are the ultimate products of inner
combustion. And though it is not yet fully determined whether poisons can be
generated by the animal system of living beings without the participation and
interference of microbes, it is ascertained that the animal does produce
venomous substances in its physiological or living state.
**
It might be supposed that these "fiery lives" and the microbes of
science are identical. This is not true. The "fiery lives" are the
seventh and highest subdivision of the plane of matter, and correspond in the
individual with the One Life of the Universe, though only on that plane. The
microbes of science are the first and lowest sub-division on the second plane --
that of material prana (or life). The physical body of man undergoes a complete
change of structure every seven years, and its destruction and preservation are
due to the alternate function of the fiery lives as "destroyers" and
"builders." They are "builders" by sacrificing themselves
in the form of vitality to restrain the destructive influence of the microbes,
and, by supplying the microbes with what is necessary, they compel them under
that restraint to build up the material body and its cells. They are
"destroyers" also when that restraint is [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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experimenters
as Pasteur are the best friends and helpers of the Destroyers and the worst
enemies of the Creators -- if the latter were not at the same time destroyers
too. However it may be, one thing is sure in this: The knowledge of these
primary causes and of the ultimate essence of every element, of its lives,
their functions, properties, and conditions of change -- constitutes the basis
of MAGIC. Paracelsus was, perhaps, the only Occultist in Europe, during the
last centuries since the Christian era, who was versed in this mystery. Had not
a criminal hand put an end to his life, years before the time allotted him by
Nature, physiological Magic would have fewer secrets for the civilized world
than it now has.
(d)
But what has the Moon to do in all this? we may be asked. What have "Fish,
Sin and Moon" in the apocalyptic saying of the Stanza to do in company
with the "Life-microbes"? With the latter nothing, except availing
themselves of the tabernacle of clay prepared by them; with divine perfect man
everything, since "Fish, Sin and Moon" make conjointly the three
symbols of the immortal Being.
This
is all that can be given. Nor does the writer pretend to know more of this
strange symbol than may be inferred about it from exoteric religions; from the
mystery perhaps, which underlies the Matsya (fish)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] removed and the microbes, unsupplied with vital
constructive energy, are left to run riot as destructive agents. Thus, during
the first half of a man's life (the first five periods of seven years each) the
"fiery lives" are indirectly engaged in the process of building up
man's material body; life is on the ascending scale, and the force is used in
construction and increase. After this period is passed the age of retrogression
commences, and, the work of the "fiery lives" exhausting their
strength, the work of destruction and decrease also commences.
An
analogy between cosmic events in the descent of spirit into matter for the
first half of a manvantara (planetary as human) and its ascent at the expense
of matter in the second half, may here be traced. These considerations have to
do solely with the plane of matter, but the restraining influence of the
"fiery lives" on the lowest sub-division of the second plane -- the
microbes -- is confirmed by the fact mentioned in the foot-note on Pasteur
(vide supra) that the cells of the organs, when they do not find sufficient
oxygen for themselves, adapt themselves to that condition and form ferments,
which, by absorbing oxygen from substances coming in contact with them, ruin
the latter. Thus the process is commenced by one cell robbing its neighbour of
the source of its vitality when the supply is insufficient; and the ruin so
commenced steadily progresses.
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[[Vol.
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Avatar
of Vishnu, the Chaldean Oannes -- the Man-Fish, recorded in the imperishable
sign of the Zodiac, Pisces, and running throughout the two Testaments in the
personages of Joshua "Son of the Fish (Nun)" and Jesus; the
allegorical "Sin" or Fall of Spirit into matter, and the Moon -- in
so far as it relates to the "Lunar" ancestors, the Pitris.
For
the present it may be as well to remind the reader that while the
Moon-goddesses were connected in every mythology, especially the Grecian, with
child-birth, because of the lunar influence on women and conception, the occult
and actual connection of our satellite with fecundation is to this day unknown
to physiology, which regards every popular practice in this reference as gross
superstition. As it is useless to discuss them in detail, we may only stop at
present to discuss the lunar symbology casually, to show that the said
superstition belongs to the most ancient beliefs, and even to Judaism -- the
basis of Christianity. With the Israelites, the chief function of Jehovah was
child-giving, and the esotericism of the Bible, interpreted Kabalistically,
shows undeniably the Holy of Holies in the temple to be only the symbol of the
womb. This is now proven beyond doubt and cavil, by the numerical reading of
the Bible in general, and of Genesis especially. This idea must certainly have
been borrowed by the Jews from the Egyptians and Indians, whose Holy of Holies
was, and with the latter is to this day, symbolised by the King's chamber in
the Great Pyramid (see "Source of Measures") and the Yoni symbols of
exoteric Hinduism. To make the whole clearer and to show at the same time the
enormous difference in the spirit of interpretation and the original meaning of
the same symbols between the ancient Eastern Occultists and the Jewish
Kabalists we refer the reader to Book II., "The Holy of Holies."*
-------
STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
6.
FROM THE FIRST-BORN (primitive, or the first man) THE THREAD BETWEEN THE SILENT
WATCHER AND HIS SHADOW BECOMES MORE
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Phallic worship has developed only with the loss of the keys to the true
meaning of the symbols. It was the last and most fatal turning point from the
highway of truth and divine knowledge into the side path of fiction, raised
into dogma through human falsification and hierarchic ambition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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STRONG
AND RADIANT WITH EVERY CHANGE (re-incarnation) (a). THE MORNING SUN-LIGHT HAS
CHANGED INTO NOON-DAY GLORY . . . .
(a)
This sentence: "The thread between the silent watcher and his shadow (man)
becomes stronger" -- with every re-incarnation -- is another psychological
mystery, that will find its explanation in Book II. For the present it will
suffice to say that the "Watcher" and his "Shadows" -- the
latter numbering as many as there are re-incarnations for the monad -- are one.
The Watcher, or the divine prototype, is at the upper rung of the ladder of
being; the shadow, at the lower. Withal, the Monad of every living being,
unless his moral turpitude breaks the connection and runs loose and
"astray into the lunar path" -- to use the Occult expression -- is an
individual Dhyan Chohan, distinct from others, a kind of spiritual
individuality of its own, during one special Manvantara. Its Primary, the
Spirit (Atman) is one, of course, with Paramatma (the one Universal Spirit),
but the vehicle (Vahan) it is enshrined in, the Buddhi, is part and parcel of
that Dhyan-Chohanic Essence; and it is in this that lies the mystery of that
ubiquity, which was discussed a few pages back. "My Father, that is in
Heaven, and I -- are one," -- says the Christian Scripture; in this, at
any rate, it is the faithful echo of the esoteric tenet.
-------
STANZA
VII. -- Continued.
7.
THIS IS THY PRESENT WHEEL -- SAID THE FLAME TO THE SPARK. THOU ART MYSELF, MY
IMAGE AND MY SHADOW. I HAVE CLOTHED MYSELF IN THEE, AND THOU ART MY VAHAN
(vehicle) TO THE DAY, "BE WITH US," WHEN THOU SHALT RE-BECOME MYSELF
AND OTHERS, THYSELF AND ME (a), THEN THE BUILDERS, HAVING DONNED THEIR FIRST
CLOTHING, DESCEND ON RADIANT EARTH, AND REIGN OVER MEN -- WHO ARE THEMSELVES
(b).
(a)
The day when "the spark will re-become the Flame (man will merge into his
Dhyan Chohan) myself and others, thyself and me," as the Stanza has it --
means this: In Paranirvana -- when Pralaya will have reduced not only material
and psychical bodies, but even the spiritual Ego(s) to their original principle
-- the Past, Present, and even Future
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Humanities,
like all things, will be one and the same. Everything will have re-entered the
Great Breath. In other words, everything will be "merged in Brahma"
or the divine unity.
Is
this annihilation, as some think? Or Atheism, as other critics -- the
worshippers of a personal deity and believers in an unphilosophical paradise --
are inclined to suppose? Neither. It is worse than useless to return to the
question of implied atheism in that which is spirituality of a most refined
character. To see in Nirvana annihilation amounts to saying of a man plunged in
a sound dreamless sleep -- one that leaves no impression on the physical memory
and brain, because the sleeper's Higher Self is in its original state of absolute
consciousness during those hours -- that he, too, is annihilated. The latter
simile answers only to one side of the question -- the most material; since
re-absorption is by no means such a "dreamless sleep," but, on the
contrary, absolute existence, an unconditioned unity, or a state, to describe
which human language is absolutely and hopelessly inadequate. The only approach
to anything like a comprehensive conception of it can be attempted solely in
the panoramic visions of the soul, through spiritual ideations of the divine
monad. Nor is the individuality -- nor even the essence of the personality, if
any be left behind -- lost, because re-absorbed. For, however limitless -- from
a human standpoint -- the paranirvanic state, it has yet a limit in Eternity.
Once reached, the same monad will re-emerge therefrom, as a still higher being,
on a far higher plane, to recommence its cycle of perfected activity. The human
mind cannot in its present stage of development transcend, scarcely reach this
plane of thought. It totters here, on the brink of incomprehensible
Absoluteness and Eternity.
(b)
The "Watchers" reign over man during the whole period of Satya Yuga
and the smaller subsequent yugas, down to the beginning of the Third Root Race;
after which it is the Patriarchs, Heroes, and the Manes (see Egyptian Dynasties
enumerated by the priests to Solon), the incarnated Dhyanis of a lower order,
up to King Menes and the human kings of other nations; all were recorded
carefully. In the views of symbologists this Mythopoeic Age is of course only
regarded as a fairy tale. But since traditions and even Chronicles of such
dynasties of divine Kings -- of gods reigning over men followed by dynasties of
Heroes or Giants -- exist in the annals of every nation, it is difficult to
understand how all the peoples under the sun, some of whom are separated by
vast
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[[Vol.
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oceans
and belong to different hemispheres, such as the ancient Peruvians and
Mexicans, as well as the Chaldeans, could have worked out the same "fairy
tales" in the same order of events.* However, as the Secret Doctrine
teaches history -- which, for being esoteric and traditional, is none the less
more reliable than profane history -- we are as entitled to our beliefs as
anyone else, whether religionist or sceptic. And that Doctrine says that the
Dhyani-Buddhas of the two higher groups, namely, the "Watchers" or
the "Architects," furnished the many and various races with divine
kings and leaders. It is the latter who taught humanity their arts and
sciences, and the former who revealed to the incarnated Monads that had just
shaken off their vehicles of the lower Kingdoms -- and who had, therefore, lost
every recollection of their divine origin -- the great spiritual truths of the
transcendental worlds. (See Book II., "Divine Dynasties.")
Thus,
as expressed in the Stanza, the Watchers descended on Earth and reigned over
men -- "who are themselves." The reigning kings had finished their
cycle on Earth and other worlds, in the preceding Rounds. In the future
manvantaras they will have risen to higher systems than our planetary world;
and it is the Elect of our Humanity, the Pioneers on the hard and difficult
path of Progress, who will take the places of their predecessors. The next
great Manvantara will witness the men of our own life-cycle becoming the
instructors and guides of a mankind whose Monads may now yet be imprisoned --
semi-conscious -- in the most intellectual of the animal kingdom, while their
lower principles will be animating, perhaps, the highest specimens of the
Vegetable world.
Thus
proceed the cycles of the septenary evolution, in Septennial nature; the
Spiritual or divine; the psychic or semi-divine; the intellectual, the
passional, the instinctual, or cognitional; the semi-corporeal and the purely
material or physical natures. All these evolve and progress cyclically, passing
from one into another, in a double, centrifugal and centripetal way, one in
their ultimate essence, seven in their aspects. The lowest, of course, is the
one depending upon and subservient to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the "Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and the Quiches, 11,500 years
ago," by Auguste le Plongeon, who shows the identity between the Egyptian
rites and beliefs and those of the people he describes. The ancient hieratic
alphabets of the Maya and the Egyptians are almost identical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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our
five physical senses.* Thus far, for individual, human, sentient, animal and
vegetable life, each the microcosm of its higher macrocosm. The same for the
Universe, which manifests periodically, for purposes of the collective progress
of the countless lives, the outbreathings of the One Life; in order that
through the Ever-Becoming, every cosmic atom in this infinite Universe, passing
from the formless and the intangible, through the mixed natures of the
semi-terrestrial, down to matter in full generation, and then back again,
reascending at each new period higher and nearer the final goal; that each
atom, we say, may reach through individual merits and efforts that plane where
it re-becomes the one unconditioned ALL. But between the Alpha and the Omega
there is the weary "Road" hedged in by thorns, that "goes down
first, then --
Winds
up hill all the way
Yes,
to the very end . . . . ."
Starting
upon the long journey immaculate; descending more and more into sinful matter,
and having connected himself with every atom in manifested Space -- the
Pilgrim, having struggled through and suffered in every form of life and being,
is only at the bottom of the valley of matter, and half through his cycle, when
he has identified himself with collective Humanity. This, he has made in his
own image. In order to progress upwards and homewards, the "God" has
now to ascend the weary uphill path of the Golgotha of Life. It is the
martyrdom of self-conscious existence. Like Visvakarman he has to sacrifice
himself to himself in order to redeem all creatures, to resurect from the many
into the One Life. Then he ascends into heaven indeed; where, plunged into the
incomprehensible absolute Being and Bliss of Paranirvana he reigns
unconditionally, and whence he will re-descend again a the next
"coming," which one portion of humanity expects in its dead-letter
sense as the second advent, and the other as the last "Kalki Avatar."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Which are in truth seven as shown later, on the authority of the oldest
Upanishads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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SUMMING
UP.
"The
History of Creation and of this world from its beginning up to the present time
is composed of seven chapters. The seventh chapter is not yet written."
(T.
Subba Row, Theosophist, 1881.)
THE
first of these Seven chapters has been attempted and is now finished. However
incomplete and feeble as an exposition, it is, at any rate, an approximation --
using the word in a mathematical sense -- to that which is the oldest basis for
all the subsequent Cosmogonies. The attempt to render in a European tongue the
grand panorama of the ever periodically recurring Law -- impressed upon the
plastic minds of the first races endowed with Consciousness by those who
reflected the same from the Universal Mind -- is daring, for no human language,
save the Sanskrit -- which is that of the Gods -- can do so with any degree of
adequacy. But the failures in this work must be forgiven for the sake of the
motive.
As
a whole, neither the foregoing nor what follows can be found in full anywhere.
It is not taught in any of the six Indian schools of philosophy, for it
pertains to their synthesis -- the seventh, which is the Occult doctrine. It is
not traced on any crumbling papyrus of Egypt, nor is it any longer graven on
Assyrian tile or granite wall. The Books of the Vedanta (the last word of human
knowledge) give out but the metaphysical aspect of this world-Cosmogony; and
their priceless thesaurus, the Upanishads -- Upa-ni-shad being a compound word
meaning "the conquest of ignorance by the revelation of secret, spiritual
knowledge" -- require now the additional possession of a Master-key to
enable the student to get at their full meaning. The reason for this I venture
to state here as I learned it from a Master.
The
name, "Upanishads," is usually translated "esoteric
doctrine." These treatises form part of the Sruti or "revealed
knowledge," Revelation, in short, and are generally attached to the
Brahmana
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[[Vol.
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portion
of the Vedas,* as their third division. There are over 150 Upanishads
enumerated by, and known to, Orientalists, who credit the oldest with being
written probably about 600 years B.C.; but of genuine texts there does not
exist a fifth of the number. The Upanishads are to the Vedas what the Kabala is
to the Jewish Bible. They treat of and expound the secret and mystic meaning of
the Vedic texts. They speak of the origin of the Universe, the nature of Deity,
and of Spirit and Soul, as also of the metaphysical connection of mind and
matter. In a few words: They CONTAIN the beginning and the end of all human
knowledge, but they have now ceased to REVEAL it, since the day of Buddha. If
it were otherwise, the Upanishads could not be called esoteric, since they are
now openly attached to the Sacred Brahmanical books, which have, in our present
age, become accessible even to the Mlechchhas (out-castes) and the European
Orientalists. One thing in them -- and this in all the Upanishads -- invariably
and constantly points to their ancient origin, and proves (a) that they were
written, in some of their portions, before the caste system became the tyrannical
institution which it still is; and (b) that half of their contents have been
eliminated, while some of them were rewritten and abridged. "The great
Teachers of the higher Knowledge and the Brahmans are continually represented
as going to Kshatriya (military caste) kings to become their pupils." As
Cowell pertinently remarks, the Upanishads "breathe an entirely different
spirit" (from other Brahmanical writings), "a freedom of thought
unknown in any earlier work except in the Rig Veda hymns themselves." The
second fact is explained by a tradition recorded in one of the MSS. on Buddha's
life. It says that the Upanishads were originally attached to their Brahmanas
after the beginning of a reform, which led to the exclusiveness of the present
caste system among the Brahmins, a few centuries after the invasion of India by
the "twice-born." They were complete in those days, and were used for
the instruction of the chelas who were preparing for their initiation.
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
. . . "The Vedas have a distinct dual meaning -- one expressed by the
literal sense of the words, the other indicated by the metre and the swara --
intonation -- which are as the life of the Vedas. . . . Learned pundits and
philologists of course deny that swara has anything to do with philosophy or
ancient esoteric doctrines; but the mysterious connection between swara and
light is one of its most profound secrets." (T. Subba Row, Five Years of
Theosophy, p. 154.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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This
lasted so long as the Vedas and the Brahmanas remained in the sole and
exclusive keeping of the temple-Brahmins -- while no one else had the right to
study or even read them outside of the sacred caste. Then came Gautama, the
Prince of Kapilavastu. After learning the whole of the Brahmanical wisdom in
the Rahasya or the Upanishads, and finding that the teachings differed little,
if at all, from those of the "Teachers of Life" inhabiting the snowy
ranges of the Himalaya,* the Disciple of the Brahmins, feeling indignant
because the sacred wisdom was thus withheld from all but the Brahmins,
determined to save the whole world by popularizing it. Then it was that the
Brahmins, seeing that their sacred knowledge and Occult wisdom was falling into
the hands of the "Mlechchhas," abridged the texts of the Upanishads,
originally containing thrice the matter of the Vedas and the Brahmanas
together, without altering, however, one word of the texts. They simply
detached from the MSS. the most important portions containing the last word of
the Mystery of Being. The key to the Brahmanical secret code remained
henceforth with the initiates alone, and the Brahmins were thus in a position
to publicly deny the correctness of Buddha's teaching by appealing to their
Upanishads, silenced for ever on the chief questions. Such is the esoteric
tradition beyond the Himalayas.
Sri
Sankaracharya, the greatest Initiate living in the historical ages, wrote many
a Bhashya on the Upanishads. But his original treatises, as there are reasons
to suppose, have not yet fallen into the hands of the Philistines, for they are
too jealously preserved in his maths (monasteries, mathams). And there are
still weightier reasons to believe that the priceless Bhashyas (Commentaries)
on the esoteric doctrine of the Brahmins, by their greatest expounder, will
remain for ages yet a dead letter to most of the Hindus, except the Smartava
Brahmins. This sect, founded by Sankaracharya, (which is still very powerful in
Southern India) is now almost the only one to produce students who have
preserved sufficient knowledge to comprehend the
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
Also called "the Sons of Wisdom," and of the "Fire-Mist"
and the "Brothers of the Sun" in the Chinese records. Si-dzang
(Tibet) is mentioned in the MSS. of the sacred library of the province of
Fo-Kien, as the great seat of Occult learning from time immemorial, ages before
Buddha. The Emperor Yu, the "great" (2,207 years B.C.), a pious
mystic and great adept, is said to have obtained his knowledge from the
"great teachers of the Snowy Range" in Si-dzang.
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[[Vol.
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dead
letter of the Bhashyas. The reason of this is that they alone, I am informed,
have occasionally real Initiates at their head in their mathams, as for
instance, in the "Sringa-giri," in the Western Ghats of Mysore. On
the other hand, there is no sect in that desperately exclusive caste of the
Brahmins, more exclusive than is the Smartava; and the reticence of its
followers to say what they may know of the Occult sciences and the esoteric doctrine,
is only equalled by their pride and learning.
Therefore
the writer of the present statement must be prepared beforehand to meet with
great opposition and even the denial of such statements as are brought forward
in this work. Not that any claim to infallibility, or to perfect correctness in
every detail of all that which is herein said, was ever put forward. Facts are
there, and they can hardly be denied. But, owing to the intrinsic difficulties
of the subjects treated, and the almost insurmountable limitations of the
English tongue (as of all other European languages) to express certain ideas,
it is more than probable that the writer has failed to present the explanations
in the best and in the clearest form; yet all that could be done was done under
every adverse circumstance, and this is the utmost that can be expected of any
writer.
Let
us recapitulate and show, by the vastness of the subjects expounded, how
difficult, if not impossible, it is to do them full justice.
(1.)
The Secret Doctrine is the accumulated Wisdom of the Ages, and its cosmogony
alone is the most stupendous and elaborate system: e.g., even in the
exotericism of the Puranas. But such is the mysterious power of Occult
symbolism, that the facts which have actually occupied countless generations of
initiated seers and prophets to marshal, to set down and explain, in the
bewildering series of evolutionary progress, are all recorded on a few pages of
geometrical signs and glyphs. The flashing gaze of those seers has penetrated
into the very kernel of matter, and recorded the soul of things there, where an
ordinary profane, however learned, would have perceived but the external work
of form. But modern science believes not in the "soul of things," and
hence will reject the whole system of ancient cosmogony. It is useless to say
that the system in question is no fancy of one or several isolated individuals.
That it is the uninterrupted record covering thousands of generations of Seers
whose respective experiences were made to test and to verify the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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traditions
passed orally by one early race to another, of the teachings of higher and
exalted beings, who watched over the childhood of Humanity. That for long ages,
the "Wise Men" of the Fifth Race, of the stock saved and rescued from
the last cataclysm and shifting of continents, had passed their lives in
learning, not teaching. How did they do so? It is answered: by checking,
testing, and verifying in every department of nature the traditions of old by
the independent visions of great adepts; i.e., men who have developed and
perfected their physical, mental, psychic, and spiritual organisations to the
utmost possible degree. No vision of one adept was accepted till it was checked
and confirmed by the visions -- so obtained as to stand as independent evidence
-- of other adepts, and by centuries of experiences.
(2.)
The fundamental Law in that system, the central point from which all emerged,
around and toward which all gravitates, and upon which is hung the philosophy
of the rest, is the One homogeneous divine SUBSTANCE-PRINCIPLE, the one radical
cause.
.
. . "Some few, whose lamps shone brighter, have been led
From
cause to cause to nature's secret head,
And
found that one first Principle must be. . . ."
It
is called "Substance-Principle," for it becomes "substance"
on the plane of the manifested Universe, an illusion, while it remains a
"principle" in the beginningless and endless abstract, visible and
invisible SPACE. It is the omnipresent Reality: impersonal, because it contains
all and everything. Its impersonality is the fundamental conception of the
System. It is latent in every atom in the Universe, and is the Universe itself.
(See in chapters on Symbolism, "Primordial Substance, and Divine
Thought.")
(3.)
The Universe is the periodical manifestation of this unknown Absolute Essence.
To call it "essence," however, is to sin against the very spirit of
the philosophy. For though the noun may be derived in this case from the verb
esse, "to be," yet IT cannot be identified with a being of any kind,
that can be conceived by human intellect. IT is best described as neither
Spirit nor matter, but both. "Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti" are One,
in reality, yet two in the Universal conception of the manifested, even in the
conception of the One Logos, its first manifestation, to which, as the able
lecturer in the "Notes on the Bhagavadgita" shows, IT appears from
the objective standpoint of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
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the
One Logos as Mulaprakriti and not as Parabrahmam; as its veil and not the one
REALITY hidden behind, which is unconditioned and absolute.
(4.)
The Universe is called, with everything in it, MAYA, because all is temporary
therein, from the ephemeral life of a fire-fly to that of the Sun. Compared to
the eternal immutability of the ONE, and the changelessness of that Principle,
the Universe, with its evanescent ever-changing forms, must be necessarily, in
the mind of a philosopher, no better than a will-o'-the-wisp. Yet, the Universe
is real enough to the conscious beings in it, which are as unreal as it is
itself.
(5.)
Everything in the Universe, throughout all its kingdoms, is CONSCIOUS: i.e.,
endowed with a consciousness of its own kind and on its own plane of
perception. We men must remember that because we do not perceive any signs --
which we can recognise -- of consciousness, say, in stones, we have no right to
say that no consciousness exists there. There is no such thing as either
"dead" or "blind" matter, as there is no "Blind"
or "Unconscious" Law. These find no place among the conceptions of
Occult philosophy. The latter never stops at surface appearances, and for it
the noumenal essences have more reality than their objective counterparts; it
resembles therein the mediaeval Nominalists, for whom it was the Universals
that were the realities and the particulars which existed only in name and
human fancy.
(6.)
The Universe is worked and guided from within outwards. As above so it is
below, as in heaven so on earth; and man -- the microcosm and miniature copy of
the macrocosm -- is the living witness to this Universal Law, and to the mode
of its action. We see that every external motion, act, gesture, whether
voluntary or mechanical, organic or mental, is produced and preceded by
internal feeling or emotion, will or volition, and thought or mind. As no
outward motion or change, when normal, in man's external body can take place
unless provoked by an inward impulse, given through one of the three functions
named, so with the external or manifested Universe. The whole Kosmos is guided,
controlled, and animated by almost endless series of Hierarchies of sentient
Beings, each having a mission to perform, and who -- whether we give to them
one name or another, and call them Dhyan-Chohans or Angels -- are
"messengers" in the sense only that they are the agents of Karmic and
Cosmic Laws. They vary infinitely in their
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[[Vol.
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respective
degrees of consciousness and intelligence; and to call them all pure Spirits
without any of the earthly alloy "which time is wont to prey upon" is
only to indulge in poetical fancy. For each of these Beings either was, or
prepares to become, a man, if not in the present, then in a past or a coming
cycle (Manvantara). They are perfected, when not incipient, men; and differ
morally from the terrestrial human beings on their higher (less material)
spheres, only in that they are devoid of the feeling of personality and of the
human emotional nature -- two purely earthly characteristics. The former, or
the "perfected," have become free from those feelings, because (a)
they have no longer fleshly bodies -- an ever-numbing weight on the Soul; and
(b) the pure spiritual element being left untrammelled and more free, they are
less influenced by maya than man can ever be, unless he is an adept who keeps
his two personalities -- the spiritual and the physical -- entirely separated.
The incipient monads, having never had terrestrial bodies yet, can have no
sense of personality or EGO-ism. That which is meant by
"personality," being a limitation and a relation, or, as defined by
Coleridge, "individuality existing in itself but with a nature as a
ground," the term cannot of course be applied to non-human entities; but,
as a fact insisted upon by generations of Seers, none of these Beings, high or
low, have either individuality or personality as separate Entities, i.e., they
have no individuality in the sense in which a man says, "I am myself and
no one else;" in other words, they are conscious of no such distinct
separateness as men and things have on earth. Individuality is the
characteristic of their respective hierarchies, not of their units; and these
characteristics vary only with the degree of the plane to which those
hierarchies belong: the nearer to the region of Homogeneity and the One Divine,
the purer and the less accentuated that individuality in the Hierarchy. They
are finite, in all respects, with the exception of their higher principles --
the immortal sparks reflecting the universal divine flame -- individualized and
separated only on the spheres of Illusion by a differentiation as illusive as
the rest. They are "Living Ones," because they are the streams projected
on the Kosmic screen of illusion from the ABSOLUTE LIFE; beings in whom life
cannot become extinct, before the fire of ignorance is extinct in those who
sense these "Lives." Having sprung into being under the quickening
influence of the uncreated beam, the reflection of the great Central Sun that
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radiates
on the shores of the river of Life, it is the inner principle in them which
belongs to the waters of immortality, while its differentiated clothing is as
perishable as man's body. Therefore Young was right in saying that
"Angels
are men of a superior kind"
and
no more. They are neither "ministering" nor "protecting"
angels; nor are they "Harbingers of the Most High" still less the
"Messengers of wrath" of any God such as man's fancy has created. To
appeal to their protection is as foolish as to believe that their sympathy may
be secured by any kind of propitiation; for they are, as much as man himself
is, the slaves and creatures of immutable Karmic and Kosmic law. The reason for
it is evident. Having no elements of personality in their essence they can have
no personal qualities, such as attributed by men, in their exoteric religions, to
their anthropomorphic God -- a jealous and exclusive God who rejoices and feels
wrathful, is pleased with sacrifice, and is more despotic in his vanity than
any finite foolish man. Man, as shown in Book II., being a compound of the
essences of all those celestial Hierarchies may succeed in making himself, as
such, superior, in one sense, to any hierarchy or class, or even combination of
them. "Man can neither propitiate nor command the Devas," it is said.
But, by paralyzing his lower personality, and arriving thereby at the full
knowledge of the non-separateness of his higher SELF from the One absolute
SELF, man can, even during his terrestrial life, become as "One of
Us." Thus it is, by eating of the fruit of knowledge which dispels
ignorance, that man becomes like one of the Elohim or the Dhyanis; and once on
their plane the Spirit of Solidarity and perfect Harmony, which reigns in every
Hierarchy, must extend over him and protect him in every particular.
The
chief difficulty which prevents men of science from believing in divine as well
as in nature Spirits is their materialism. The main impediment before the
Spiritualist which hinders him from believing in the same, while preserving a
blind belief in the "Spirits" of the Departed, is the general
ignorance of all, except some Occultists and Kabalists, about the true essence
and nature of matter. It is on the acceptance or rejection of the theory of the
Unity of all in Nature, in its ultimate Essence, that mainly rests the belief
or unbelief in the existence around us of other conscious beings besides the
Spirits of the Dead.
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[[Vol.
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It
is on the right comprehension of the primeval Evolution of Spirit-Matter and
its real essence that the student has to depend for the further elucidation in
his mind of the Occult Cosmogony, and for the only sure clue which can guide
his subsequent studies.
In
sober truth, as just shown, every "Spirit" so-called is either a
disembodied or a future man. As from the highest Archangel (Dhyan Chohan) down
to the last conscious "Builder" (the inferior class of Spiritual
Entities), all such are men, having lived aeons ago, in other Manvantaras, on
this or other Spheres; so the inferior, semi-intelligent and non-intelligent
Elementals -- are all future men. That fact alone -- that a Spirit is endowed
with intelligence -- is a proof to the Occultist that that Being must have been
a man, and acquired his knowledge and intelligence throughout the human cycle.
There is but one indivisible and absolute Omniscience and Intelligence in the
Universe, and this thrills throughout every atom and infinitesimal point of the
whole finite Kosmos which hath no bounds, and which people call SPACE,
considered independently of anything contained in it. But the first
differentiation of its reflection in the manifested World is purely Spiritual,
and the Beings generated in it are not endowed with a consciousness that has
any relation to the one we conceive of. They can have no human consciousness or
Intelligence before they have acquired such, personally and individually. This
may be a mystery, yet it is a fact, in Esoteric philosophy, and a very apparent
one too.
The
whole order of nature evinces a progressive march towards a higher life. There
is design in the action of the seemingly blindest forces. The whole process of
evolution with its endless adaptations is a proof of this. The immutable laws
that weed out the weak and feeble species, to make room for the strong, and
which ensure the "survival of the fittest," though so cruel in their
immediate action -- all are working toward the grand end. The very fact that
adaptations do occur, that the fittest do survive in the struggle for existence,
shows that what is called "unconscious Nature"* is in reality an
aggregate of forces mani-
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
Nature taken in its abstract sense, cannot be "unconscious," as it is
the emanation from, and thus an aspect (on the manifested plane) of the
ABSOLUTE consciousness. Where is that daring man who would presume to deny to
vegetation and even to minerals a consciousness of their own. All he can say
is, that this consciousness is beyond his comprehension.
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pulated
by semi-intelligent beings (Elementals) guided by High Planetary Spirits, (Dhyan
Chohans), whose collective aggregate forms the manifested verbum of the
unmanifested LOGOS, and constitutes at one and the same time the MIND of the
Universe and its immutable LAW.
Three
distinct representations of the Universe in its three distinct aspects are
impressed upon our thought by the esoteric philosophy: the PRE-EXISTING
(evolved from) the EVER-EXISTING; and the PHENOMENAL -- the world of illusion,
the reflection, and shadow thereof. During the great mystery and drama of life
known as the Manvantara, real Kosmos is like the object placed behind the white
screen upon which are thrown the Chinese shadows, called forth by the magic
lantern. The actual figures and things remain invisible, while the wires of
evolution are pulled by the unseen hands; and men and things are thus but the
reflections, on the white field, of the realities behind the snares of
Mahamaya, or the great Illusion. This was taught in every philosophy, in every
religion, ante as well as post diluvian, in India and Chaldea, by the Chinese
as by the Grecian Sages. In the former countries these three Universes were
allegorized, in exoteric teachings, by the three trinities emanating from the
Central eternal germ and forming with it a Supreme Unity: the initial, the
manifested, and the Creative Triad, or the three in One. The last is but the
symbol, in its concrete expression, of the first ideal two. Hence Esoteric
philosophy passes over the necessarianism of this purely metaphysical
conception, and calls the first one, only, the Ever Existing. This is the view
of every one of the six great schools of Indian philosophy -- the six
principles of that unit body of WISDOM of which the "gnosis," the
hidden knowledge, is the seventh.
The
writer hopes that, superficially handled as may be the comments on the Seven
Stanzas, enough has been given in this cosmogonic portion of the work to show
Archaic teachings to be more scientific (in the modern sense of the word) on
their very face, than any other ancient Scriptures left to be regarded and
judged on their exoteric aspect. Since, however, as confessed before, this work
withholds far more than it gives out, the student is invited to use his own
intuitions. Our chief care is to elucidate that which has already been given
out, and, to our regret, very incorrectly at times; to supplement the knowledge
hinted at -- whenever and wherever possible -- by addi-
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[[Vol.
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tional
matter; and to bulwark our doctrines against the too strong attacks of modern
Sectarianism, and more especially against those of our latter-day Materialism,
very often miscalled Science, whereas, in reality, the words
"Scientists" and "Sciolists" ought alone to bear the responsibility
for the many illogical theories offered to the world. In its great ignorance,
the public, while blindly accepting everything that emanates from
"authorities," and feeling it to be its duty to regard every dictum
coming from a man of Science as a proven fact -- the public, we say, is taught
to scoff at anything brought forward from "heathen" sources.
Therefore, as materialistic Scientists can be fought solely with their own
weapons -- those of controversy and argument -- an Addendum is added to every
Book contrasting our respective views and showing how even great authorities
may often err. We believe that this can be done effectually by showing the weak
points of our opponents, and by proving their too frequent sophisms -- made to
pass for scientific dicta -- to be incorrect. We hold to Hermes and his
"Wisdom" -- in its universal character; they -- to Aristotle as
against intuition and the experience of the ages, fancying that Truth is the
exclusive property of the Western world. Hence the disagreement. As Hermes
says, "Knowledge differs much from sense; for sense is of things that
surmount it, but Knowledge (gyi) is the end of sense" -- i.e., of the
illusion of our physical brain and its intellect; thus emphasizing the contrast
between the laboriously acquired knowledge of the senses and mind (manas), and
the intuitive omniscience of the Spiritual divine Soul -- Buddhi.
Whatever
may be the destiny of these actual writings in a remote future, we hope to have
proven so far the following facts:
(1)
The Secret Doctrine teaches no Atheism, except in the Hindu sense of the word
nastika, or the rejection of idols, including every anthropomorphic god. In
this sense every Occultist is a Nastika.
(2)
It admits a Logos or a collective "Creator" of the Universe; a
Demi-urgos -- in the sense implied when one speaks of an "Architect"
as the "Creator" of an edifice, whereas that Architect has never
touched one stone of it, but, while furnishing the plan, left all the manual
labour to the masons; in our case the plan was furnished by the Ideation of the
Universe, and the constructive labour was left to the Hosts of intelligent
Powers and Forces. But that Demiurgos is no
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personal
deity, -- i.e., an imperfect extra-cosmic god, -- but only the aggregate of the
Dhyan-Chohans and the other forces.
As
to the latter --
(3)
They are dual in their character; being composed of (a) the irrational brute
energy, inherent in matter, and (b) the intelligent soul or cosmic
consciousness which directs and guides that energy, and which is the
Dhyan-Chohanic thought reflecting the Ideation of the Universal mind. This
results in a perpetual series of physical manifestations and moral effects on
Earth, during manvantaric periods, the whole being subservient to Karma. As
that process is not always perfect; and since, however many proofs it may
exhibit of a guiding intelligence behind the veil, it still shows gaps and flaws,
and even results very often in evident failures -- therefore, neither the
collective Host (Demiurgos), nor any of the working powers individually, are
proper subjects for divine honours or worship. All are entitled to the grateful
reverence of Humanity, however, and man ought to be ever striving to help the
divine evolution of Ideas, by becoming to the best of his ability a co-worker
with nature in the cyclic task. The ever unknowable and incognizable Karana
alone, the Causeless Cause of all causes, should have its shrine and altar on
the holy and ever untrodden ground of our heart -- invisible, intangible,
unmentioned, save through "the still small voice" of our spiritual
consciousness. Those who worship before it, ought to do so in the silence and
the sanctified solitude of their Souls*; making their spirit the sole mediator
between them and the Universal Spirit, their good actions the only priests, and
their sinful intentions the only visible and objective sacrificial victims to
the Presence. (See Part II., "On the Hidden Deity.")
(4)
Matter is Eternal. It is the Upadhi (the physical basis) for the One infinite
Universal Mind to build thereon its ideations. Therefore, the Esotericists maintain
that there is no inorganic or dead matter in nature, the distinction between
the two made by Science being as unfounded as it is arbitrary and devoid of
reason.
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
"When thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are . . . but
enter into thine inner chamber and having shut thy door, pray to thy Father
which is in secret." Matt. vi.). Our Father is within us "in
Secret," our 7th principle, in the "inner chamber" of our Soul
perception. "The Kingdom of Heaven" and of God "is within
us" says Jesus, not outside. Why are Christians so absolutely blind to the
self-evident meaning of the words of wisdom they delight in mechanically
repeating?
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[[Vol.
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Whatever
Science may think, however -- and exact Science is a fickle dame, as we all
know by experience -- Occultism knows and teaches differently, from time
immemorial -- from Manu and Hermes down to Paracelsus and his successors.
Thus
Hermes, the thrice great Trismegistus, says: "Oh, my son, matter becomes;
formerly it was; for matter is the vehicle of becoming."* Becoming is the
mode of activity of the uncreate deity. Having been endowed with the germs of
becoming, matter (objective) is brought into birth, for the creative force
fashions it according to the ideal forms. Matter not yet engendered had no
form; it becomes when it is put into operation." (The Definitions of
Asclepios, p. 134, "Virgin of the World.")
"Everything
is the product of one universal creative effort. . . . There is nothing dead,
in Nature. Everything is organic and living, and therefore the whole world
appears to be a living organism." (Paracelsus, "Philosophia ad
Athenienes," F. Hartmann's translations, p. 44.)
(5.)
The Universe was evolved out of its ideal plan, upheld through Eternity in the
unconsciousness of that which the Vedantins call Parabrahm. This is practically
identical with the conclusions of the highest Western Philosophy -- "the
innate, eternal, and self-existing Ideas" of Plato, now reflected by Von
Hartmann. The "unknowable" of Herbert Spencer bears only a faint
resemblance to that transcendental Reality believed in by Occultists, often
appearing merely a personification of a "force behind phenomena" --
an infinite and eternal Energy
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
To this the late Mrs. (Dr.) Kingsford, the able translator and compiler of the
Hermetic Fragments (see "The Virgin of the World") remarks in a
foot-note; "Dr. Menard observes that in Greek the same word signifies to
be born and to become. The idea here is that the material of the world is in
its essence eternal, but that before creation or 'becoming' it is in a passive
and motionless condition. Thus it 'was' before being put into operation; now it
'becomes,' that is, it is mobile and progressive." And she adds the purely
Vedantic doctrine of the Hermetic philosophy that "Creation is thus the
period of activity (Manvantara) of God, who, according to Hermetic thought (or
which, according to the Vedantin) has two modes -- Activity or Existence, God
evolved (Deus explicitus); and Passivity of Being (Pralaya) God involved (Deus
implicitus). Both modes are perfect and complete, as are the waking and
sleeping states of man. Fichte, the German philosopher, distinguished Being
(Seyn) as One, which we know only through existence (Dasein) as the Manifold.
This view is thoroughly Hermetic. The 'Ideal Forms' are the archetypal or
formative ideas of the Neo-Platonists; the eternal and subjective concepts of
things subsisting in the divine mind prior to 'becoming'" (p. 134).
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from
which all things proceed, while the author of the "Philosophy of the
Unconscious" has come (in this respect only) as near to a solution of the
great Mystery as mortal man can. Few were those, whether in ancient or
mediaeval philosophy, who have dared to approach the subject or even hint at
it. Paracelsus mentions it inferentially. His ideas are admirably synthesized
by Dr. F. Hartmann, F.T.S., in his "Life of Paracelsus."
All
the Christian Kabalists understood well the Eastern root idea: The active
Power, the "Perpetual motion of the great Breath" only awakens Kosmos
at the dawn of every new Period, setting it into motion by means of the two
contrary Forces,* and thus causing it to become objective on the plane of Illusion.
In other words, that dual motion transfers Kosmos from the plane of the Eternal
Ideal into that of finite manifestation, or from the Noumenal to the Phenomenal
plane. Everything that is, was, and will be, eternally IS, even the countless
forms, which are finite and perishable only in their objective, not in their
ideal Form. They existed as Ideas, in the Eternity,** and, when they pass away,
will exist as reflections. Neither the form of man, nor that of any animal,
plant or stone has ever been created, and it is only on this plane of ours that
it commenced "becoming," i.e., objectivising into its present
materiality, or expanding from within outwards, from the most sublimated and
supersensuous essence into its grossest appearance. Therefore our human forms
have existed in the Eternity as astral or ethereal prototypes; according to
which models, the Spiritual Beings (or Gods) whose duty it was to bring them
into objective being and terrestrial Life, evolved the protoplasmic forms of
the future Egos from their own essence. After which, when this human Upadhi, or
basic mould was ready, the natural terrestrial Forces began to work on those
supersensuous moulds which contained, besides their own, the elements of all
the past vegetable and future animal forms of this globe in them. Therefore,
man's outward shell passed through every vegetable and animal body before it
assumed the human shape. As this will be fully
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The centripetal and the centrifugal forces, which are male and female, positive
and negative, physical and spiritual, the two being the one Primordial Force.
**
Occultism teaches that no form can be given to anything, either by nature or by
man, whose ideal type does not already exist on the subjective plane. More than
this; that no such form or shape can possibly enter man's consciousness, or
evolve in his imagination, which does not exist in prototype, at least as an
approximation.
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[[Vol.
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described
in Book II., with the Commentaries thereupon, there is no need to say more of
it here.
According
to the Hermetico-Kabalistic philosophy of Paracelsus, it is Yliaster -- the
ancestor of the just-born Protyle, introduced by Mr. Crookes in chemistry -- or
primordial Protomateria that evolved out of itself the Kosmos.
"When
Evolution took place the Yliaster divided itself. . . . melted and dissolved,
developing from within itself the Ideos or Chaos, called respectively Mysterium
magnum, Iliados, Limbus Major, or Primordial Matter. This Primordial essence is
of a monistic nature, and manifests itself not only as vital activity, a
spiritual force, an invisible, incomprehensible, and indescribable power, but
also as vital matter of which the substance of living beings consists." In
this Ideos of primordial matter, or the proto-ilos -- which is the matrix of
all created things -- is contained the substance from which everything is
formed. It is the Chaos . . . out of which the Macrocosm, and, later on, by
evolution and division in Mysteria Specialia,* each separate being, came into
existence. "All things and all elementary substances were contained in it
in potentia but not in actu" -- which makes the translator, Dr. F.
Hartmann, justly observe that "it seems that Paracelsus anticipated the
modern discovery of the 'potency of matter' three hundred years ago" (P.
42).
This
Magnus Limbus, then, or Yliaster of Paracelsus, is simply our old friend
"Father-Mother," within, before it appeared in Space, of the second
and other Stanzas. It is the universal matrix of Kosmos, personified in the
dual character of Macro- and Microcosm (or the Universe and our Globe)** by
Aditi-Prakriti, the Spiritual and the physical nature. For we find it explained
in Paracelsus that "the Magnus Limbus is the nursery out of which all
creatures have grown, in the same sense as a tree grows out of a small seed;
with the difference, however, that the great Limbus takes its origin from the
Word, while the Limbus minor (the terrestrial seed or sperm) takes it from the
earth.
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
This word is explained by Dr. Hartmann from the original texts of Paracelsus
before him, as follows. According to this great Rosicrucian: "Mysterium is
everything out of which something may be developed, which is only germinally
contained in it. A seed is the 'Mysterium' of a plant, an egg that of a living
bird, etc."
**
It is only the mediaeval Kabalists who, following the Jewish and one or two
Neo-Platonists, applied the term Microcosm to man. Ancient philosophy called
the Earth the Microcosm of the Macrocosm, and man the outcome of the two.
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The
great Limbus is the seed out of which all beings have come, and the little
Limbus is each ultimate being that reproduces its form, and that has itself
been produced by the 'great.' The latter possesses all the qualifications of
the great one, in the same sense as a son has an organization similar to that
of his father." (See Comment. Book II. para. iii.) . . . "As Yliaster
dissolved, Ares, the dividing, differentiating, and individualising power
(Fohat, another old friend,) . . . began to act. All production took place in
consequence of separation. There were produced out of the Ideos, the elements
of Fire, Water, Air and Earth, whose birth, however, did not take place in a
material mode, or by simple separation," but by spiritual and dynamical,
not even complex, combinations -- e.g., mechanical mixture as opposed to
chemical combination -- just as fire may come out of a pebble, or a tree out of
a seed, although there is originally no fire in the pebble, nor a tree in the
seed. Spirit is living, and Life is Spirit, and Life and Spirit (Prakriti
Purusha) (?) produce all things, but they are essentially one and not two. . .
. The elements too, have each one its own Yliaster, because all the activity of
matter in every form is only an effluvium of the same fount. But as from the
seed grow the roots with their fibres, and after that the stalk with its
branches and leaves, and lastly the flowers and seeds; likewise all beings were
born from the elements, and consist of elementary substances out of which other
forms may come into existence, bearing the characteristics of their
parents." ("This doctrine, preached 300 years ago," remarks the
translator, "is identical with the one that has revolutionized modern
thought, after having been put into new shape and elaborated by Darwin. It was
still more elaborated by Kapila in the Sankhya philosophy") . . . . The
elements as the mothers of all creatures are of an invisible, spiritual nature,
and have souls.* They all spring from the "Mysterium Magnum."
(Philosophia ad Athenienses.)
Compare
this with Vishnu Purana.
"From
Pradhana (primordial substance) presided over by Kshetrajna (embodied Spirit?) proceeds
the evolution of those qualities. . . . From the great Principle Mahat
(Universal Intellect, or mind) . . . proceeds
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The Eastern Occultist says -- "are guided and informed by the Spiritual
Beings" the Workmen in the invisible worlds and behind the veil of Occult
nature, or nature in Abscondito.
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[[Vol.
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the
origin of the subtle elements and from these the organs of sense (Book I.,
ii.).
Thus
it may be shown that all the fundamental truths of nature were universal in
antiquity, and that the basic ideas upon spirit, matter, and the universe, or
upon God, Substance, and man, were identical. Taking the two most ancient
religious philosophies on the globe, Hinduism and Hermetism, from the
scriptures of India and Egypt, the identity of the two is easily recognisable.
This
becomes apparent to one who reads the latest translation and rendering of the
"Hermetic Fragments" just mentioned, by our late lamented friend, Dr.
Anna Kingsford. Disfigured and tortured as these have been in their passage
through Sectarian Greek and Christian hands, the translator has most ably and
intuitionally seized the weak points and tried to remedy them by means of
explanations and foot-notes. And she says:.......... The creation of the
visible world by the 'working gods' or Titans, as agents of the Supreme God,*
is a thoroughly Hermetic idea, recognisable in all religious systems, and in
accordance with modern scientific research (?), which shows us everywhere the
Divine power operating through natural Forces."
"That
Universal Being, that contains all, and which is all, put into motion the Soul
and the World, all that nature comprises, says Hermes. In the manifold unity of
universal life, the innumerable individualities distinguished by their
variations, are, nevertheless, united in such a manner that the whole is one,
and that everything proceeds from Unity." (Asclepios, Part I.)
"God
is not a mind, but the cause that the mind is; not a spirit, but the cause that
the Spirit is; not light, but the cause that the Light is." (Divine
Pymander, Book IX., v. 64.)
The
above shows plainly that "Divine Pyrnander," however much distorted
in some passages by Christian "smoothing," was nevertheless written
by a philosopher, while most of the so-called "hermetic Fragments"
are the production of sectarian pagans with a tendency towards an anthropomorphic
Supreme Being. Yet both are the echo of the Esoteric philosophy and the Hindu
Puranas.
Compare
two invocations, one to the Hermetic "Supreme All," the
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
A frequent expression in the said Fragments, to which we take exception. The
Universal Mind is not a Being or "God."
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other
to the "Supreme All" of the later Aryans. Says a Hermetic Fragment
cited by Suidas (see Mrs. Kingsford's "The Virgin of the World"): -
"I
adjure thee, Heaven, holy work of the great God; I adjure thee, Voice of the
Father, uttered in the beginning when the universal world was framed; I adjure
thee by the word, only Son of the Father who upholds all things; be favourable,
be favourable."
This
just preceded by the following: "Thus the Ideal Light was before the Ideal
Light, and the luminous Intelligence of Intelligence was always, and its unity
was nothing else than the Spirit enveloping the Universe. Out of whom is
neither God nor Angels, nor any other essentials, for He (It?) is the Lord of
all things and the power and the Light; and all depends on Him (It) and is in
Him (It), etc." (Fragments of the writings of Hermes to Ammon.)
This
is contradicted by the very same Trismegistos, who is made to say: "To
speak of God is impossible. For corporeal cannot express the incorporeal. . . .
. That which has not any body nor appearance, nor form, nor matter, cannot be
apprehended by sense. I understand, Tatios, I understand, that which it is
impossible to define -- that is God." (Physical Eclogues, Florilegium of
Stobaeus.)
The
contradiction between the two passages is evident; and this shows (a) that
Hermes was a generic nom-de-plume used by a series of generations of mystics of
every shade, and (b) that a great discernment has to be used before accepting a
Fragment as esoteric teaching only because it is undeniably ancient. Let us now
compare the above with a like invocation in the Hindu Scriptures -- undoubtedly
as old, if not far older. Here it is Parasara, the Aryan "Hermes" who
instructs Maitreya, the Indian Asclepios, and calls upon Vishnu in his triple
hypostasis.
"Glory
to the unchangeable, holy, eternal Supreme Vishnu, of one universal nature, the
mighty over all; to him who is Hiranyagarbha, Hari, and Sankara (Brahma,
Vishnu, and Siva), the creator, the preserver, and the destroyer of the world;
to Vasudeva, the liberator (of his worshippers); to him whose essence is both
single and manifold; who is both subtile and corporeal, indiscreet and
discreet; to Vishnu the cause of final emancipation, the cause of the creation,
existence, the
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[[Vol.
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end
of the world; who is the root of the world, and who consists of the
world." (Vish. Purana, Book L.)
This
is a grand invocation, full of philosophical meaning underlying it; but, for
the profane masses, as suggestive as is the first of an anthropomorphic Being.
We must respect the feeling that dictated both; but we cannot help finding it
in full disharmony with its inner meaning, even with that which is found in the
same Hermetic treatise where it is said:
"Reality
is not upon the earth, my son, and it cannot be thereon. . . . Nothing on earth
is real, there are only appearances. . . He (man) is not real, my son, as man.
The real consists solely in itself and remains what it is. . . Man is
transient, therefore he is not real, he is but appearance, and appearance is
the supreme illusion.
Tatios:
Then the celestial bodies themselves are not real, my father, since they also
vary?
Trismegistos:
That which is subject to birth and to change is not real. . . . . There is in
them a certain falsity, seeing that they too are variable.......
Tatios:
And what then is the primordial Reality?
Trismeg.:
That which is one and alone, 0 Tatios; That which is not made of matter, nor in
any body. Which has neither colour nor form, which changes not nor is
transmitted but which always is."
This
is quite consistent with the Vedantic teaching. The leading thought is Occult;
and many are the passages in the Hermetic Fragments that belong bodily to the
Secret Doctrine.
The
latter teaches that the whole universe is ruled by intelligent and
semi-intelligent Forces and Powers, as stated from the very beginning.
Christian Theology admits and even enforces belief in such, but makes an
arbitrary division and refers to them as "Angels" and
"Devils." Science denies the existence of such, and ridicules the
very idea. Spiritualists believe in the Spirits of the Dead, and, outside
these, deny entirely any other kind or class of invisible beings. The Occultists
and Kabalists are thus the only rational expounders of the ancient traditions,
which have now culminated in dogmatic faith on the one hand, and dogmatic
denials on the other. For, both belief and unbelief embrace but one small
corner each of the infinite horizons of spiritual and physical manifestations;
and thus both are right from
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their
respective standpoints, and both are wrong in believing that they can
circumscribe the whole within their own special and narrow barriers; for --
they can never do so. In this respect Science, Theology, and even Spiritualism
show little more wisdom than the ostrich does, when it hides its head in the sand
at its feet, feeling sure that there can be thus nothing beyond its own point
of observation and the limited area occupied by its foolish head.
As
the only works now extant upon the subject under consideration within reach of
the profane of the Western "civilized" races are the above-mentioned
Hermetic Books, or rather Hermetic Fragments, we may contrast them in the
present case with the teachings of Esoteric philosophy. To quote for this
purpose from any other would be useless, since the public knows nothing of the
Chaldean works which are translated into Arabic and preserved by some Sufi
initiates. Therefore the "Definitions of Asclepios," as lately
compiled and glossed by Mrs. A. Kingsford, F.T.S., some of which sayings are in
remarkable agreement with the Esoteric Eastern doctrine, have to be resorted to
for comparison. Though not a few passages show a strong impression of some
later Christian hand, yet on the whole the characteristics of the genii* and
gods are those of eastern teachings, while concerning other things there are
passages which differ widely in our doctrines. The following are a few:--
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The Hermetic philosophers called Theoi, gods, Genii and Daimones (in the
original texts), those Entities whom we call Devas (gods), Dhyan Chohans,
Chitkala (Kwan-yin, the Buddhists call them), and by other names. The Daimones
are -- in the Socratic sense, and even in the Oriental and Latin theological
sense -- the guardian spirits of the human race; "those who dwell in the
neighbourhood of the immortals, and thence watch over human affairs," as
Hermes has it. In Esoteric parlance, they are called Chitkala, some of which
are those who have furnished man with his fourth and fifth Principles from
their own essence; and others the Pitris so-called. This will be explained when
we come to the production of the complete man. The root of the name is Chiti,
"that by which the effects and consequences of actions and kinds of
knowledge are selected for the use of the soul," or conscience the inner
Voice in man. With the Yogis, the Chiti is a synonym of Mahat, the first and
divine intellect; but in Esoteric philosophy Mahat is the root of Chiti, its
germ; and Chiti is a quality of Manas in conjunction with Buddhi, a quality
that attracts to itself by spiritual affinity a Chitkala when it develops
sufficiently in man. This is why it is said that Chiti is a voice acquiring
mystic life and becoming Kwan-Yin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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EXTRACTS
FROM A PRIVATE COMMENTARY,* hitherto secret:--
(xvii.)
"The Initial Existence in the first twilight of the Maha-Manwantara (after
the MAHA-PRALAYA that follows every age of Brahma) is a CONSCIOUS SPIRITUAL
QUALITY. In the manifested WORLDS (solar systems) it is, in its OBJECTIVE
SUBJECTIVITY, like the film from a Divine Breath to the gaze of the entranced
seer. It spreads as it issues from LAYA** throughout infinity as a colourless
spiritual fluid. It is on the SEVENTH PLANE, and in its SEVENTH STATE in our
planetary world.***
(xviii.)
"It is Substance to OUR spiritual sight. It cannot be called so by men in
their WAKING STATE; therefore they have named it in their ignorance 'God-Spirit.'
(xix.)
"It exists everywhere and forms the first UPADHI (foundation) on which our
World (solar system) is built. Outside the latter it is to be found in its
pristine purity only between (the solar systems or) the Stars of the Universe,
the worlds already formed or forming; those in LAYA resting meanwhile in its
bosom. As its substance is of a different kind from that known on earth, the
inhabitants of the latter, seeing THROUGH IT, believe in their illusion and
ignorance that it is empty space. There is not one finger's breath (ANGULA) of
void Space in the whole Boundless (Universe).........
(xx.)
"Matter or Substance is septenary within our World, as it is so beyond it.
Moreover, each of its states or principles is graduated into seven degrees of
density. SURYA (the Sun), in its visible reflection, exhibits the first, or
lowest state of the seventh, the highest state of the Universal PRESENCE, the
pure of the pure, the first manifested Breath of the ever Unmanifested SAT
(Be-ness). All the Central physical or objective Suns are in their substance
the lowest state of the first Principle of the BREATH. Nor are any of these any
more than the REFLECTIONS of their PRIMARIES which are concealed from the gaze
of all but the Dhyan Chohans, whose Corporeal substance belongs to the fifth
division of the seventh Principle of the Mother substance, and is,
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
This (teaching) does not refer to Prakriti-Purusha beyond the boundaries of our
small universe.
**
The ultimate quiescent state: the Nirvana condition of the seventh Principle.
***
The teaching is all given from our plane of consciousness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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therefore,
four degrees higher than the solar reflected substance. As there are seven
Dhatu (principal substances in the human body) so there are seven Forces in Man
and in all Nature.
(xxi.)
"The real substance of the concealed (Sun) is a nucleus of Mother
substance.* It is the heart and the matrix of all the living and existing
Forces in our solar universe. It is the Kernel from which proceed to spread on
their cyclic journeys all the Powers that set in action the atoms in their functional
duties, and the focus within which they again meet in their SEVENTH ESSENCE
every eleventh year. He who tells thee he has seen the sun, laugh at him** as
if he had said that the sun moves really onward on his diurnal path . . . .
(xxiii).
"It is on account of his septenary nature that the Sun is spoken of by the
ancients as one who is driven by seven horses equal to the metres of the Vedas;
or, again, that, though he is identified with the SEVEN "Gaina"
(classes of being) in his orb, he is distinct from them,*** as he is, indeed;
as also that he has SEVEN RAYS, as indeed he has . . . .
(xxv.)
"The Seven Beings in the Sun are the Seven Holy Ones, Self-born from the
inherent power in the matrix of Mother substance. It is they who send the Seven
Principal Forces, called rays, which at the beginning of Pralaya will centre
into seven new Suns for the next Manvantara. The energy from which they spring
into conscious existence in every Sun, is what some people call Vishnu (see
foot-note below), which is the Breath of the ABSOLUTENESS.
We
call it the One manifested life -- itself a reflection of the Absolute.........
(xxvi.)
"The latter must never be mentioned in words or speech LEST IT SHOULD TAKE
AWAY SOME OF OUR SPIRITUAL ENERGIES THAT ASPIRE towards ITS state, gravitating
ever onward unto IT spiritually, as the whole physical universe gravitates
towards ITS manifested centre -- cosmically.
(xxvii.)
"The former -- the Initial existence -- which may be called while in
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
Or the "dream of Science," the primeval really homogeneous matter,
which no mortal can make objective in this Race or Round either.
**
"Vishnu in the form of the Solar active energy, neither ever rises nor sets,
and is at once, the sevenfold Sun and distinct from it," says Vishnu
Purana (Book II., Chap. 11).
***
"In the same manner as a man approaches a mirror placed upon a stand,
beholds in it his own image, so the energy or reflection of Vishnu (the Sun) is
never disjoined but remains in the Sun as in a mirror that is there
stationed" ("Vishnu Purana").
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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this
state of being the ONE LIFE, is, as explained, a FILM for creative or formative
Purposes. It manifests in seven states, which, with their septenary
sub-divisions, are the FORTY-NINE Fires* mentioned in sacred books . . . . . .
(xxix.)
"The first is the . . . . 'Mother' (prima MATERIA). Separating itself into
its primary seven states, it proceeds down cyclically; when** having
consolidated itself in its LAST principle as GROSS MATTER, it revolves around
itself and informs, with the seventh emanation of the last, the first and the
lowest element (the Serpent biting its own tail). In a hierarchy, or order of
being, the seventh emanation of her last principle is:--
(a)
In the mineral, the spark that lies latent in it, and is called to its
evanescent being by the POSITIVE awakening the NEGATIVE (and so forth) . . . .
(b)
In the plant it is that vital and intelligent Force which informs the seed and
develops it into the blade of grass, or the root and sapling. It is the germ
which becomes the UPADHI of the seven principles of the thing it resides in,
shooting them out as the latter grows and develops.
(c)
In every animal it does the same. It is its life principle and vital power; its
instinct and qualities; its characteristics and special idiosyncrasies . . . .
(d)
To man, it gives all that it bestows on all the rest of the manifested units in
nature; but develops, furthermore, the reflection of all its FORTY-NINE FIRES
in him. Each of his seven principles is an heir in full to, and a partaker of,
the seven principles of the "great Mother." The breath of her first
principle is his spirit (Atma). Her second principle is BUDDHI (soul). We call
it, erroneously, the seventh. The third furnishes him with (a) the brain stuff
on the physical plane, and (b) with the MIND that moves it [which is the human
soul. -- H. P. B.] -- according to his organic capacities.
(e)
It is the guiding Force in the Cosmic and terrestrial elements. It resides in
the Fire provoked out of its latent into active being; for the whole of the
seven subdivisions of the * * * principle reside in the terrestrial Fire. It
whirls in the breeze, blows with the hurricane, and sets the air in motion,
which element participates in one of its principles also. Proceeding
cyclically, it regulates the motion
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
In "Vishnu" and other Puranas.
**
See the Hermetic "Nature," "Going down cyclically into matter
when she meets 'heavenly man.' "
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[[Vol.
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of
the water, attracts and repels the waves* according to fixed laws of which its
seventh principle is the informing soul.
(f)
Its four higher principles contain the germ that develops into the Cosmic Gods;
its three lower ones breed the lives of the Elements (Elementals).
(g)
In our Solar world, the One Existence is Heaven and the Earth, the Root and the
flower, the Action and the Thought. It is in the Sun, and is as present in the
glow-worm. Not an atom can escape it. Therefore, the ancient Sages have wisely
called it the manifested God in Nature. . . ."
It
may be interesting, in this connection, to remind the reader of what Mr. Subba
Row said of the Forces -- mystically defined. See "Five Years of
Theosophy" and "The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac." Thus he says:
"Kanya
(the sixth sign of the Zodiac, or Virgo) means a Virgin, and represents Sakti
or Mahamaya. The sign . . . is the 6th Rasi or division, and indicates that
there are six primary forces in Nature (synthesized by the Seventh)" . . .
These Sakti stand as follows: -
(1.)
PARASAKTI. Literally the great or Supreme Force or power. It means and includes
the powers of light and heat.
(2.)
JNANASAKTI. . . . The power of intellect, of real Wisdom or Knowledge. It has
two aspects:
The
following are some of its manifestations when placed under the influence or
control of material conditions. (a) The power of the mind in interpreting our
sensations. (b) Its power in recalling past ideas (memory) and raising future
expectation. (c) Its power as exhibited in what are called by modern
psychologists "the laws of association," which enables it to form
persisting connections between various groups of sensations and possibilities
of sensations, and thus generate the notion or idea of an external object. (d)
Its power in connecting our ideas together by the mysterious link of memory,
and thus generating the notion of self or individuality; some of its
manifestations when liberated from the bonds of matter are -- (a) Clairvoyance,
(b) Psychometry.
(3.)
ITCHASAKTI -- the power of the Will. Its most ordinary manifesta-
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The writers of the above knew perfectly well the physical cause of the tides,
of the waves, etc. It is the informing Spirit of the whole Cosmic solar body
that is meant here, and which is referred to whenever such expressions are used
from the mystic point of view.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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tion
is the generation of certain nerve currents which set in motion such muscles as
are required for the accomplishment of the desired object.
(4.)
KRIYASAKTI. The mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce external,
perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The ancients held
that any idea will manifest itself externally if one's attention is deeply
concentrated upon it. Similarly an intense volition will be followed by the
desired result.
A
Yogi generally performs his wonders by means of Itchasakti and Kriyasakti.
(5.)
KUNDALINI SAKTI. The power or Force which moves in a curved path. It is the
Universal life-Principle manifesting everywhere in nature. This force includes
the two great forces of attraction and repulsion. Electricity and magnetism are
but manifestations of it. This is the power which brings about that
"continuous adjustment of internal relations to external relations"
which is the essence of life according to Herbert Spencer, and that
"continuous adjustment of external relations to internal relations"
which is the basis of transmigration of souls, punar janman (re-birth) in the
doctrines of the ancient Hindu philosophers. A Yogi must thoroughly subjugate
this power before he can attain Moksham. . . .
(6.)
MANTRIKA-SAKTI. The force or power of letters, speech or music. The Mantra
Shastra has for its subject-matter this force in all its
manifestations......... The influence of melody is one of its ordinary
manifestations. The power of the ineffable name is the crown of this Sakti.
Modern
Science has but partly investigated the first, second and fifth of the forces
above named, but is altogether in the dark as regards the remaining powers. The
six forces are in their unity represented by the "Daiviprakriti" (the
Seventh, the light of the LOGOS).
The
above is quoted to show the real Hindu ideas on the same. It is all esoteric,
though not covering the tenth part of what might be said. For one, the six
names of the Six Forces mentioned are those of the six Hierarchies of Dhyan
Chohans synthesized by their Primary, the seventh, who personify the Fifth
Principle of Cosmic Nature, or of the "Mother" in its Mystical Sense.
The enumeration alone of the yogi Powers would require ten volumes. Each of
these Forces has a living Conscious Entity at its head, of which entity it is
an emanation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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But
let us compare with the commentary just cited the words of Hermes, the
"thrice great":--
"The
creation of Life by the Sun is as continuous as his light; nothing arrests or
limits it. Around him, like an army of Satellites, are innumerable choirs of
genii. These dwell in the neighbourhood of the Immortals, and thence watch over
human things. They fulfil the will of the gods (Karma) by means of storms,
tempests, transitions of fire and earthquakes; likewise by famines and wars,
for the punishment of impiety.* . . . It is the sun who preserves and nourishes
all creatures; and even as the Ideal World which environs the sensible world
fills this last with the plenitude and universal variety of forms, so also the
Sun, enfolding all in his light, accomplishes everywhere the birth and
development of creatures." . . . "Under his orders is the choir of
Genii, or rather the choirs, for there are many and diverse, and their number
corresponds to that of the stars. Every star has its genii, good and evil by
nature, or rather by their operation, for operation is the essence of the
genii. . . . All these Genii preside over mundane affairs,** they shake and
overthrow the constitution of States and of individuals; they imprint their
likeness on our Souls, they are present in our nerves, our marrow, our veins,
our arteries, and our very brain-substance . . . at the moment when each of us
receives life and being, he is taken in charge by the genii (Elementals) who
preside over births,*** and who are classed beneath the astral powers
(Superhuman astral Spirits.) They change perpetually, not always identically,
but revolving in circles.**** They permeate by the body two parts of the Soul,
that it may receive from each the impress of his own energy. But the reasonable
part of the Soul is not subject to the genii; it is designed
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
See Stanzas III. and IV. and the Commentaries thereupon, especially the
Comments on Stanza IV. "the Lipika and the four Maharajas," the
agents of Karma.
**
And "Gods" or Dhyanis, too, not only the genii or "guided
Forces."
***
The meaning of this is that as man is composed of all the Great Elements: Fire,
Air, Water, Earth and Ether -- the ELEMENTALS which belong respectively to
these Elements feel attracted to man by reason of their co-essence. That
element which predominates in a certain constitution will be the ruling element
throughout life. For instance, if man has a preponderance of the Earthly,
gnomic element, the gnomes will lead him towards assimilating metals -- money
and wealth, and so on. "Animal man is the son of the animal elements out
of which his Soul (life) was born, and animals are the mirrors of man,"
says Paracelsus (De Fundamento Sapientiae). Paracelsus was cautious, and wanted
the Bible to agree with what he said, and therefore did not say all.
****
Cyclic progress in development.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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for
the reception of (the) God,* who enlightens it with a sunny ray. Those who are
thus illumined are few in number, and from them the genii abstain: for neither
genii nor Gods have any power in the presence of a single ray of God.** But all
other men, both soul and body, are directed by genii, to whom they cleave, and
whose operations they affect........... The genii have then the control of
mundane things and our bodies serve them as instruments...........
The
above, save a few sectarian points, represents that which was a universal
belief common to all nations till about a century or so back. It is still as
orthodox in its broad outlines and features among pagans and Christians alike,
if one excepts a handful of materialists and men of Science.
For
whether one calls the genii of Hermes and his "Gods," "Powers of
Darkness" and "Angels," as in the Greek and Latin Churches; or
"Spirits of the Dead," as in Spiritualism or, again, Bhoots and
Devas, Shaitan or Djin, as they are still called in India and Mussulman countries
-- they are all one and the same thing -- ILLUSION. Let not this, however, be
misunderstood in the sense into which the great philosophical doctrine of the
Vedantists has been lately perverted by Western schools.
All
that which is, emanates from the ABSOLUTE, which, from this qualification
alone, stands as the one and only reality -- hence, everything extraneous to
this Absolute, the generative and causative Element, must be an illusion, most
undeniably. But this is only so from the purely metaphysical view. A man who
regards himself as mentally sane, and is so regarded by his neighbours, calls
the visions of an insane brother -- whose hallucinations make the victim either
happy or supremely wretched, as the case may be -- illusions and fancies likewise.
But, where is that madman for whom the hideous shadows in his deranged mind,
his illusions, are not, for the time being, as actual and as real as the things
which his physician or keeper may see? Everything is relative in this Universe,
everything is an illusion. But
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The God in man and often the incarnation of a God, a highly Spiritual Dhyan
Chohan in him, besides the presence of his own seventh Principle.
**
Now, what "god" is meant here? Not God "the Father," the
anthropomorphic fiction; for that god is the Elohim collectively, and has no
being apart from the Host. Besides, such a god is finite and imperfect. It is
the high Initiates and Adepts who are meant here by those men "few in
number." And it is precisely those men who believe in "gods" and
know no "God," but one Universal unrelated and unconditioned Deity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
experience of any plane is an actuality for the percipient being, whose
consciousness is on that plane; though the said experience, regarded from the
purely metaphysical standpoint, may be conceived to have no objective reality.
But it is not against metaphysicians, but against physicists and materialists
that Esoteric teachings have to fight, and for these Vital Force, Light, Sound,
Electricity, even to the objectively pulling force of magnetism, have no
objective being, and are said to exist merely as "modes of motion,"
"sensations and affections of matter."
Neither
the Occultists generally, nor the Theosophists, reject, as erroneously believed
by some, the views and theories of the modern scientists, only because these
views are opposed to Theosophy. The first rule of our Society is to render unto
Caesar what is Caesar's. The Theosophists, therefore, are the first to
recognize the intrinsic value of science. But when its high priests resolve
consciousness into a secretion from the grey matter of the brain, and
everything else in nature into a mode of motion, we protest against the
doctrine as being unphilosophical, self-contradictory, and simply absurd, from
a scientific point of view, as much and even more than from the occult aspect
of the esoteric knowledge.
For
truly the astral light of the derided Kabalists has strange and weird secrets
for him who can see in it; and the mysteries concealed within its incessantly
disturbed waves are there, the whole body of Materialists and scoffers
notwithstanding.* These secrets, along with
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The astral light of the Kabalists is very incorrectly translated by some
"AEther;" the latter is confused with the hypothetical Ether of
Science, and both are referred to by some theosophists as synonymous with
Akasa. This is a great mistake.
"A
characteristic of Akasa will serve to show how inadequately it is represented
by Ether," writes the author of Rational Refutations, thus unconsciously helping
Occultism. "In dimension it is infinite; it is not made up of parts; and
colour, taste, smell, and tangibility do not appertain to it. So far forth it
corresponds exactly to time, space, Isvara, ("The Lord," but rather
creative potency and soul -- anima mundi). Its speciality, as compared
therewith, consists in its being the material cause of sound. Except for its
being so, one might take it to be one with vacuity" (p. 120.)
It
is vacuity, no doubt, especially for Rationalists. At any rate Akasa is sure to
produce vacuity in the brain of a materialist. Nevertheless, though Akasa is
not that Ether of Science, not even the Ether of the Occultist, who defines the
latter as one of the principles of Akasa only, it is as certainly, together
with its primary, the cause of sound, only a physical and spiritual, not a
material cause by any means. The relations [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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many
other mysteries, will remain non-existent to the materialists of our age, in
the same way as America was a non-existent myth for Europeans during the early
part of the mediaeval ages, whereas Scandinavians and Norwegians had actually
reached and settled in that very old "New World" several centuries
before. But, as a Columbus was born to re-discover, and to force the Old World
to believe in Antipodal countries, so will there be born scientists who will
discover the marvels now claimed by Occultists to exist in the regions of
Ether, with their varied and multiform denizens and conscious Entities. Then,
nolens volens, Science will have to accept the old "Superstition," as
it has several others. And having been once forced to accept it -- judging from
past experience -- its learned professors will, in all probability, as in the
case of MESMERISM and Magnetism, now re-baptised Hypnotism, father the thing
and reject its name. The choice of the new appellation will depend, in its
turn, on the "modes of motion," the new name for the older
"automatic physical processes among the nerve fibrils of the (Scientific)
brain" of Moleschott; as also, very likely, upon the last meal of the
namer; since, according to the Founder of the new Hylo-Idealistic Scheme,
"Cerebration is generically the same as chylification."* Thus, were
one to believe this preposterous proposition, the new name of the archaic thing
would have to take its chance, on the inspiration of the namer's liver, and
then only would these truths have a chance of becoming scientific!
But
TRUTH, however distasteful to the generally blind majorities, has always had
her champions, ready to die for her, and it is not the Occultists who will
protest against its adoption by Science under whatever new name. But, until
absolutely forced on the notice and acceptance of Scientists, many an Occult
truth will be tabooed, as the phenomena of the Spiritualists and other psychic
manifestations were, to be finally appropriated by its ex-traducers without the
least acknowledgment or thanks. Nitrogen has added considerably to chemical
knowledge, but its discoverer, Paracelsus, is to this day called a
"quack."
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of Ether to Akasa may be defined by applying to
both Akasa and Ether the words said of the god in the Vedas, "So himself
was indeed (his own) son," one being the progeny of the other and yet
itself. This may be a difficult riddle to the profane, but very easy to
understand for any Hindu -- though not even a mystic.
*
National Reformer, January 9th, 1887. Article "Phreno-Kosmo-Biology,"
by Dr. Lewins.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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How
profoundly true are the words of H. T. Buckle, in his admirable "History
of Civilization" (Vol. I., p. 256), when he says:--
"Owing
to circumstances still unknown (Karmic provision, H.P.B.) there appear from
time to time great thinkers, who, devoting their lives to a single purpose, are
able to anticipate the progress of mankind, and to produce a religion or a
philosophy by which important effects are eventually brought about. But if we
look into history we shall clearly see that, although the origin of a new
opinion may be thus due to a single man, the result which the new opinion
produces will depend on the condition of the people among whom it is
propagated. If either a religion or a philosophy is too much in advance of a
nation it can do no present service but must bide its time* until the minds of
men are ripe for its reception. . . . Every science, every creed has had its
martyrs. According to the ordinary course of affairs, a few generations pass
away, and then there comes a period when these very truths are looked upon as
commonplace facts, and a little later there comes another period in which they
are declared to be necessary, and even the dullest intellect wonders how they
could ever have been denied."
It
is barely possible that the minds of the present generations are not quite ripe
for the reception of Occult truths. Such will be the retrospect furnished to
the advanced thinkers of the Sixth Root Race of the history of the acceptance
of Esoteric Philosophy -- fully and unconditionally. Meanwhile the generations
of our Fifth Race will continue to be led away by prejudice and preconceptions.
Occult Sciences will have the finger of scorn pointed at them from every street
corner, and everyone will seek to ridicule and crush them in the name, and for
the greater glory, of Materialism and its so-called Science. The Addendum which
completes the present Book shows, however, in an anticipatory answer to several
of the forthcoming Scientific objections, the true and mutual positions of the
defendant and plaintiff. The Theosophists and Occultists stand arraigned by
public opinion, which still holds high the banner of the inductive Sciences.
The latter have, then, to be examined; and it must be shown how far their
achievements and discoveries in the realm of natural laws are opposed, not so
much to our claims, as to the facts in nature. The hour has now struck to
ascertain whether the
[[Footnote(s)]]-------------------------------------------------
*
This is Cyclic law, but this law itself is often defied by human stubbornness.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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walls
of the modern Jericho are so impregnable that no blast of the Occult trumpet is
ever likely to make them crumble.
The
so-called Forces, with Light and Electricity heading them, and the constitution
of the Solar orb must be carefully examined; as also Gravitation and the
Nebular theories. The Natures of Ether and of other Elements must be discussed:
thus contrasting scientific with other Occult teachings, while revealing some
of the hitherto secret tenets of the latter. (Vide Addendum.)
Some
fifteen years ago, the writer was the first to repeat, after the Kabalists, the
wise Commandments in the Esoteric Catechism. "Close thy mouth, lest thou
shouldst speak of this (the mystery), and thy heart, lest thou shouldst think
aloud; and if thy heart has escaped thee, bring it back to its place, for such
is the object of our alliance." (Sepher Jezireh, Book of Creation.) And
again:-- "This is a secret which gives death: close thy mouth lest thou
shouldst reveal it to the vulgar; compress thy brain lest something should
escape from it and fall outside." (Rules of Initiation.)
A
few years later, a corner of the Veil of Isis had to be lifted; and now another
and a larger rent is made. . . .
But
old and time-honoured errors -- such as become with every day more glaring and
self-evident -- stand arrayed in battle-order now, as they did then. Marshalled
by blind conservatism, conceit and prejudice, they are constantly on the watch,
ready to strangle every truth, which, awakening from its age-long sleep,
happens to knock for admission. Such has been the case ever since man became an
animal. That this proves in every case moral death to the revealers, who bring
to light any of these old, old truths, is as certain as that it gives LIFE and
REGENERATION to those who are fit to profit even by the little that is now
revealed to them.
---------------------
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[[blank]]
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[[Vol.
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BOOK
I., PART II.
THE
EVOLUTION
OF SYMBOLISM
IN
ITS APPROXIMATE ORDER.
---------------------
EXPLANATORY
SECTIONS.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page 302]]
CONTENTS.
-------
§§.
PAGE.
I.
-- SYMBOLISM AND IDEOGRAPHS ... 303
II.
-- MYSTERY LANGUAGE ... 310
III.
-- PRIMORDIAL SUBSTANCE AND DIVINE THOUGHT ... 325
IV.
-- CHAOS, THEOS, KOSMOS ... 342
V.
-- THE HIDDEN DEITY AND ITS GLYPHS ... 349
VI.
-- THE MUNDANE EGG ... 359
VII.
-- THE DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA ... 368
VIII.
-- THE LOTUS AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL ... 379
IX.
-- DEUS LUNUS ... 386
X.
-- TREE AND SERPENT AND CROCODILE WORSHIP ... 403
XI.
-- DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS ... 411
XII.
-- THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS ... 424
XIII.
-- THE SEVEN CREATIONS ... 445
XIV.
-- THE FOUR ELEMENTS OF THE ANCIENTS ... 460
XV.
-- ON KWAN-SHI YIN AND KWAN-YIN ... 470
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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BOOK
I. -- PART II.
(SECRET
DOCTRINE.)
§
I.
SYMBOLISM
AND IDEOGRAPHS.
"A
symbol is ever, to him who has eyes for it,
some
dimmer or clearer revelation of the God-like.
Through
all there glimmers something of a divine
idea;
nay, the highest ensign that men ever met and
embraced
under the cross itself, had no meaning, save
an
accidental extrinsic one." CARLYLE.
THE
study of the hidden meaning in every religious and profane legend, of
whatsoever nation, large or small -- pre-eminently the traditions of the East
-- has occupied the greater portion of the present writer's life. She is one of
those who feel convinced that no mythological story, no traditional event in
the folk-lore of a people has ever been, at any time, pure fiction, but that
every one of such narratives has an actual, historical lining to it. In this
the writer disagrees with those symbologists, however great their reputation,
who find in every myth nothing save additional proofs of the superstitious bent
of mind of the ancients, and believe that all mythologies sprung from and are
built upon solar myths. Such superficial thinkers were admirably disposed of by
Mr. Gerald Massey, the poet and Egyptologist, in a lecture on "Luniolatry,
Ancient and Modern." His pointed criticism is worthy of reproduction in this
part of this work, as it echoes so well our own feelings, expressed openly so
far back as 1875, when "Isis Unveiled" was written.
"For
thirty years past Professor Max Muller has been teaching in his books and
lectures, in the Times and various magazines, from the platform of the Royal
Institution, the pulpit of Westminster Abbey, and his chair at Oxford, that
mythology is a disease of language, and that the ancient symbolism was a result
of something like a primitive aberration.
"'We
know,' says Renouf, echoing Max Muller, in his Hibbert lectures, 'we know that
mythology is the disease which springs up at a peculiar stage of human
culture.' Such is the shallow explanation of the non-evolutionists, and such
explanations are still accepted by the British public, that gets its think-
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[[Vol.
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ing
done by proxy. Professor Max Muller, Cox, Gubernatis, and other propounders of
the Solar Mythos, have portrayed the primitive myth-maker for us as a sort of
Germanised-Hindu metaphysician, projecting his own shadow on a mental mist, and
talking ingeniously concerning smoke, or, at least, cloud; the sky overhead
becoming like the dome of dreamland, scribbled over with the imagery of
aboriginal nightmares! They conceive the early man in their own likeness, and
look upon him as perversely prone to self-mystification, or, as Fontenelle has
it, 'subject to beholding things that are not there.' They have misrepresented
primitive or archaic man as having been idiotically misled from the first by an
active but untutored imagination into believing all sorts of fallacies, which
were directly and constantly contradicted by his own daily experience; a fool
of fancy in the midst of those grim realities that were grinding his experience
into him, like the grinding icebergs making their imprints upon the rocks
submerged beneath the sea. It remains to be said, and will one day be
acknowledged, that these accepted teachers have been no nearer to the
beginnings of mythology and language than Burns' poet Willie had been near to
Pegasus. My reply is, 'Tis but a dream of the metaphysical theorist that
mythology was a disease of language, or of anything else except his own brain.
The origin and meaning of mythology have been missed altogether by these
solarites and weather-mongers! Mythology was a primitive mode of thinking the
early thought. It was founded on natural facts, and is still verifiable in
phenomena. There is nothing insane, nothing irrational in it, when considered
in the light of evolution, and when its mode of expression by sign-language is
thoroughly understood. The insanity lies in mistaking it for human history or
Divine Revelation.* Mythology is the repository of man's most ancient science,
and what concerns us chiefly is this -- when truly interpreted once more, it is
destined to be the death of those false theologies to which it has unwittingly
given birth.** In modern phraseology a statement is sometimes said to be
mythical in proportion to its being untrue; but the ancient mythology was not a
system or mode of falsifying in that sense. Its fables were the means of
conveying facts; they were neither forgeries nor fictions. . . . For example,
when the Egyptians portrayed the moon as a Cat, they were not ignorant enough
to suppose that the moon was a cat; nor did their wandering fancies see any
likeness in the moon to a cat; nor was a cat-myth any mere expansion of verbal
metaphor; nor had they any intention of making puzzles or riddles. . . . They
had observed the simple fact that the cat saw in the dark, and that her eyes
became full-orbed, and grew most luminous by night. The moon was the seer by
night in heaven, and the cat was its equivalent on the earth; and so the
familiar cat was adopted as a representative, a natural sign, a living
pictograph of the lunar orb. . . . And so it followed that the sun which saw
down in the under-world at night could also be called the cat, as it was,
because it also saw in the dark. The name of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As far as divine revelation is concerned, we agree. Not so with regard to
"human history." . . . For there is "history" in most of
the allegories and "myths" of India, and events, real actual events,
are concealed under them.
**
When the "false theologies" disappear, then true prehistoric
realities will be found, contained especially in the mythology of the Aryans --
ancient Hindoos, and even the pre-Homeric Hellenes.
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[[Vol.
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cat
in Egyptian is mau, which denotes the seer, from mau, to see. One writer on
mythology asserts that the Egyptians 'imagined a great cat behind the sun,
which is the pupil of the cat's eye.' But this imagining is all modern. It is
the Mullerite stock in trade. The moon as cat was the eye of the sun, because
it reflected the solar light, and because the eye gives back image in its
mirror. In the form of the goddess Pasht, the cat keeps watch for the sun, with
her paw holding down and bruising the head of the serpent of darkness, called
his eternal enemy. . . ."
This
is a very correct exposition of the lunar-mythos from its astronomical aspect.
Selenography, however, is the least esoteric of the divisions of lunar
Symbology. To master thoroughly -- if one is permitted to coin a new word --
Selenognosis, one must become proficient in more than its astronomical meaning.
The moon (vide § VII. Deus Lunus) is intimately related to the Earth, as shown
in Stanza VI. of Book I., and is more directly concerned with all the mysteries
of our globe than is even Venus-Lucifer, the occult sister and alter-ego of the
Earth.
The
untiring researches of Western, and especially German, symbologists, during the
last and the present centuries, have brought every Occultist and most
unprejudiced persons to see that without the help of symbology (with its seven
departments, of which the moderns know nothing) no ancient Scripture can ever
be correctly understood. Symbology must be studied from every one of its
aspects, for each nation had its own peculiar methods of expression. In short,
no Egyptian papyrus, no Indian tolla, no Assyrian tile, or Hebrew scroll,
should be read and accepted literally.
This
every scholar now knows. The able lectures of Mr. G. Massey alone are
sufficient in themselves to convince any fair-minded Christian that to accept
the dead-letter of the Bible is equivalent to falling into a grosser error and superstition
than any hitherto evolved by the brain of the savage South Sea Islander. But
the point to which even the most truth-loving and truth-searching Orientalists
-- whether Aryanists or Egyptologists -- seem to remain blind, is the fact that
every symbol in papyrus or olla is a many-faced diamond, each of whose facets
not merely bears several interpretations, but relates likewise to several
sciences. This is instanced in the just quoted interpretation of the moon
symbolized by the cat -- an example of sidero-terrestrial imagery; the moon
bearing many other meanings besides this with other nations.
As
a learned Mason and Theosophist, the late Mr. Kenneth Mackenzie, has shown in
his Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia, there is a great difference between emblem and
symbol. The former "comprises a larger series of thoughts than a symbol,
which may be said rather to illustrate some single special idea." Hence,
the symbols (say lunar, or solar) of several countries, each illustrating such
a special idea, or series of ideas, form collectively an esoteric emblem. The
latter is "a concrete visible
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[[Vol.
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picture
or sign representing principles, or a series of principles, recognizable by
those who have received certain instructions" (initiates). To put it still
plainer, an emblem is usually a series of graphic pictures viewed and explained
allegorically, and unfolding an idea in panoramic views, one after the other.
Thus the Puranas are written emblems. So are the Mosaic and Christian
Testaments, or the Bible, and all other exoteric Scriptures. As the same
authority shows:--
"All
esoteric Societies have made use of emblems and symbols, such as the
Pythagorean Society, the Eleusinian, the Hermetic Brethren of Egypt, the
Rosicrucians, and the Freemasons. Many of these emblems it is not proper to
divulge to the general eye, and a very minute difference may make the emblem or
symbol differ widely in its meaning. The magical sigillae, being founded on
certain principles of numbers, partake of this character, and although
monstrous or ridiculous in the eyes of the uninstructed, convey a whole body of
doctrine to those who have been trained to recognise them."
The
above enumerated societies are all comparatively modern, none dating back
earlier than the middle ages. How much more proper, then, that the students of
the oldest Archaic School should be careful not to divulge secrets of far more
importance to humanity (in the sense of being dangerous in the hands of the
latter) than any of the so-called "Masonic Secrets," which have now
become, as the French say, those of "Polichinelle!" But this
restriction can apply only to the psychological or rather psycho-physiological
and Cosmical significance of symbol and emblem, and even to that only
partially. An adept must refuse to impart the conditions and means that lead to
a correlation of elements, whether psychic or physical, that may produce a
hurtful result as well as a beneficent one. But he is ever ready to impart to
the earnest student the secret of the ancient thought in anything that regards
history concealed under mythological symbolism, and thus to furnish a few more
land-marks towards a retrospective view of the past, as containing useful
information with regard to the origin of man, the evolution of the races and
geognosy; yet it is the crying complaint of to-day, not only among
theosophists, but also among the few profane interested in the subject.
"Why do not the adepts reveal that which they know?" To this, one
might answer, "Why should they, since one knows beforehand that no man of
science will accept, even as an hypothesis, let alone as a theory or axiom, the
facts imparted. Have you so much as accepted or believed in the A B C of the
Occult philosophy contained in the Theosophist, "Esoteric Buddhism,"
and other works and periodicals? Has not even the little which was given, been
ridiculed and derided, and made to face the "animal" and "ape
theory" of Huxley -- Haeckel, on one hand, and the rib of Adam and the
apple on the other? Notwithstanding such an unenviable prospect, a mass of
facts is given in the present work. And now the origin of man, the evolution of
the globe and
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[[Vol.
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the
races, human and animal, are as fully treated here as the writer is able to
treat them.
The
proofs brought forward in corroboration of the old teachings are scattered
widely throughout the old scriptures of ancient civilizations. The Puranas, the
Zendavesta, and the old classics are full of them; but no one has ever gone to
the trouble of collecting and collating together those facts. The reason for
this is, that all such events were recorded symbolically; and that the best
scholars, the most acute minds, among our Aryanists and Egyptologists, have
been too often darkened by one or another preconception; still oftener, by
one-sided views of the secret meaning. Yet even a parable is a spoken symbol: a
fiction or a fable, as some think; an allegorical representation, we say, of
life-realities, events, and facts. And, as a moral was ever drawn from a
parable, that moral being an actual truth and fact in human life, so an historical,
real event was deduced -- by those versed in the hieratic sciences -- from
certain emblems and symbols recorded in the ancient archives of the temples.
The religious and esoteric history of every nation was embedded in symbols; it
was never expressed in so many words. All the thoughts and emotions, all the
learning and knowledge, revealed and acquired, of the early races, found their
pictorial expression in allegory and parable. Why? Because the spoken word has
a potency unknown to, unsuspected and disbelieved in, by the modern
"sages." Because sound and rhythm are closely related to the four
Elements of the Ancients; and because such or another vibration in the air is
sure to awaken corresponding powers, union with which produces good or bad
results, as the case may be. No student was ever allowed to recite historical,
religious, or any real events in so many unmistakable words, lest the powers
connected with the event should be once more attracted. Such events were
narrated only during the Initiation, and every student had to record them in
corresponding symbols, drawn out of his own mind and examined later by his
master, before they were finally accepted. Thus was created in time the Chinese
Alphabet, as, before that, the hieratic symbols were fixed upon in old Egypt.
In the Chinese language, the alphabet of which may be read in any language,*
and which is only a little less ancient than the Egyptian alphabet of Thoth,
every word has its corresponding symbol conveying the word needed in a
pictorial form. The language possesses many thousands of such symbol letters,
or logograms, each meaning a whole word; for letters proper, or an alphabet, do
not exist in the Chinese language any more than they did in the Egyptian till a
far later period.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus, a Japanese who does not understand one word of Chinese, meeting with a
Chinaman who has never heard the language of the former, will communicate in
writing with him, and they will understand each other perfectly -- because the
writing is symbolical.
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The
explanation of the chief symbols and emblems is now attempted, as Book II.,
which treats of Anthropogenesis, would be most difficult to understand without
a preparatory acquaintance with the metaphysical symbols at least.
Nor
would it be just to enter upon an esoteric reading of symbolism without giving due
honour to one who has rendered it the greatest service in this century, by
discovering the chief key to ancient Hebrew symbology, interwoven strongly with
metrology, one of the keys to the once universal mystery language. Mr. Ralston
Skinner, of Cincinnati, the author of "The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery and the
Source of Measures" has our thanks. A mystic and a Kabalist by nature, he
has laboured for many years in this direction, and his efforts were certainly
crowned with great success. In his own words:--
"The
writer is quite certain that there was an ancient language which modernly and
up to this time appears to have been lost, the vestiges of which, however,
abundantly exist. . . . The author discovered that this (integral ratio in
numbers of diameter to circumference of a circle) geometrical ratio was the
very ancient, and probably the divine origin of linear measures. . . . It
appears almost proven that the same system of geometry, numbers, ratio, and
measures were known and made use of on the continent of North America, even
prior to the knowledge of the same by the descending Semites. . . . ."
"The
peculiarity of this language was that it could be contained in another,
concealed and not to be perceived, save through the help of special
instruction; letters and syllabic signs possessing at the same time the powers
or meaning of numbers, of geometrical shapes, pictures, or ideographs and
symbols, the designed scope of which would be determinatively helped out by
parables in the shape of narratives or parts of narratives; while also it could
be set forth separately, independently, and variously, by pictures, in stone
work, or in earth construction."
"To
clear up an ambiguity as to the term language: Primarily the word means the
expression of ideas by human speech; but, secondarily, it may mean the
expression of ideas by any other instrumentality. This old language is so
composed in the Hebrew text, that by the use of the written characters, which
will be the language first defined, a distinctly separated series of ideas may
be intentionally communicated, other than those ideas expressed by the reading
of the sound signs. This secondary language sets forth, under a veil, series of
ideas, copies in imagination of things sensible, which may be pictured, and of
things which may be classed as real without being sensible; as, for instance,
the number 9 may be taken as a reality, though it has no sensible existence, so
also a revolution of the moon, as separate from the moon itself by which that
revolution has been made, may be taken as giving rise to, or causing a real
idea, though such a revolution has no substance. This idea-language may consist
of symbols restricted to arbitrary terms and signs, having a very limited range
of conceptions, and quite valueless, or it may be a reading of nature in some
of her manifestations of a value almost immeasurable, as regards human
civilization. A picture of something natural may give rise to ideas of
co-ordina-
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[[Vol.
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tive
subject-matter, radiating out in various and even opposing directions, like the
spokes of a wheel, and producing natural realities in departments very foreign
to the apparent tendency of the reading of the first or starting picture.
Notion may give rise to connected notion, but if it does, then, however
apparently incongruous, all resulting ideas must spring from the original
picture and be harmonically connected, or related. . . . Thus with a pictured
idea radical enough, the imagination of the Cosmos itself even in its details
of construction might result. Such a use of ordinary language is now obsolete,
but it has become a question with the writer whether at one time, far back in
the past, it, or such, was not the language of the world and of universal use,
possessed, however, as it became more and more moulded into its arcane forms,
by a select class or caste. By this I mean that the popular tongue or
vernacular commenced even in its origin to be made use of as the vehicle of
this peculiar mode of conveying ideas. Of this the evidences are very strong;
and, indeed, it would seem that in the history of the human race there
happened, from causes which at present, at any rate, we cannot trace, a lapse or
loss from an original perfect language and a perfect system of science -- shall
we say perfect because they were of divine origin and importation?"
"Divine
origin" does not mean here a revelation from an anthropomorphic god on a
mount amidst thunder and lightning; but, as we understand it, a language and a
system of science imparted to the early mankind by a more advanced mankind, so
much higher as to be divine in the sight of that infant humanity. By a
"mankind," in short, from other spheres; an idea which contains
nothing supernatural in it, but the acceptance or rejection of which depends
upon the degree of conceit and arrogance in the mind of him to whom it is
stated. For, if the professors of modern knowledge would only confess that,
though they know nothing of the future of the disembodied man -- or rather will
accept nothing -- yet this future may be pregnant with surprises and unexpected
revelations to them, once their Egos are rid of their gross bodies -- then
materialistic unbelief would have fewer chances than it has. Who of them knows,
or can tell, what may happen when once the life cycle of this globe is run down
and our mother earth herself falls into her last sleep? Who is bold enough to
say that the divine Egos of our mankind -- at least the elect out of the
multitudes passing on to other spheres -- will not become in their turn the
"divine" instructors of a new mankind generated by them on a new
globe, called to life and activity by the disembodied "principles" of
our Earth? (See Stanza VI., Book I., Part 1.) All this may have been the
experience of the PAST, and these strange records lie embedded in the
"Mystery language" of the prehistoric ages, the language now called
SYMBOLISM.
--------------
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[[Vol.
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§
II.
THE
MYSTERY LANGUAGE AND ITS KEYS.
RECENT
discoveries made by great mathematicians and Kabalists thus prove, beyond a
shadow of doubt, that every theology, from the earliest and oldest down to the
latest, has sprung not only from a common source of abstract beliefs, but from
one universal esoteric, or "Mystery" language. These scholars hold
the key to the universal language of old, and have turned it successfully, though
only once, in the hermetically closed door leading to the Hall of Mysteries.
The great archaic system known from prehistoric ages as the sacred Wisdom
Science, one that is contained and can be traced in every old as well as in
every new religion, had, and still has, its universal language -- suspected by
the Mason Ragon -- the language of the Hierophants, which has seven
"dialects," so to speak, each referring, and being specially
appropriated, to one of the seven mysteries of Nature. Each had its own symbolism.
Nature could thus be either read in its fulness, or viewed from one of its
special aspects.
The
proof of this lies, to this day, in the extreme difficulty which the
Orientalists in general, the Indianists and Egyptologists especially,
experience in interpreting the allegorical writings of the Aryans and the
hieratic records of old Egypt. This is because they will never remember that
all the ancient records were written in a language which was universal and
known to all nations alike in days of old, but which is now intelligible only
to the few. Like the Arabic figures which are plain to a man of whatever
nation, or like the English word and, which becomes et for the Frenchman, und
for the German, and so on, yet which may be expressed for all civilized nations
in the simple sign & -- so all the words of that mystery language signified
the same thing to each man of whatever nationality. There have been several men
of note who have tried to re-establish such a universal and philosophical
tongue: Delgarme, Wilkins, Leibnitz; but Demaimieux, in his Pasigraphie, is the
only one who has proven its possibility. The scheme of Valentinius, called the
"Greek Kabala," based on the combination of Greek letters, might
serve as a model.
The
many-sided facets of the mystery language have led to the adoption of widely
varied dogmas and rites in the exotericism of the Church rituals. It is they,
again, which are at the origin of most of the dogmas of the Christian Church,
e.g., the seven Sacraments, the Trinity, the Resurrection; the seven capital
Sins and the seven Virtues. The seven keys to the mystery tongue, however,
having always been in
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[[Vol.
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the
keeping of the highest among the initiated Hierophants of antiquity, it is only
the partial use of a few out of the seven which passed, through the treason of
some early Church Fathers -- ex-initiates of the Temples -- into the hands of
the new sect of the Nazarenes. Some of the early Popes were Initiates, but the
last fragments of their knowledge have now fallen into the power of the
Jesuits, who have turned them into a system of sorcery.
It
is maintained that INDIA (not in its present limits, but including its ancient
boundaries) is the only country in the world which still has among her sons
adepts, who have the knowledge of all the seven sub-systems and the key to the
entire system. Since the fall of Memphis, Egypt began to lose those keys one by
one, and Chaldea had preserved only three in the days of Berosus. As for the
Hebrews, in all their writings they show no more than a thorough knowledge of
the astronomical, geometrical and numerical systems of symbolizing all the
human, and especially the physiological functions. They never had the higher
keys.
"Every
time I hear people talking of the religion of Egypt," writes M. Gaston
Maspero, the great French Egyptologist and the successor of Mariette Bey,
"I am tempted to ask which of the Egyptian religions they are talking
about? Is it of the Egyptian religion of the 4th Dynasty, or of the Egyptian
religion of the Ptolemaic period? Is it of the religion of the rabble, or of
that of the learned men? Of that which was taught in the schools of Heliopolis,
or of that other which was in the minds and conceptions of the Theban
sacerdotal class? For, between the first tomb of Memphis, which bears the
cartouche of a king of the third dynasty, and the last stones at Esneh under
Caesar-Philippus, the Arabian, there is an interval of at least five thousand
years. Leaving aside the invasion of the Shepherds, the Ethiopian and Assyrian
dominions, the Persian conquest, Greek colonization, and the thousand
revolutions of its political life, Egypt has passed during those five thousand
years through many vicissitudes of life, moral and intellectual. Chapter XVII.
of the Book of the Dead which seems to contain the exposition of the system of
the world as it was understood at Heliopolis during the time of the first
dynasties, is known to us only by a few copies of the eleventh and twelfth
dynasties. Each of the verses composing it was already at the time interpreted
in three or four different ways; so different, indeed, that according to this
or another school, the Demiurge became the solar fire -- Ra-shoo, or the
primordial water. Fifteen centuries later, the number of readings had increased
considerably. Time had, in its course, modified the ideas about the universe
and the forces that ruled it. During the hardly 18 centuries that Christianity
exists, it has worked,
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developed
and transformed most of its dogmas; how many times, then, might not the
Egyptian clergy have altered its dogmas during those fifty centuries that
separate Theodosius from the King Builders of the Pyramids?"
Here
we believe the eminent Egyptologist is going too far. The exoteric dogmas may
often have been altered, the esoteric never. He does not take into account the
sacred immutability of the primitive truths, revealed only during the mysteries
of initiation. The Egyptian priests have forgotten much, they altered nothing.
The loss of a good deal of the primitive teaching was due to the sudden deaths
of the great Hierophants, who passed away before they had time to reveal all to
their successors; mostly, to the absence of worthy heirs to the knowledge. Yet
they have preserved in their rituals and dogmas the principal teachings of the
secret doctrine. Thus, in the seventeenth chapter mentioned by Maspero, one
finds (1) Osiris saying he is Toum (the creative force in nature, giving form
to all Beings, spirits and men), self-generated and self-existent, issued from
Noun, the celestial river, called Father-mother of the gods, the primordial
deity, which is chaos or the Deep, impregnated by the unseen spirit. (2) He has
found Shoo (solar force) on the staircase in the City of the Eight (the two
cubes of good and Evil), and he has annihilated the evil principles in Noun
(chaos) the children of Rebellion. (3) He is the Fire and Water, i.e., Noun the
primordial parent, and he created the gods out of his limbs -- 14 gods (twice
seven) seven dark and seven light gods (the seven Spirits of the Presence of the
Christians and the Seven dark Evil Spirits). (4) He is the Law of existence and
Being (v. 10), the Bennoo (or phoenix, the bird of resurrection in Eternity),
in whom night follows the day, and day the night -- an allusion to the
periodical cycles of cosmic resurrection and human re-incarnation; for what can
this mean? "The wayfarer who crosses millions of years, in the name of
One, and the great green (primordial water or Chaos) the name of the
other" (v. 17), one begetting millions of years in succession, the other
engulfing them, to restore them back. (5) He speaks of the Seven Luminous ones
who follow their Lord, who confers justice (Osiris in Amenti).
All
this is now shown to have been the source and origin of Christian dogmas. That
which the Jews had from Egypt, through Moses and other initiates, was confused
and distorted enough in later days; and that which the Church got from both, is
still more misinterpreted.
Yet
their system is now proven identical in this special department of symbology --
the key, namely, to the mysteries of astronomy as connected with those of
generation and conception -- with those ideas of ancient religions, the
theology of which has developed the phallic element. The Jewish system of
sacred measures applied to religious symbols is the same,
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[[Vol.
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so
far as geometrical and numerical combinations go, as those of Chaldea, Greece,
and Egypt, having been adopted by the Jews during the centuries of their
slavery and captivity with those nations.* What was that system? It is the
intimate conviction of the author of "The Source of Measures" that
"the Mosaic Books were intended, by a mode of art speech, to set forth a geometrical
and numerical system of exact science, which should serve as an origin of
measures." Piazzi Smyth believes likewise. This system and these measures
are found by some scholars to be identical with those used in the construction
of the great pyramid -- but this is only partially so. "The foundation of
these measures was the Parker ratio," says Mr. R. Skinner, in "The
Source of Measures."
The
author of this very extraordinary work has found it out, he says, in the use of
the integral ratio in numbers of diameter to circumference of a circle,
discovered by John Parker, of New York. This ratio is 6,561 for diameter, and
20,612 for circumference. Furthermore, that this geometrical ratio was the very
ancient (and probably) the divine origin of what have now become through
exoteric handling and practical application the British linear measures,
"the underlying unit of which, viz., the inch, was likewise the base of
one of the royal Egyptian cubits and of the Roman foot. He also found out that
there was a modified form of the ratio, viz., 113-355 (explained in his work);
and that while this last ratio pointed through its origin to the exact integral
pi, or to 6,561 to 20,612, it also served as a base for astronomical
calculations. The author discovered that a system of exact science,
geometrical, numerical, and astronomical, founded on these ratios and to be
found in use in the construction of the Great Egyptian Pyramid, was in part the
burden of this language as contained in, and concealed under, the verbiage of
the Hebrew text of the Bible. The inch and the two-foot rule of 24 inches
interpreted for use through the elements of the circle (see first pages of Book
I.) and the ratios mentioned, were found to be at the basis or foundation of
this natural and Egyptian and Hebrew system of science, while, moreover, it
seems evident enough that the system itself was looked upon as of divine origin
and of divine revela-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As we said in Isis (Vol. II. p. 438-9), "To the present moment, in spite
of all controversies and researches, History and Science remain as much as ever
in the dark as to the origin of the Jews. They may be as well the exiled
Tchandalas of old India, the 'bricklayers' mentioned by Vina-Svata, Veda-Vyasa
and Manu, as the Phoenicians of Herodotus, or the Hyk-Sos of Josephus, or
descendants of Pali shepherds, or a mixture of all these. The Bible names the
Tyrians as a kindred people, and claims dominion over them. . . . Yet whatever
they may have been, they became a hybrid people, not long after Moses, as the
Bible shows them freely intermarrying not alone with the Canaanites, but with
every other nation or race they came in contact with."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 314 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
tion.
. . ." But let us see what is said by the opponents of Prof. Piazzi
Smyth's measurements of the Pyramid.
Mr.
Petrie seems to deny them, and to have made short work altogether of Piazzi
Smyth's calculations in their Biblical connection. So does Mr. Proctor, the
champion "Coincidentalist" for many years past in every question of
ancient arts and sciences. Speaking of "the multitude of relations
independent of the Pyramid, which have turned up while the Pyramidalists have
been endeavouring to connect the pyramid with the solar system . . . . these
coincidences," he says, "are altogether more curious than any
coincidence between the Pyramid and astronomical numbers: the former are as
close and remarkable as they are real" (i.e., those
"coincidences" that would remain if even the pyramid had no
existence); "the latter which are only imaginary (?) have only been
established by the process which schoolboys call 'fudging,' and now new
measures have left the work to be done all over again" (Petrie's letter to
the Academy, Dec. 17, 1881.) To this Mr. Staniland Wake justly observes in his
work on "The Origin and Significance of the Great Pyramid" (London,
1882): "They must, however, have been more than mere coincidences, if the
builders of the Pyramid had the astronomical knowledge displayed in its perfect
orientation and in its other admitted astronomical features."
They
had it; and it is on this "knowledge" that the programme of the
MYSTERIES and of the series of Initiations was based: thence, the construction
of the Pyramids, the everlasting record and the indestructible symbol of these
Mysteries and Initiations on Earth, as the courses of the stars are in Heaven.
The cycle of Initiation was a reproduction in miniature of that great series of
Cosmic changes to which astronomers have given the name of tropical or sidereal
year. Just as, at the close of the cycle of the sidereal year [25,868 years],
the heavenly bodies return to the same relative positions as they occupied at
its outset, so at the close of the cycle of Initiation the inner man has
regained the pristine state of divine purity and knowledge from which he set
out on his cycle of terrestrial incarnation.
Moses,
an Initiate into the Egyptian Mystagogy, based the religious mysteries of the
new nation which he created, upon the same abstract formula derived from this
sidereal cycle, which he symbolised under the form and measurements of the
tabernacle, that he is supposed to have constructed in the wilderness. On these
data, the later Jewish High Priests constructed the allegory of Solomon's
Temple -- a building which never had a real existence, any more than had King
Solomon himself, who is simply, and as much a solar myth as is the still later
Hiram Abif, of the Masons, as Ragon has well demonstrated. Thus, if the
measurements of this allegorical temple, the symbol of the cycle of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 315 PIAZZA SMYTH AND PETRIE DISAGREE.
Initiation,
coincide with those of the Great Pyramid, it is due to the fact that the former
were derived from the latter through the Tabernacle of Moses.
That
our author has undeniably discovered one and even two of the keys is fully
demonstrated in the work just quoted. One has but to read it to feel a growing
conviction that the hidden meaning of the allegories and parables of both
Testaments is now unveiled. But that he owes this discovery far more to his own
genius than to Parker and Piazzi Smyth, is as certain, if not more so. For, as
just shown, whether the measures of the great Pyramid taken and adopted as the
correct ones by the Biblical "Pyramidalists" are beyond suspicion, is
not so sure. A proof of this is the work called "The Pyramids and Temples
of Gizeh," by Mr. F. Petrie, besides other works written quite recently to
oppose the said calculations, which were called biassed. We gather that nearly
every one of Piazzi Smyth's measurements differs from the later and more
carefully made measurements of Mr. Petrie, who concludes the Introduction to
his work with this sentence:
"As
to the results of the whole investigation, perhaps many theories will agree
with an American who was a warm believer in Pyramid theories when he came to
Gizeh. I had the pleasure of his company there for a couple of days, and at our
last meal together he said to me in a saddened tone -- 'Well, Sir! I feel as if
I had been to a funeral. By all means let the old theories have a decent
burial, though we should take care that in our haste none of the wounded ones
are buried alive.'"
As
regards the late J. Parker's calculation in general, and his third proposition
especially, we have consulted some eminent mathematicians, and this is the
substance of what they say:
Parker's
reasoning rests on sentimental, rather than mathematical, considerations, and
is logically inconclusive.
Proposition
III., namely, that --
"The
circle is the natural basis or beginning of all area, and the square being made
so in mathematical science, is artificial and arbitrary --"
--
is an illustration of an arbitrary proposition, and cannot safely be relied
upon in mathematical reasoning. The same observation applies, even more strongly,
to Proposition VII., which states that:
"Because
the circle is the primary shape in nature, and hence the basis of area; and
because the circle is measured by, and is equal to the square only in ratio of
half its circumference by the radius, therefore, circumference and radius, and
not the square of diameter, are the only natural and legitimate elements of
area, by which all regular shapes are made equal to the square, and equal to
the circle."
Proposition
IX. is a remarkable example of faulty reasoning, and it is the one on which Mr.
Parker's Quadrature mainly rests. Here it is:--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 316 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"The
circle and the equilateral triangle are opposite to one another in all the
elements of their construction, and hence the fractional diameter of one
circle, which is equal to the diameter of one square, is in the opposite
duplicate ratio to the diameter of an equilateral triangle whose area is one,"
etc., etc.
Granting,
for the sake of argument, that a triangle can be said to have a radius in the
sense in which we speak of the radius of a circle, -- for what Parker calls the
radius of the triangle is the radius of a circle inscribed in the triangle and
therefore not the radius of the triangle at all, -- and granting for the moment
the other fanciful and mathematical propositions united in his premises, why
must we conclude that if the triangle and circle are opposite in all the
elements of their construction, the diameter of any defined circle is in the
opposite duplicate ratio of the diameter of any given equivalent triangle? What
necessary connection is there between the premises and the conclusion? The
reasoning is of a kind not known in geometry, and would not be accepted by
strict mathematicians.
Whether
the Archaic esoteric system originated the British inch or not, is of little
consequence, however, to the strict and true metaphysician. Nor does Mr.
Ralston Skinner's esoteric reading of the Bible become incorrect, merely
because the measurements of the Pyramid will not be found to agree with those
of Solomon's temple, the ark of Noah, etc.; or because Mr. Parker's Quadrature
of the Circle is rejected by mathematicians. For Mr. Skinner's reading depends
first of all on the Kabalistic methods and the Rabbinical value of the Hebrew
letters. But it is extremely important to ascertain whether the measures used
in the evolution and building of the Aryan symbolic religion, in the
construction of their temples, the figures given in the Puranas, and especially
in their chronology, their astronomical symbols, the duration of the cycles,
and other computations, were, or were not, the same as those used in the
Biblical measurements and glyphs. For this will prove that the Jews, unless
they took their sacred cubit and measurements from the Egyptians (Moses being
an initiate of the Priests) must have got those notions from India. At any rate
they passed them to the early Christians. Hence, it is the Occultists and
Kabalists who are the "true" heirs to the KNOWLEDGE, or the secret
wisdom which is still found in the Bible; for they alone now understand its
real meaning, whereas profane Jews and Christians cling to the husks and dead
letter thereof. That it is the system of measures which led to the invention of
the God-names Elohim and Jehovah, and their adaptation to phallicism, and that
Jehovah is a not very flattered copy of Osiris, is now demonstrated by the
author of the "Source of Measures." But the latter and Mr. Piazzi
Smyth both seem to labour under the impression that (a) the priority of the
system belongs to the Israelites,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 317 TRUTH MUST PREVAIL AT LAST.
the
Hebrew language being the divine language, and that (b) this universal language
belongs to direct revelation!
The
latter hypothesis is correct only in the sense shown in the last paragraph of
the preceding §; but we have yet to agree as to the nature and character of the
divine "Revealer." With regard to priority, this, to the profane,
will of course depend on (a) the internal and external evidence of the
revelation, and (b) on each scholar's individual preconception. This, however,
cannot prevent either the theistic Kabalist, or the Pantheistic Occultist, from
believing each in his way; neither of the two convincing the other. The data
furnished by history are too meagre and unsatisfactory for either of them to
prove to the sceptic which of them is right.
On
the other hand, the proofs afforded by tradition are too constantly rejected
for us to hope to settle the question in our present age. Meanwhile,
materialistic science will be laughing impartially at both Kabalists and
Occultists. But the said vexed question of priority once laid aside, Science,
in its departments of philology and comparative religion, will find itself
finally taken to task, and be compelled to admit the common claim.* Its
greatest scholars, instead of pooh-poohing that supposed
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
One by one the claims become admitted, as one Scientist after another is
compelled to recognize the facts given out from the Secret Doctrine -- though
he rarely, if ever, recognizes that he has been anticipated in his statements.
Thus, in the palmy days of Mr. Piazzi Smyth's authority on the Pyramid of
Gizeh, his theory was, that the porphyry sarcophagus of the King's Chamber
"is the unit of measure for the two most enlightened nations of the earth,
England and America," and was no better than a "corn bin." This
was vehemently denied by us in Isis Unveiled just published at that time. Then
the New York press arose in arms (the "Sun" and the "World"
chiefly) against our presuming to correct or find fault with such a star of
learning. On p. 519, vol. I., we had said, that Herodotus when treating of that
Pyramid "might have added that, externally it symbolized the creative
principle of Nature, and illustrated also the principles of geometry, mathematics,
astrology, and astronomy. Internally, it was a majestic fane, in whose sombre
recesses were performed the mysteries, and whose walls had often witnessed the
initiation-scenes of members of the royal family. The porphyry sarcophagus,
which Professor Piazzi Smyth, Astronomer Royal of Scotland, degrades into a
corn-bin, was the baptismal font, upon emerging from which the neophyte was
"born again" and became an adept."
Our
statement was laughed at in those days. We were accused of having got our ideas
from the "craze" of Shaw, an English writer who had maintained that
the Sarcophagus had been used for the celebration of the Mysteries of Osiris;
(we had never heard of that writer!). And now, six or seven years later, this
is what Mr. Staniland Wake writes on p. 93 of his paper, on "The Origin
and Significance of the Great Pyramid."
"The
so-called King's Chamber, of which an enthusiastic pyramidist says, 'The
polished walls, fine materials, grand proportions, and exalted place,
eloquently tell of glories yet to come -- if not, the chamber of perfections of
Cheops' tomb, was probably the place to which the initiant was admitted after
he had passed through the narrow upward passage and the grand gallery, with its
lowly termination, which gradually prepared him for the [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 318 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"farrago
of absurd fiction and superstitions," as the Brahminical literature is
generally termed, will endeavour to learn the symbolical universal language
with its numerical and geometrical keys. But here again they will hardly be
successful if they share the belief that the Jewish Kabalistic system contains
the key to the whole mystery: for, it does not. Nor does any other Scripture at
present possess it in its entirety, for even the Vedas are not complete. Every
old religion is but a chapter or two of the entire volume of archaic primeval
mysteries -- Eastern Occultism alone being able to boast that it is in
possession of the full secret, with its seven keys. Comparisons will be
instituted, and as much as possible will be explained in this work -- the rest
is left to the student's personal intuition. For in saying that Eastern
Occultism has the secret, it is not as if a "complete" or even an
approximate knowledge was claimed by the writer, which would be absurd. What I
know, I give out; that which I cannot explain, the student must find out for
himself.
But
while supposing that the whole cycle of the universal mystery language will not
be mastered for whole centuries to come, even that which has been hitherto
discovered in the Bible by some scholars is quite sufficient to demonstrate the
claim -- mathematically. Judaism having availed itself of two keys out of the
seven, and these two keys having been now rediscovered, it becomes no longer a
matter of individual speculation and hypothesis, least of all of
"coincidence," but one of a correct reading of the Bible texts, as
anyone acquainted with arithmetic reads and verifies an addition or total.* A
few years longer and this system will kill the dead letter of the Bible, as it
will that of all the other exoteric faiths, by showing the dogmas in their
real, naked meaning.
And
then this undeniable meaning, however incomplete, will unveil the mystery of
Being, besides changing entirely the modern scientific systems of Anthropology,
Ethnology and especially that of Chronology. The element of Phallicism, found
in every God-name and narrative in the Old (and to some degree in the New)
Testament, may also in time considerably change modern materialistic views in
Biology and Physiology.
Divested
of their modern repulsive crudeness, such views of nature and man, on the
authority of the celestial bodies and their mysteries,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] final stage of the SACRED MYSTERIES." Had
Mr. Staniland Wake been a Theosophist, he might have added that the narrow
upward passage leading to the King's chamber had a "narrow gate"
indeed; the same "strait gate" which "leadeth unto life,"
or the new spiritual re-birth alluded to by Jesus in Matthew vii. 13 et seq;
and that it is this gate in the Initiation temple, that the writer who recorded
the words alleged to have been spoken by an Initiate, was thinking of.
*
All we have said in Isis is now found corroborated in the "Egyptian
Mystery; or The Source of Measures," by those readings of the Bible with
the numerical and geometrical keys thereto.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 319 MOSES COPIED FROM SARGON.
will
unveil the evolutions of the human mind and show how natural was such a course
of thought. The so-called phallic symbols have become offensive only because of
the element of materiality and animality in them. As they originated with the
archaic races, which, issuing to their personal knowledge from an androgyne
ancestry, were the first phenomenal manifestations in their own sight of the
separation of sexes and the ensuing mystery of creating in their turn -- such
symbols were but natural. If later races have degraded them, especially the
"chosen people," this does not affect the origin of those symbols.
The little Semitic tribe -- one of the smallest branchlets from the commingling
of the 4th and 5th sub-races (the Mongolo-Turanian and the Indo-European,
so-called, after the sinking of the great Continent) -- could only accept its
symbology in the spirit which was given to it by the nations from which it was
derived. Perchance, in the Mosaic beginnings, that symbology was not as crude
as it became later under the handling of Ezra, who remodelled the whole
Pentateuch. For the glyph of Pharaoh's daughter (the woman), the Nile (the Great
Deep and Water), and the baby-boy found floating therein in the ark of rushes,
has not been primarily composed for, or by, Moses. It has been found
anticipated in the Babylonian fragments on the tiles, in the story of King
Sargon,* who lived far earlier than Moses. Now, what is the logical inference?
Most assuredly that which gives us the right to say that the story told of
Moses by Ezra had been learned by him while at Babylon,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
On page 224 of Assyrian Antiquities Mr. George Smith says: "In the palace
of Sennacherib at Kouyunjik I found another fragment of the curious history of
Sargon. . . . published in my translation in the Transactions of the Society of
Biblical Archaeology, vol. I. part I. p. 46." The capital of Sargon, the
Babylonian Moses, "was the great city of Agadi, called by the Semitics
Akkad -- mentioned in Genesis as the capital of Nimrod." (Gen. x. 10) . .
. "Akkad lay near the City of Sippara on the Euphrates and North of
Babylon." (See Isis, vol. II. p. 442-3,) Another strange coincidence is
found in the fact that the name of the neighbouring above-mentioned City of
Sippara is the same as the name of the wife of Moses -- Zipporah (Exodus ii.).
Of course the story is a clever addition by Ezra, who could not be ignorant of
it. This curious story is found on fragments of tablets from Kouyunjik, and
reads as follows:--
1.
Sargona, the powerful king, the king of Akkad am I.
2.
My mother was a princess, my father I did not know; a brother of my father
ruled over the country.
3.
In the city of Azupiran, which is by the side of the River Euphrates.
4.
My mother, the princess, conceived me; in difficulty she brought me forth.
5.
She placed me in an ark of rushes, with bitumen my exit she sealed up.
6.
She launched me in the river, which did not drown me.
7.
The river carried me, to Akki the water-carrier it brought me.
8.
Akki, the water-carrier, in tenderness of bowels, lifted me, etc., etc.
And
now Exodus (ii): "And when she (Moses' mother) could not longer hide him,
she took for him an ark of bulrushes, and daubed it with slime and with pitch,
and put the child therein, and she laid it in the flags by the river's
brink."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 320 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
and
that he applied the allegory told of Sargon to the Jewish lawgiver. In short,
that Exodus was never written by Moses, but re-fabricated from old materials by
Ezra.
And
if so, then why should not other symbols and glyphs far more crude in their
phallic element have been added by this adept in the later Chaldean and Sabaean
phallic worship? We are taught that the primeval faith of the Israelites was
quite different from that which was developed centuries later by the
Talmudists, and before them by David and Hezekiah.
All
this, notwithstanding the exoteric element, as now found in the two Testaments,
is quite sufficient to class the Bible among esoteric works, and to connect its
secret system with Indian, Chaldean, and Egyptian symbolism. The whole cycle of
biblical glyphs and numbers as suggested by astronomical observations --
astronomy and theology being closely connected -- is found in Indian exoteric,
as well as esoteric, systems. These figures and their symbols, the signs of the
Zodiac, the planets, their aspects and nodes -- the last term having now passed
even into our modern botany to distinguish male and female plants (the
unisexual, polygamous, monoecious, dioecious, etc., etc.) -- are known in
astronomy as sextiles, quartiles and so on, and have been used for ages and
aeons by the archaic nations, and in one sense have the same meaning as the
Hebrew numerals. The earliest forms of elementary geometry must have certainly
been suggested by the observation of the heavenly bodies and their groupings.
Hence the most archaic symbols in Eastern Esotericism are a circle, a point, a
triangle, a plane, a cube, a pentacle, and a hexagon, and plane figures with
various sides and angles. This shows the knowledge and use of geometrical
symbology to be as old as the world.
Starting
from this, it becomes easy to understand how nature herself could have taught
primeval mankind, even without the help of its divine instructors, the first
principles of a numerical and geometrical symbol language.* Hence one finds
numbers and figures used as an
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] "The story," says Mr. G. Smith,
"is supposed to have happened about 1600 B.C. rather earlier than the
supposed age of Moses. As we know that the fame of Sargon reached Egypt, it is
quite likely that this account had a connection with the event related in
Exodus ii., for every action, when once performed, has a tendency to be
repeated." But now, when Professor Sayce has had the courage to push back
the dates of the Chaldean and Assyrian Kings by two thousand years more, Sargon
must have preceded Moses by 2,000 years at the least. (See Professor Sayce's
Lectures on the subject.) The confession is suggestive, but the figures lack a
cypher or two.
*
As a reminder how the Esoteric religion of Moses was crushed several times, and
the worship of Jehovah, as re-established by David, put in its place, by
Hezekiah for one, read pp. 436-42, vol. II., in Isis Unveiled. Surely there
must have been some very [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 321 THE CROSS, A PHALLIC SYMBOL.
expression
and a record of thought in every archaic symbolical Scripture. They are ever
the same, with only certain variations growing out of the first figures. Thus
the evolution and correlation of the mysteries of Kosmos, of its growth and
development -- spiritual and physical, abstract and concrete -- were first
recorded in geometrical changes of shape. Every Cosmogony began with a circle,
a point, a triangle, and a cube, up to number 9, when it was synthesized by the
first line and a circle -- the Pythagorean mystic Decade, the sum of all,
involving and expressing the mysteries of the entire Kosmos; recorded a hundred
times more fully in the Hindu system, for him who can understand its mystic
language. The numbers 3 and 4, in their blending of 7, as those of 5, 6, 9, and
10, are the very corner-stone of Occult Cosmogonies. This decade and its
thousand combinations are found in every portion of the globe. One recognizes
them in the caves and rock-cut temples of Hindostan and Central Asia, as in the
pyramids and lithoi of Egypt and America; in the Catacombs of Ozimandyas, in
the mounds of the Caucasian snowcapped fastnesses, in the ruins of Palenque, in
Easter Island, everywhere whither the foot of ancient man has ever journeyed.
The 3 and the 4, the triangle and the cube, or the male and female universal
glyph, showing the first aspect of the evolving deity, is stamped for ever in
the Southern Cross in the Heavens, as in the Egyptian Crux-Ansata. As well
expressed, "The Cube unfolded is in display a cross of the tau, or
Egyptian form, or of the Christian cross form. . . . A circle attached to the
first, gives the ansated cross. . . numbers 3 and 4 counted on the cross,
showing a form of the (Hebrew) golden candlestick (in the Holy of Holies), and
of the 3 + 4 = 7, and 6 + 1 = 7, days in the circle of the week, as 7 lights of
the sun. So also as the week of 7 lights gave origin to the month and year, so
it is the time marker of birth. . . . The cross form being shown, then, by the
connected use of the form 113 : 355, the symbol is completed by the attachment
of a man to the cross.* This kind of measure was made to co-ordinate with the
idea of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic form.**"
The
Stanzas show the cross and these numbers playing a prominent part in archaic
cosmogony. Meanwhile we may profit by the evidence collected by the same author
to show the identity of symbols and their esoteric meaning all over the globe,
which he calls rightly the "primordial vestiges of these symbols."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] good reasons why the Sadducees, who furnished
almost all the high Priests of Judea, held to the Laws of Moses and spurned the
alleged "Books of Moses," the Pentateuch of the Synagogue and the
Talmud.
*
Once more, remember the Hindu Wittoba crucified in space; the significance of
the "sacred sign," the Swastica; Plato's Decussated man in Space,
etc., etc.
**
"Source of Measures."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 322 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"Under
the general view taken of the nature of the number forms. . . . it becomes a
matter of research of the utmost interest as to when and where their existence
and their use first became known. Has it been a matter of revelation in what we
know as the historic age -- a cycle exceedingly modern when the age of the
human race is contemplated? It seems, in fact, as to the date of its possession
by man, to have been farther removed in the past from the old Egyptians than
are the old Egyptians from us.
"The
Easter Isles in 'mid Pacific' present the feature of the remaining peaks of the
mountains of a submerged continent, for the reason that these peaks are thickly
studded with Cyclopean statues, remnants of the civilization of a dense and
cultivated people, who must have of necessity occupied a widely extended area.
On the back of these images is to be found the 'ansated cross' and the same
modified to the outlines of the human form. A full description, with plate
showing the land, with the thickly planted statues, also with copies of the
images, is to be found in the January number 1870 of the London Builder.
"In
the 'Naturalist,' published at Salem, Massachusetts, in one of the early
numbers, is to be found a description of some very ancient and curious carving
on the crest walls of the mountains of South America, older by far, it is
averred, than the races now living. The strangeness of these tracings is in
that they exhibit the outlines of a man stretched out on a cross,* by a series
of drawings, by which from the form of a man that of a cross springs, but so
done that the cross may be taken as the man, or the man as the cross; thus
exhibiting a symbolic display of the interdependency of the forms set forth.
"It
is known that tradition among the Aztecs has handed down a very perfect account
of the deluge. . . . Baron Humboldt says that we are to look for the country of
Aztalan, the original country of the Aztecs, as high up at least as the 42nd
parallel north; whence, journeying, they at last arrived in the vale of Mexico.
In that vale the earthen mounds of the far north become the elegant stone
pyramidal and other structures whose remains are now found. The correspondences
between the Aztec remains and those of the Egyptians are well known. . . .
Attwater, from examination of hundreds of them, is convinced that they had a
knowledge of astronomy. As to one of the most perfect of the pyramidal
structures among the Aztecs, Humboldt gives a description to the following
effect:
"The
form of this pyramid (of Papantla) which has seven stories, is more tapering
than any other monument of this kind yet discovered, but its height is not remarkable,
being but 57 feet, its base but 25 feet on each side. However, it is remarkable
on one account: it is built entirely of hewn stones, of an extraordinary size,
and very beautifully shaped. Three staircases lead to the top, the steps of
which are decorated with hieroglyphical sculptures and small niches arranged
with great symmetry. The number of these niches seems to allude to the 318
simple and compound signs of the days of their civil calendar."
"318
is the Gnostic value of Christ," remarks the author, "and the famous
number of the trained or circumcised servants of Abraham. When it is consi-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See farther on the description given of the early Aryan initiation: of Visvakarma
crucifying the Sun, "Vikkartana," shorn of his beams -- on a
cruciform lath.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 323 IDENTITY OF THE ANCIENT SYMBOLS.
dered
that 318 is an abstract value, and universal, as expressive of a diameter value
to a circumference of unity, its use in the composition of the civil calendar
becomes manifest."
Identical
glyphs, numbers and esoteric symbols are found in Egypt, Peru, Mexico, Easter
Island, India, Chaldea, and Central Asia. Crucified men, and symbols of the
evolution of races from gods; and yet behold Science repudiating the idea of a
human race other than one made in our image; theology clinging to its 6,000
years of Creation; anthropology teaching our descent from the ape; and the
Clergy tracing it from Adam 4,004 years B.C.!!
Shall
one, for fear of incurring the penalty of being called a superstitious fool,
and even a liar, abstain from furnishing proofs -- as good as any -- only
because that day, when all the SEVEN KEYS shall be delivered unto Science, or
rather the men of learning and research in the symbological department, has not
yet dawned? In the face of the crushing discoveries of Geology and Anthropology
with regard to the antiquity of man, shall we -- in order to avoid the usual
penalty that awaits every one who strays outside the beaten paths of either
Theology or Materialism -- hold to the 6,000 years and "special
creation," or accept in submissive admiration our genealogy and descent
from the ape? Not so, as long as it is known that the secret records hold the
said SEVEN keys to the mystery of the genesis of man. Faulty, materialistic,
and biassed as the scientific theories may be, they are a thousand times nearer
the truth than the vagaries of theology. The latter are in their death agony
for every one but the most uncompromising bigot and fanatic.* Hence we have no
choice but either to blindly accept the deductions of Science, or to cut adrift
from it, and withstand it fearlessly to its face, stating what the Secret
Doctrine teaches us, being fully prepared to bear the consequences.
But
let us see whether Science in its materialistic speculations, and even theology
in its death-rattle and supreme struggle to reconcile the 6,000 years since Adam
with Sir Charles Lyell's "Geological Evidences of the Antiquity of
Man," do not themselves give us unconsciously a helping hand. Ethnology,
on the confession of some of its very learned votaries, finds it already
impossible to account for the varieties in the human race, unless the
hypothesis of the creation of several Adams be accepted. They speak of "a
white Adam and a black Adam, a red
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Some of its defenders must have lost their reason, one would rather say. For
what can one think when, in the face of the dead-letter absurdities of the
Bible, these are still supported, publicly and as fiercely as ever, and one
finds its theologians maintaining that though "the Scriptures carefully
refrain (?) from making any direct contribution to scientific knowledge, they
have never stumbled upon any statement which will not abide the light of
ADVANCING SCIENCE"!!! -- ("Primeval Man," p. 14).
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[[Vol.
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Adam
and a yellow Adam."* Were they Hindus enumerating the rebirths of Vamadeva
from the Linga Purana, they could say little more. For, enumerating the
repeated births of Siva, the latter show him in one Kalpa of a white
complexion, in another of a black colour, in still another of a red colour,
after which the Kumara becomes "four youths of a yellow colour." This
strange coincidence, as Mr. Proctor would say, speak only in favour of scientific
intuition, as Siva-Kumara represents only allegorically the human races during
the genesis of man. But it led to another intuitional phenomenon -- in the
theological ranks this time. The unknown author of "Primeval Man" in
a desperate effort to screen the divine Revelation from the merciless and
eloquent discoveries of geology and anthropology, remarking that "it would
be unfortunate if the defenders of the Bible should be driven into the position
of either surrendering the inspiration of Scripture, or denying the conclusions
of geologists" -- finds a compromise. Nay, he devotes a thick volume to
proving this fact: "Adam was not the first man** created upon this
earth." . . . The exhumed relics of pre-Adamic man, "instead of
shaking our confidence in Scripture, supply additional proof of its
veracity" (p. 194). How so? In the simplest way imaginable; for the author
argues that, henceforth "we" (the clergy) "are enabled to leave
scientific men to pursue their studies without attempting to coerce them by the
fear of heresy" . . . (this must be a relief indeed to Messrs. Huxley,
Tyndall, and Sir C. Lyell). . . . "The Bible narrative does not commence
with creation, as is commonly supposed, but with the formation of Adam and Eve,
millions of years after our planet had been created. Its previous history, so
far as Scripture is concerned, is yet unwritten." . . . . . "There
may have been not one, but twenty different races upon the earth before the
time of Adam, just as there may be twenty different races of men on other worlds"
(p. 55). . . . Who, then, or what were those races, since the author still
maintains that Adam is the first man of our race? It was THE SATANIC RACE AND
RACES! "Satan (was) never in heaven, Angels and men (being) one
species." It was the pre-Adamic race of "Angels that sinned."
Satan was "the first Prince of this world," we read. Having died in
consequence of his rebellion, he remained on earth as a disembodied Spirit, and
tempted Adam and Eve. "The earlier ages of the Satanic race, and more
especially during the life-time of Satan (!!!) may have been a period
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Primeval Man Unveiled, or the Anthropology of the Bible"; author
(unknown) of the "Stars and the Angels" 1870, p. 195.
**
Especially in the face of the evidence furnished by the authorized Bible itself
in ch. iv. of Genesis, v. 16 and 17, which shows Cain going to the land of Nod
and there marrying a wife.
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[[Vol.
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of
patriarchal civilization and comparative repose -- a time of Tubal-Cains and
Jubals, when both Sciences and arts attempted to strike their roots into the
accursed ground. . . . . What a subject for an epic. . . . (when) there are
inevitable incidents which must have occurred. We see before us . . . . the gay
primeval lover wooing his blushing bride at dewy eve under the Danish oaks,
that then grew where now no oaks will grow . . . . the grey primeval patriarch
. . . . the primeval offspring innocently gambolling by his side. . . . . A
thousand such pictures rise before us"! . . . . (pp. 206-207).
The
retrospective glance at this Satanic "blushing bride" in the days of
Satan's innocence, does not lose in poetry as it gains in originality. Quite
the reverse. The modern Christian bride -- who does not often blush nowadays
before her gay modern lovers -- might even derive a moral lesson from this
daughter of Satan, in the exuberant fancy of her first human biographer. These
pictures -- and to appreciate them at their true value they must be examined in
the volume that describes them -- are all suggested with a view to reconcile
the infallibility of revealed Scripture with Sir C. Lyell's "Antiquity of
Man" and other damaging scientific works. But this does not prevent truth
and fact appearing at the foundation of these vagaries, which the author has
never dared to sign with his own, or even a borrowed name. For, his pre-Adamic
races -- not Satanic but simply Atlantic, and the Hermaphrodites before the
latter -- are mentioned in the Bible when read esoterically, as they are in the
Secret Doctrine. The SEVEN KEYS open the mysteries, past and future, of the
seven great Root Races, as of the seven Kalpas. Though the genesis of man, and
even the esoteric geology, will surely be rejected by Science just as much as
the Satanic and pre-Adamic races, yet if having no other way out of their
difficulties the Scientists have to choose between the two, we feel certain
that, Scripture notwithstanding, once the mystery language is approximately
mastered, it is the archaic teaching that will be accepted.
-------
§
III.
.
c§
IV.
CHAOS
-- THEOS -- KOSMOS.
THESE
three are the containment of Space; or, as a learned Kabalist has defined it,
"Space, the all containing uncontained, is the primary embodiment of
simply Unity. . . . boundless extension."* But, he asks again,
"boundless extension of what?" -- and makes the correct reply --
"The unknown container of all, the Unknown FIRST CAUSE." This is a
most correct definition and answer, most esoteric and true, from every aspect
of occult teaching.
SPACE,
which, in their ignorance and iconoclastic tendency to destroy every
philosophic idea of old, the modern wiseacres have proclaimed "an abstract
idea" and a void, is, in reality, the container and the body of the
Universe with its seven principles. It is a body of limitless extent, whose
PRINCIPLES, in Occult phraseology -- each being in its turn a septenary --
manifest in our phenomenal world only the grossest fabric of their
sub-divisions. "No one has ever seen the Elements in their fulness,"
the Doctrine teaches. We have to search for our Wisdom in the original
expressions of the primeval people and in their synonyms. Even the latest of
them -- the Jews -- show in their Kabalistic teachings this idea, e.g., the
seven-headed Serpent of Space, called "the great Sea." "In the
beginning, the Alhim created the heavens and the earth; the 6 (Sephiroth). . .
. They created six, and on these all things are based. And those (six) depend
upon the seven forms of the cranium up to Dignity of all Dignities (Siphrah
Dzenioota, i, § 16), see part ii., vol. ii. "Ancient Divisions and the
Mystic Numbers."
Now
Wind, Air and Spirit have ever been synonymous with every nation. Pneuma
(Spirit) and Anemos (the wind) with the Greeks, Spiritus and Ventus with the
Latins, were convertible terms even if dissociated from the original idea of
the breath of life. In the "Forces" of Science we see but the
material effect of the spiritual affect of one or the other of the four
primordial Elements, transmitted to us by the 4th Race, as we shall transmit
Ether (or rather the gross subdivision of it) in its fulness to the Sixth Root
Race. This is explained in the text of this and the following Book.
"Chaos"
is called senseless by the ancients, because it represented and contained in
itself (Chaos and Space being synonymous) all the Elements in their
rudimentary, undifferentiated State. They made of Ether, the fifth element, the
synthesis of the other four; for the AEther of the Greek philosophers is not
its dregs -- of which indeed they knew more
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"New Aspects of Life," by Henry Pratt, M.D.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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than
science does now -- which are rightly enough supposed to act as an agent for many
forces that manifest on Earth. Their AEther was the Akasa of the Hindus; the
Ether accepted in physics is but one of its subdivisions, on our plane, -- the
Astral Light of the Kabalists with all its evil as well as good effects.
On
account of the Essence of AEther, or the Unseen Space, being held divine as the
supposed veil of Deity, it was regarded as the medium between this life and the
next one. The ancients considered that when the directing active
"Intelligences" (the gods) retired from any portion of Ether in our
Space -- the four realms which they superintend -- then that particular place
was left in the possession of evil, so called by reason of the absence of the
Good from it.
"The
existence of spirit in the common mediator, the ether, is denied by
materialism; while theology makes of it a personal god. But the Kabalist holds
that both are wrong, saying that in ether, the elements represent but matter --
the blind cosmic forces of nature; while Spirit represents the intelligence
which directs them. The Aryan, Hermetic, Orphic, and Pythagorean cosmogonical
doctrines, as well as those of Sanchoniathon and Berosus, are all based upon
one irrefutable formula, viz., that the aether and chaos, or, in the Platonic
language, mind and matter, were the two primeval and eternal principles of the
universe, utterly independent of anything else. The former was the
all-vivifying intellectual principle; the chaos, a shapeless liquid principle,
without 'form or sense,' from the union of which two sprung into existence the
universe, or rather the universal world, the first androgynous deity -- the
chaotic matter becoming its body, and ether its soul. According to the
phraseology of a Fragment of Hermias, 'chaos, from this union with spirit,
obtaining sense, shone with pleasure, and thus was produced the Protogonos (the
first-born) light.'* This is the universal trinity, based on the metaphysical
conceptions of the ancients, who, reasoning by analogy, made of man, who is a
compound of intellect and matter, the microcosm of the macrocosm, or great
universe." (Isis Unveiled.)
"Nature
abhors Vacuum" said the Peripatetics, who comprehended perhaps, though
materialists in their way, why Democritus, with his instructor Leucippus,
taught that the first principles of all things contained in the Universe were
atoms and a vacuum. The latter means simply latent Deity or force; which,
before its first manifestation when it became WILL -- communicating the first
impulse to these atoms -- was the great Nothingness, Ain-Soph, or NO-THING;
was, therefore, to every sense, a Void -- or CHAOS.
That
Chaos, however, became the "Soul of the World," according to Plato
and the Pythagoreans. According to Hindu teaching, Deity in the shape of AEther
(Akasa) pervades all things; and it was called there-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Damascius, in the "Theogony," calls it Dis, "the disposer of all
things." Cory, "Ancient Fragments," p. 314.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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fore
by the theurgists "the living fire," the "Spirit of Light,"
and sometimes Magnes. It was the highest Deity itself which, according to
Plato, built the Universe in the geometrical form of the Dodecahedron; and its
"first begotten" was born of Chaos and Primordial Light (the Central
Sun). This "First-Born," however, was only the aggregate of the Host
of the "Builders," the first constructive Forces, who are called in
ancient Cosmogonies the Ancients (born of the Deep, or Chaos) and the
"First Point." He is the Tetragrammaton, so-called, at the head of
the Seven lower Sephiroth. This was the belief of the Chaldees. "These
Chaldeans," writes Philo, the Jew, speaking very flippantly of the first
instructors of his ancestors, "were of opinion that the Kosmos, among the
things that exist (?) is a single point, either being itself God (Theos) or
that in it is God, comprehending the soul of all things." (See his
"Migration of Abraham," 32.)
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos
are but the three aspects of their synthesis -- SPACE. One can never hope to
solve the mystery of this Tetraktis by holding to the dead-letter even of the
old philosophies, as now extant. But, even in these CHAOS-THEOS-KOSMOS = SPACE,
are identified in all Eternity, as the One Unknown Space, the last word about
which will, perhaps, never be known before our seventh Round. Nevertheless, the
allegories and metaphysical symbols about the primeval and perfect CUBE, are
remarkable even in the exoteric Puranas.
There,
also, Brahma is the Theos, evolving out of Chaos, or the great
"Deep," the waters, over which Spirit = SPACE, personified by ayana
-- the Spirit moving over the face of the future boundless Kosmos -- is
silently hovering, in the first hour of re-awakening. It is also Vishnu,
sleeping on Ananta-Sesha, the great Serpent of Eternity, of which Western
theology, ignorant of the Kabala, the only key that opens the secrets of the
Bible, has made -- the Devil. It is the first triangle or the Pythagorean triad,
the "God of the three Aspects," before it is transformed through its
perfect quadrature of the infinite Circle into the "four-faced
Brahma."
"Of
him who is and yet is not, from the not-being, Eternal Cause, is born the
Being-Purusha," says Manu, the legislator.
In
Isis Unveiled, it is said that:--
"In
the Egyptian mythology, Kneph, the Eternal Unrevealed God, is represented by a
snake emblem of Eternity encircling a water urn, with its head hovering over the
waters, which it incubates with its breath. In this case the serpent is the
Agathodaemon, the good spirit: in its opposite aspect, it is the Kakodaemon --
the bad one. In the Scandinavian Eddas, the honey dew, the fruit of the gods
and of the creative busy Yggdrasill (bees), falls during the hours of night,
when the atmosphere is impregnated with humidity; and in the Northern
mythologies, as the passive principle of creation, it typifies the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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creation
of the universe out of water; this dew is the astral light in one of its
combinations, and possesses creative as well as destructive properties. In the
Chaldean legend of Berosus, Oannes or Dagon, the man-fish, instructing the
people, shows the infant world created out of water, and all beings originating
from this prima materia. Moses teaches that only earth and water can bring a
living soul: and we read in the Scriptures that herbs could not grow until the
Eternal caused it to rain upon earth. In the Mexican Popol-Vuh, man is created
out of mud or clay (terre glaise), taken from under the water. Brahma creates
the great Muni (or first man) seated on his lotus, only after having called
into being spirits who thus enjoyed over mortals a priority of existence, and
he creates him out of water, air and earth. Alchemists claim that the
primordial or pre-Adamic earth, when reduced to its first substance, is in its
second stage of transformation like clear water, the first being the alkahest
proper. This primordial substance is said to contain within itself the essence
of all that goes to make up man; it has not only all the elements of his
physical being, but even the "breath of life" itself in a latent state,
ready to be awakened. This it derives from the "incubation" of the
"Spirit of God" upon the face of the waters -- CHAOS: in fact, this
substance is chaos itself. From this it was that Paracelsus claimed to be able
to make his "homunculi;" and this is why Thales, the great natural
philosopher, maintained that water was the principle of all things in nature.*
. . . Job says, in chap. xxvi. 5, that "dead things are formed from under
the waters, and inhabitants thereof." In the original text, instead of "dead
things," it is written dead Rephaim (giants or mighty primitive men), from
whom "Evolution" may one day trace our present race."
"In
the primordial state of the creation," says Polier's Mythologie des
Indous, "the rudimental universe, submerged in water, reposed in the bosom
of Vishnu. Sprung from this chaos and darkness, Brahma, the architect of the
world, poised on a lotus-leaf, floated (moved) upon the waters, unable to
discern anything but water and darkness." Perceiving such a dismal state
of things, Brahma soliloquises in consternation: "Who am I? Whence came
I?" Then he hears a voice:** "Direct your thoughts to Bhagavat."
Brahma, rising from his natatory position, seats himself upon the lotus in an
attitude of contemplation, and reflects upon the Eternal, who, pleased with
this evidence of piety, disperses the primeval darkness and opens his
understanding. "After this Brahma issues from the universal egg (infinite
chaos) as light, for his understanding is now opened, and he sets himself to
work: he moves on the eternal waters, with the spirit of God within himself;
and in his capacity of mover of the waters he is Vishnu, or Narayana."
This is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
With the Greeks, the "River-gods," all of them the Sons of the
primeval ocean (Chaos in its masculine aspect), were the respective ancestors
of the Hellenic races. For them the OCEAN was the father of the Gods; and thus
they had anticipated in this connection the theories of Thales, as rightly
observed by Aristotle (Metaph. I., 3, 5).
**
The "Spirit," or hidden voice of the Mantras, the active
manifestation of the latent Force, or occult potency.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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exoteric,
of course, yet in its main idea as identical as possible with the Egyptian
cosmogony, which shows in its opening sentences Athtor,* or Mother Night (which
represents illimitable darkness), as the primeval element which covered the
infinite abyss, animated by water and the universal spirit of the Eternal,
dwelling alone in Chaos. Similarly in the Jewish Scriptures, the history of the
creation opens with the spirit of God and his creative emanation -- another
Deity.**
The
Zohar teaches that it is the primordial elements -- the trinity of Fire, Air
and Water -- the four cardinal points, and all the Forces of Nature, which form
collectively the VOICE of the WILL Memrab, or the "Word," the Logos
of the Absolute Silent ALL. "The indivisible point, limitless and
unknowable" spreads itself over the endless space, and thus forms a veil
(the Mulaprakriti of Parabraham) which conceals this Absolute point. (Vide
infra).
In
the cosmogonies of all the nations it is the "Architects" synthesized
by Demiurgos (in the Bible the "Elohim"), who fashion Kosmos out of
Chaos, and who are the collective Theos, "male-female," Spirit and
matter. "By a series (yom) of foundations (hasoth) the Alhim caused earth
and heaven to be" (Gen. ii., 4). In the Bible it is first Alhim, then
Jahva-Alhim, and finally Jehovah --after the separation of the sexes in chapter
iv. of Genesis. It is noticeable that nowhere, except in the later, the last
Cosmogonies of our Fifth race, is the ineffable and unutterable NAME*** -- the
symbol of the Unknown Deity, which was used only in the MYSTERIES -- used in
connection with the "Creation" of the Universe. It is the
"Movers," the "Runners," the theoi (from [[theein]],
"to run"), who do the work of formation, the "Messengers"
of the manvantaric law, who have now become in Christianity the
"messengers" (malachim); and it seems the same in Hinduism or early
Brahmanism. For it is not Brahma who creates in the Rig Veda, but the
Prajapati, the "Lords of Being," who are the Rishis; the word Rishi
(according to Professor Mahadeo Kunte) being connected with the word to move,
to lead on, applied to them in their terrestrial character, when, as
Patriarchs, they lead their hosts on the Seven Rivers.
Moreover,
the very word "God" in the singular, embracing all the gods -- or
theos from theoi -- came to the "superior" civilized nations from a
strange source, one entirely and as pre-eminently phallic as the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Orthography of the "Archaic Dictionary."
**
We do not mean the current or accepted Bible, but the real Jewish one, now
explained kabalistically.
***
It is "unutterable" for the simple reason that it is non-existent. It
never was a name, nor any word at all, but an Idea that could not be expressed.
A substitute was created for it in the century preceding our era.
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[[Vol.
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sincere,
open-spoken lingham of India. The attempt to derive God from the Anglo-Saxon
synonym "good" is an abandoned idea, for in no other language, in all
of which the term varies more or less, from the Persian Khoda down to the Latin
Deus, has an instance been found of a name of God being derived from the
attribute of Goodness. To the Latin races it comes from the Aryan Dyaus (the
Day); to the Slavonian, from the Greek Bacchus (Bagh-bog); and to the Saxon
races directly from the Hebrew Yodh or Jod. The latter is [[diagram]], the
number-letter 10, male and female, and Jod the phallic hook:-- hence the Saxon
Godh, the Germanic Gott, and the English God. This symbolic term may be said to
represent the Creator of physical "Humanity," on the terrestrial plane;
but surely it had nothing to do with the formation or "Creation" of
Spirit, gods, or Kosmos!
Chaos-Theos-Kosmos,
the triple deity, is all in all. Therefore, it is said to be male and female,
good and evil, positive and negative: the whole series of contrasted qualities.
When latent (in pralaya) it is incognizable and becomes the unknowable Deity.
It can be known only in its active functions; hence as matter-Force and living
Spirit, the correlations and outcome, or the expression, on the visible plane,
of the ultimate and ever-to-be unknown UNITY.
In
its turn this triple unit is the producer of the four primary
"Elements,"* which are known in our visible terrestrial nature as the
seven (so far the five) Elements, each divisible into forty-nine (or seven
times seven) sub-elements, with about seventy of which Chemistry is acquainted.
Every Cosmical Element such as Fire, Air, Water, Earth, partaking of the
qualities and defects of their Primaries, are in their nature Good and Evil,
Force (or Spirit) and Matter, etc., etc.; and each, therefore, is at one and
the same time Life and Death, Health and Disease, Action and Reaction. (See
Section XIV., "The Four Elements.") They are ever and constantly
forming matter under the never-ceasing impulse of the ONE Element (the
incognizable), represented in the world of phenomena by 'AEther, or "the
immortal gods who give birth and life to all."
In
"the Philosophical writings of Solomon Ben Yehudah Ibn Gebirol"
(translated in Mr. Isaac Myer's Kabbalah, just published) it is said on the
structure of the Universe, "R. Yehudah began, it is written:-- 'Elohim
said: Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters.' Come, see, at the
time that the Holy. . . . created the World, He
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Cosmic Tabernacle of Moses, erected by him in the Desert, was square,
representing the four cardinal points and the four Elements, as Josephus tells
his readers (Antiq. 1, viii ch., xxii.) It is the idea taken from the pyramids
in Egypt and in Tyre, where the pyramids became pillars, the Genii, or Angels
have their abodes in the four respective points (See § xiv.; "The Four
Elements.")
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[[Vol.
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created
7 heavens above, 7 earths below, 7 seas, 7 days, 7 rivers, 7 weeks, 7 years, 7
times, and 7,000 years that the world has been. The Holy is the seventh of
all," etc. (p. 415).
This,
besides showing a strange identity with the cosmogony of the Puranas (e.g.,
Vishnu Purana 1st Book), corroborates with regard to number seven, all our
teachings as briefly given in "Esoteric Buddhism."
The
Hindus have an endless series of allegories to express this idea. In the
primordial Chaos, before it became developed into the Seven Oceans (Sapta
Samudra) -- emblematical of the seven gunas (conditioned qualities) composed of
trigunas (Satwa, Rajas and Tamas, see Puranas) -- lie latent both Amrita
(immortality) and Visha (poison, death, evil). This allegory is found in the
"Churning of the Ocean" by the gods. Amrita is beyond any guna, for
it is UNCONDITIONED per se; yet when fallen into the phenomenal creation it got
mixed up with EVIL, Chaos, with latent theos in it, and before Kosmos was evolved.
Hence, one finds Vishnu -- standing here for eternal Law -- periodically
calling forth Kosmos into activity -- "churning out of the primitive Ocean
(boundless Chaos) the Amrita of Eternity, reserved only for the gods and devas;
and he has to employ in the task Nagas and Asuras -- demons in exoteric
Hinduism. The whole allegory is highly philosophical, and we find it repeated
in every philosophical System. Plato, having fully embraced the ideas of
Pythagoras -- who had brought them from India -- compiled and published them in
a form more intelligible than the mysterious numerals of the Greek Sage. Thus
the Kosmos is "the Son" with Plato, having for his father and mother
the Divine Thought and Matter.*
"The
Egyptians," says Dunlap,** "distinguish between an older and younger
Horus; the former the brother of Osiris, the latter the son of Osiris and
Isis." The first is the Idea of the world remaining in the Demiurgic Mind,
"born in darkness before the creation of the world." The second Horus
is this "Idea" going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with
matter, and assuming an actual existence.***
"The
Mundane God, eternal, boundless, young and old, of winding form,"**** say
the Chaldean oracles.
This
"winding form" is a figure to express the vibratory motion of the
Astral Light, with which the ancient priests were perfectly well acquainted,
though its name was invented by the Martinists.
Now
Cosmolatry has the finger of scorn pointed at its superstitions by modern
Science, which ought, however, as advised by a French
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Plutarch, "Isis and Osiris," I., vi.
**
"Spirit History of Man," p. 88.
***
Mover's "Phoinizer," 268.
****
Cory, "Fragments," 240.
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[[Vol.
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savant,
before laughing at it "to remodel entirely its own system of
cosmo-pneumatological education." Satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parvum.
Cosmolatry like Pantheism may be made to yield in its ultimate expression the
words applied to Vishnu . . . . "He is only the ideal Cause of the
Potencies to be created in the work of creation; and from him proceed the
potencies to be created, after they have become the real cause. Save that one
ideal cause, there is no other to which the world can be referred. . . .
Through the potency of that cause, every created thing comes by its proper
nature." (Original Sanskrit Texts, Part iv., pp. 32, 33.)
--------------
§
V.
ON
THE HIDDEN DEITY, ITS SYMBOLS AND GLYPHS.
THE
Logos or Creative deity, the "Word made Flesh," of every religion,
has to be traced to its ultimate source and Essence. In India, it is a Proteus
of 1,008 divine names and aspects in each of its personal transformations, from
Brahma-Purusha down through the Seven divine Rishis and ten semi-divine
Prajapati (also Rishis) to the divine-human Avatars. The same puzzling problem
of the "One in many" and the multitude in One, is found in other
Pantheons, in the Egyptian, the Greek and the Chaldeo-Judaic, the latter having
made confusion still more confused by presenting its Gods as euhemerizations,
in the shapes of Patriarchs. The latter are now accepted by those who reject
Romulus as a myth, and are represented as living and historical Entities.
Verbum satis sapienti.
In
the Zohar, En-Soph is also the ONE, and the infinite Unity. This was known to
the very few learned Fathers of the Church, who were aware that Jehovah was but
a third rate potency and no "highest" God. But while complaining
bitterly of the Gnostics and saying . . . "our Heretics hold . . . that
PROPATOR is known but to the Only begotten Son* (who is Brahma among the rest)
that is to the mind" (nous), Irenaeus never mentioned that the Jews did
the same in their real secret books. Valentinus, "the profoundest doctor
of the Gnosis," held that "there was a perfect AION who existed
before Bythos, or Buthon (the first father of unfathomable nature, which is the
second Logos) called Propator." It is thus AION, who springs as a Ray from
Ain-Soph (who does not create), and AION, who creates, or through whom, rather,
everything is created, or evolves.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As Mulaprakriti is known only to Iswar, the LOGOS, as he is called now by Mr.
T. Subba Row, of Madras. (See his Bhagavadgita Lectures.)
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[[Vol.
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For,
as the Basilidians taught, "there was a supreme god, Abraxas, by whom was
created mind" (Mahat, in Sanskrit, Nous in Greek). "From Mind
proceeded the word, Logos, from the word, Providence (Divine Light, rather),
then from it Virtue and Wisdom in Principalities, Powers, Angels, etc.,
etc." By these (Angels) the 365 AEons were created. "Amongst the
lowest, indeed, and those who made this world, he (Basilides) sets last of all
the God of the Jews, whom he denies to be God (and very rightly), affirming he
is one of the angels" (Ibid.). Here, then, we find the same system as in
the Puranas, wherein the Incomprehensible drops a seed, which becomes the
golden egg, from which Brahma is produced. Brahma produces Mahat, etc., etc.
True Esoteric philosophy, however, speaks neither of "creation" nor
of "evolution" in the sense the exoteric religions do. All these
personified Powers are not evolutions from one another, but so many aspects of
the one and sole manifestation of the ABSOLUTE all. The same system as the
gnostic prevails in the Sephirothal aspects of Ain-Soph, yet, as these aspects
are in Space and Time, a certain order is maintained in their successive
appearances. Therefore, it becomes impossible not to take notice of the great
changes that the Zohar has undergone under the handling of generations of
Christian Mystics. For, even in the metaphysics of the Talmud, the "lower
Face" (or "Lesser Countenance"), the microprosopus, in fact,
could never be placed on the plane of the same abstract ideal as the Higher, or
"Greater Countenance," macroprosopus. The latter is, in the Chaldean
Kabala, a pure abstraction; the Word or LOGOS, or DABAR (in Hebrew), which
Word, though it becomes in fact a plural number, or "Words" --
D(a)B(a)RIM, when it reflects itself, or falls into the aspect of a Host (of
angels, or Sephiroth, "numbers") is still collectively ONE, and on
the ideal plane a nought -- 0, a "No-thing." IT is without form or
being, "with no likeness with anything else." (Franck, "Die
Kabbala," p. 126.) And even Philo calls the Creator, the Logos who stands
next God, "the SECOND GOD," and "the second God who is his
(Highest God's) WISDOM" (Philo. Quaest. et Solut). Deity is not God. It is
NOTHING, and DARKNESS. It is nameless, and therefore called Ain-Soph --
"the word Ayin meaning nothing." See Franck "Die Kabbala,"
p. 153. See also Section XII., "Theogony of the Creative Gods." The
"Highest God" (the unmanifested LOGOS) is its Son.
Nor
are most of the gnostic systems, which come down to us mutilated by the Church
Fathers, anything better than the distorted shells of the original
speculations. Nor were they open to the public or reader, at any time; i.e.,
had their hidden meaning or esotericism been revealed, it would have been no
more an esoteric teaching, and this could never be. Alone Marcus (the chief of
the Marcosians, 2nd century), who taught
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[[Vol.
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that
deity had to be viewed under the symbol of four syllables, gave out more of the
esoteric truths than any other Gnostic. But even he was never well understood.
For it is only on the surface or dead letter of his Revelation that it appears
that God is a quaternary, to wit: "the Ineffable, the Silence, the Father,
and Truth," -- in reality it is quite erroneous, and divulges only one
more esoteric riddle. This teaching of Marcus was that of the early Kabalists
and ours. For he makes of Deity, the number 30 in 4 syllables, which,
translated esoterically, means a Triad or Triangle, and a Quaternary or a
square, in all seven, which, on the lower plane made the seven divine or secret
letters of which the God-name is composed. This requires demonstration. In his
"Revelation," speaking of divine mysteries expressed by means of
letters and numbers, Marcus narrates how the "Supreme Tetrad came down
unto me (him) from the region which cannot be seen nor named, in a female form,
because the world would have been unable to bear her appearing under a male
figure," and revealed to him "the generation of the universe, untold
before to either gods or men."
This
first sentence already contains a double meaning. Why should a female figure be
more easily borne or listened to by the world than a male figure? On the very
face of it this appears nonsensical. Withal it is quite simple and clear to one
who is acquainted with the mystery-language. Esoteric Philosophy, or the Secret
Wisdom, was symbolized by a female form, while a male figure stood for the
Unveiled mystery. Hence, the world not being ready to receive, could not bear
it, and the Revelation of Marcus had to be given allegorically. Then he writes:
"When
first the Inconceivable, the Beingless and Sexless (the Kabalistic Ain-Soph)
began to be in labour (i.e., when the hour of manifesting Itself had struck)
and desired that Its Ineffable should be born (the first LOGOS, or AEon, or
Aion), and its invisible should be clothed with form, its mouth opened and
uttered the word like unto itself. This word (logos) manifested itself in the
form of the Invisible One. The uttering of the (ineffable) name (through the
word) came to pass in this manner. He (the Supreme Logos) uttered the first
word of his name, which is a syllable of four letters. Then the second syllable
was added, also of four letters. Then the third, composed of ten letters; and
after this the fourth, which contains twelve letters. The whole name consists
thus of thirty letters and of four syllables. Each letter has its own accent
and way of writing, but neither understands nor ever beholds that form of the
whole Name, -- no; not even the power of the letter that stands next to Itself
(to the Beingless and the Inconceivable.)* All these sounds when united are the
collective Beingless,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Iswara, or the Logos, cannot see Parabrahmam, but only Mulaprakriti, says the
lecturer, in the Four Lectures on Bhagavatgita. (See Theosophist, Feb., 1887.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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unbegotten
AEon, and these are the Angels that are ever beholding the face of the Father*
(the Logos, the "second God," who stands next God, "the
Inconceivable," according to Philo).
This
is as plain as ancient esoteric secrecy would make it. It is as Kabalistic, but
less veiled than the Zohar in which the mystic names or attributes are also
four syllabled, twelve, forty-two, and even seventy-two syllabled words! The
Tetrad shows to Marcus the TRUTH in the shape of a naked woman, and letters
every limb of that figure, calling her head [[omega]], her neck [[psi]],
shoulders and hands [[gamma]], and [[chi]], etc., etc. In this Sephira is
easily recognised, the Crown (Kether) or head being numbered one; the brain or
Chochmah, 2; the heart, or Intelligence (Binah), 3; and the other seven
Sephiroth representing the limbs of the body. The Sephirothal Tree is the
Universe, and Adam Kadmon represents it in the West as Brahma represents it in
India.
Throughout,
the 10 Sephiroth are represented as divided into the three higher, or the
spiritual Triad, and the lower Septenary. The true Esoteric meaning of the
sacred number seven is cleverly veiled in the Zohar; yet was betrayed by the
double way of writing "in the beginning" or Be-resheeth, and
Be-raishath, the latter the "Higher, or Upper Wisdom." As shown by
Mr. Macgregor Mathers in his Kabbalah (p. 47), and in the Qabbalah of Mr. T.
Myer (p. 233), both of these Kabalists being supported by the best ancient
authorities, these words have a dual and secret meaning. Braisheeth bara Elohim
means that the six, over which stands the seventh Sephiroth, belong to the
lower material class, or, as the author says: "Seven . . . . are applied
to the Lower Creation, and three to the spiritual man, the Heavenly Prototypic
or first Adam."
When
the Theosophists and Occultists say that God is no BEING, for IT is nothing,
No-Thing, they are more reverential and religiously respectful to the Deity
than those who call God a HE, and thus make of Him a gigantic MALE.
He
who studies the Kabala will soon find the same idea in the ultimate thought of
its authors, the earlier and great Hebrew Initiates, who got this secret Wisdom
at Babylonia from the Chaldean Hierophants, while Moses got his in Egypt. The
Zohar cannot well be judged by its after translations in Latin and other
tongues, as all those ideas were, of course, softened and made to fit in with
the views and policy of its Christian arrangers; but in truth its ideas are identical
with those of all other religious systems. The various Cosmogonies show that
the Archaic Universal Soul was held by every nation as the "Mind" of
the Demiurgic Creator; and that it
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Seven Angels of the Face," with the Christians.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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was
called the "Mother," Sophia with the Gnostics (or the female Wisdom),
the Sephira with the Jews, Saraswati or Vach, with the Hindus, the Holy Ghost
being a female Principle.
Hence,
born from it, the Kurios or Logos was, with the Greeks, the "God,
mind" (nous). "Now Koros (Kurios) signifies the pure and unmixed
nature of intellect -- wisdom," says Plato in "Cratylus"; and
Kurios is Mercury, the Divine Wisdom, and "mercury is the Sol" (Sun)
("Arnobius" vi., xii.), from whom Thot-Hermes received this divine
Wisdom. While, then, the Logoi of all countries and religions are correlative
(in their sexual aspects) with the female Soul of the World or the "Great
Deep;" the deity, from which these two in one have their being, is ever
concealed and called the "Hidden One," connected only indirectly with
Creation,* as it can act only through the Dual Force emanating from the Eternal
Essence. Even AEsculapius, called the "Saviour of all," is identical,
according to ancient classics, with Phta, the Egyptian Creative Intellect (or
Divine Wisdom), and with Apollo, Baal, Adonis and Hercules (see Dunlap's
"Mystery of Adonis," pp. 23 and 95); and Phta is, in one of its
aspects, the "Anima Mundi," the Universal Soul of Plato, the
"Divine Spirit" of the Egyptians, the "Holy Ghost" of the
early Christians and Gnostics, and the Akasa of the Hindus, and even, in its
lower aspect, the Astral Light. For Phta was originally the "God of the
Dead," he in whose bosom they were received, hence the Limbus of the Greek
Christians, or the Astral Light. It is far later that Phta was classed with the
Sun-gods, his name signifying "he who opens," as he is shown to be
the first to unveil the face of the dead mummy, to call the soul to life in his
bosom. (See Maspero's "Bulaq Museum.") KNEPH, the Eternal Unrevealed,
is represented by the snake-emblem of eternity encircling a water-urn, with its
head hovering over the "waters" which it incubates with its breath --
another form of one and the same idea of "Darkness," its ray moving
on the waters, &c. As "Logos-Soul," this permutation is called
Phta; as Logos-Creator, he becomes Imhot-pou, his son, "the god of the
handsome face." In their primitive characters these two were the first
Cosmic Duad, Noot, "space or Sky," and Noo, "the primordial
Waters," the Androgyne Unity, above whom was the Concealed BREATH of
Kneph. And all of them had the aquatic animals and plants sacred to them, the
ibis, the swan, the goose, the crocodile, and the lotus.
Returning
to the Kabalistic deity, this Concealed Unity is then [[hebrew]] = [[to pan]] =
[[apeiros]], Endless, Boundless, non-Existent, [[hebrew]] so
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We use the term as one accepted and sanctioned by use, and therefore more
comprehensible to the reader.
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[[Vol.
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long
as the Absolute is within Oulom,* the boundless and termless time, as such,
En-Soph cannot be the Creator or even the modeller of the Universe, nor can he be
Aur (light). Therefore En-Soph is also Darkness. The immutably Infinite and the
absolutely Boundless can neither will, think, nor act. To do this it has to
become finite, and it does so, by its ray penetrating into the mundane egg --
infinite space -- and emanating from it as a finite god. All this is left to
the ray latent in the one. When the period arrives, the absolute will expands
naturally the force within it, according to the Law of which it is the inner
and ultimate Essence. The Hebrews did not adopt the egg as a symbol, but they
substituted for it the "Duplex heavens," for, translated correctly,
the sentence "God made the heavens and the earth" would read:--
"In and out of his own essence as a womb (the mundane egg), God created
the two heavens." But the Christians have chosen as the symbol of their
Holy Ghost, the dove.
"Whosoever
acquaints himself with [[hebrew]] the Mercaba and the lahgash (secret speech or
incantation), will learn the secret of secrets." Lahgash is nearly
identical in meaning with Vach, the hidden power of the Mantras.
When
the active period has arrived, from within the eternal essence of Ain-Soph,
comes forth Sephira, the active Power, called the Primordial Point, and the
Crown, Kether. It is only through her that the "Un-bounded Wisdom"
could give a concrete form to the abstract Thought. Two sides of the upper
triangle by which the ineffable Essence and the universe -- its manifested body
-- are symbolized, the right side and the base are composed of unbroken lines;
the third, the left side, is dotted. It is through the latter that emerges
Sephira. Spreading in every direction, she finally encompasses the whole
triangle. In this emanation the triple triad is formed. From the invisible Dew
falling from the higher Uni-triad (thus leaving 7 sephiroths only), the
"Head" Sephira creates primeval waters, i.e., Chaos takes shape. It
is the first stage towards the solidification of spirit which through various
modifications will produce earth. "It requires earth and water to make a
living soul," says Moses. It requires the image of an aquatic bird to
connect it with water, the female element of procreation with the egg and the
bird that fecundates it.
When
Sephira emerges like an active power from within the latent Deity, she is female;
when she assumes the office of a creator, she becomes a male; hence, she is
androgyne. She is the "Father and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
With the ancient Jews, as shown by Le Clerc, the word Oulom meant only a time
whose beginning or end is not known. The term "eternity," properly
speaking, did not exist in the Hebrew tongue with the meaning, for instance,
applied by the Vedantins to Parabrahm.
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[[Vol.
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Mother
Aditi," of the Hindu Cosmogony and of the Secret Doctrine. If the oldest
Hebrew scrolls had been preserved, the modern Jehovah-worshipper would have
found that many and uncomely were the symbols of the creative god. The frog in
the moon, typical of his generative character, was the most frequent. All the
birds and animals now held "unclean" in the Bible had been the
symbols of the Deity in days of old. It was because they were too sacred that a
mask of uncleanness was placed over them, in order to preserve them from
destruction. The brazen serpent was not a bit more poetical than the goose or
swan, if symbols are to be accepted a la lettre.
In
the words of the Zohar: "The Indivisible Point, which has no limit and
cannot be comprehended because of its purity and brightness, expanded from
without, forming a brightness that served the indivisible Point as a
veil;" yet the latter also "could not be viewed in consequence of its
immeasurable light. It too expanded from without, and this expansion was its
garment. Thus through a constant upheaving (motion) finally the world
originated" (Zohar I. 20a). The Spiritual substance sent forth by the
Infinite Light is the first Sephira or Shekinah: Sephira exoterically contains
all the other nine Sephiroths in her. Esoterically she contains but two,*
Chochmah or Wisdom, "a masculine, active potency whose divine name is Jah
([[diagram]])," and BINAH, a feminine passive potency, Intelligence, represented
by the divine name Jehovah ([[diagram]]); which two potencies form, with
Sephira the third, the Jewish trinity or the Crown, KETHER. These two
Sephiroths called Father, Abba, and Mother Amona, are the duad or the
double-sexed logos from which issued the other seven Sephiroths. (See Zohar.)
This first Jewish triad (Sephira, Chochmah, and Binah) is the Hindu Trimurti.*
However veiled, even in the Zohar, and more still in the exoteric Pantheon of
India, every particular connected with one is reproduced in the other. The
Prajapati are the Sephiroths. Ten with Brahma they dwindle to seven, when the
Trimurti, and the Kabalistic triad, are separated from the rest. The seven
Builders (Creators) become the seven Prajapati, or the seven Rishis, in the
same order as the Sephiroths become the Creators; then the Patriarchs, etc. In
both Secret Systems, the One Universal Essence is incomprehensible and inactive
in its absoluteness, and can be connected with the building of the Universe
only in an indirect way. In both, the primeval Malefemale or androgynous
Principle, and their ten and seven Emanations (Brahma-Viraj and Aditi-Vach on
the one part and the Elohim-Jehovah, or Adam-Adami (Adam Kadmon) and Sephira
Eve on the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Indian Pantheon the double-sexed Logos is Brahma, the Creator, whose
seven "mind born" sons are the primeval Rishis -- the
"Builders."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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other),
with their Prajapati and Sephiroths, represent in their totality, first of all
the Archetypal man, the Proto-logos; and only in their secondary aspect do they
become Cosmic powers, and astronomical or sidereal bodies. If Aditi is the
mother of the gods, Deva-Matri, Eve is the mother of all living; they are the
Sakti or generative power in their female aspect of the "Heavenly
man," and they are all compound Creators. Says a "Gupta Vidya"
Sutra: "In the beginning, a ray issuing from Paramarthika (the one and
only true existence), it became manifested in Vyavaharika (conventional
existence) which was used as a Vahan to descend into the Universal Mother, and
to cause her to expand (swell, brih)." And in the Zohar it is stated: "The
Infinite Unity, formless and without similitude, after the form of the heavenly
man was created, used it. The Unknown Light* (Darkness) used the
[[hebrew]](heavenly form) as a chariot [[hebrew]] through which to descend, and
wished to be called by this form, which is the sacred name Jehovah."
As
the Zohar says: "In the beginning was the Will of the King, prior to any
other existence. . . . It (the Will) sketched the forms of all things that had been
concealed but now came into view. And there went forth as a sealed secret from
the head of Ain Soph, a nebulous spark of matter, without shape or form. . . .
Life is drawn from below, and from above the source renews itself, the sea is
always full and spreads its waters everywhere." Thus the deity is compared
to a shoreless sea, to water which is "the fountain of life" (Zohar
iii., 290). "The seventh palace, the fountain of life, is the first in the
order from above" (ii. 261). Hence the Kabalistic tenet on the lips of the
very Kabalistic Solomon, who says in Proverbs ix., 1: "Wisdom hath builded
her house; it hath hewn out its seven pillars."
Whence
then, all this identity of ideas, if there was no primeval UNIVERSAL
Revelation? The few points shown are like a few straws in a hayrick, in
comparison to that which will be shown as the work proceeds. If we turn to that
most hazy of all Cosmogonies -- the Chinese, even there the same idea is found.
Tsi-tsai (the Self-Existent) is the unknown Darkness, the root of the
Wuliang-sheu (Boundless Age), Amitabhe, and Tien (heaven) come later on. The
"great Extreme" of Confucius gives the same idea, his
"straws" notwithstanding. The latter are a source of great amusement
to the missionaries. These laugh at every "heathen" religion, despise
and hate that of their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says Rabbi Simeon: "Ah, companions, companions, man as an emanation was
both man and woman, as well on the side of the 'Father' as on the side of the
'Mother.' And this is the sense of the words: 'And Elohim spoke; Let there be
Light, and it was Light' . . . and this is the two-fold man."
("Auszuge aus dem Sohar," p. 13, 15.) Light, then, in Genesis stood
for the Androgyne Ray or "Heavenly Man."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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brother
Christians of other denominations, and yet one and all accept a la lettre their
own Genesis. If we turn to Chaldea we find in it Anu, the concealed deity, the
One, whose name, moreover, shows it to be of Sanskrit origin. Anu, which means
in Sanskrit "atom," aniyamsam aniyasam (smallest of the small), is a
name of Parabrahm in the Vedantic philosophy; Parabrahm being described as
smaller than the smallest atom, and greater than the greatest sphere or
universe: "Anagraniyam and Mahatorvavat." This is what George Smith
gives as the first verses of the Akkadian Genesis as found in the Cuneiform
Texts on the "Lateras Coctiles." There also, we find Anu the passive
deity or En-Soph, Bel, the Creator, the Spirit of God (Sephira) moving on the
face of the waters, hence water itself, and Hea, the Universal Soul or wisdom
of the three combined.
The
first eight verses read thus:
1.
When above, were not raised the heavens;
2.
And below on the earth a plant had not grown up.
3.
The abyss had not broken its boundaries.
4.
The chaos (or water) Tiamat (the sea) was the producing mother of the whole of
them. (This is the Cosmical Aditi and Sephira.)
5.
Those waters at the beginning were ordained but --
6.
A tree had not grown, a flower had not unfolded.
7.
When the gods had not sprung up, any one of them.
8.
A plant had not grown, and order did not exist.
This
was the chaotic or ante-genetic period -- the double Swan and the Dark Swan,
which becomes white, when Light is created.*
The
symbol chosen for the majestic ideal of the Universal Principle will seem
little calculated to answer its sacred character. A goose, or even a swan, may
appear unfit, no doubt, to represent the grandeur of the Spirit. Nevertheless,
it must have had some deep occult meaning, since it figures not only in every
cosmogony and world religion, but even was chosen by the mediaeval Christians,
the Crusaders, as the vehicle of the Holy Ghost supposed to lead the army to
Palestine, to wrench the Tomb of the Saviour from the hands of the Saracen. If
we are to credit Professor Draper's statement in his "Intellectual
Development of Europe," the Crusaders, led on by Peter the Hermit, were
preceded, at the head of the army, by the Holy Ghost under the shape of a white
gander in company of a goat. The Egyptian God of Time, Seb, carries a goose on
his head. Jupiter assumes the form of a swan and Brahma also, because the root
of all this is that mystery of mysteries -- the MUNDANE EGG. (See preceding §).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Seven Swans that are believed to land from Heaven into Lake Mansarovara, are
in the popular fancy the Seven Rishis of the Great Bear, who assume that form
to visit the locality where the Vedas were written.
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[[Vol.
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One
has to learn the reason of a symbol before one depreciates it. The dual element
of Air and Water is that of the ibis, swan, goose and pelican, of crocodiles
and frogs, lotus flowers and water lilies, &c.; and the result is the
choice of the most unseemly symbols among the modern as much as the ancient
mystics. Pan, the great god of nature, was generally figured in connection with
aquatic birds, geese especially, and so were other gods. If, later on, with the
gradual degeneration of religion, the gods to whom geese were sacred, became
Priapic deities, it does not stand to reason that water fowls were made sacred
to Pan and other Phallic deities as some scoffers even of antiquity would have
it (see Petronii Satyrica, cxxxvi.); but that the abstract and divine power of
procreative nature had become grossly anthropomorphized. Nor does the Swan of
Leda show "Priapic doings and her enjoyment thereof," as Mr. Hargrave
Jennings chastely expresses it -- for the myth is but another version of the
same philosophical idea of cosmogony. Swans are frequently found associated
with Apollo, as they are the emblems of water and fire (sun-light also), before
the separation of the Elements.
Our
modern symbologists might profit by some remarks made by a well-known writer,
Mrs. Lydia Maria Child. "From time immemorial an emblem has been
worshipped in Hindostan as the type of creation, or the origin of life. . . .
Siva or the Mahadeva being not only the reproducer of human forms, but also the
fructifying principle, the generative power that pervades the Universe. The
maternal emblem is likewise a religious type. This reverence for the production
of life, introduced into the worship of Osiris the sexual emblems. Is it
strange that they regarded with reverence the great mystery of human birth?
Were they impure thus to regard it? Or are we impure that do not so regard it?
But no clean and thoughtful mind could so regard them. . . . We have travelled
far, and unclean have been the paths, since those old Anchorites first spoke of
God and the soul in the solemn depths of their first sanctuaries. Let us not
smile at their mode of tracing the infinite and the incomprehensible Cause
throughout all the mysteries of nature, lest by so doing we cast the shadow of
our own grossness on their patriarchal simplicity." ("Progress of
Religious Ideas," Vol. 1, p. 17, et seq.)
--------------
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[[Vol.
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§
VI.
THE
MUNDANE EGG.
WHENCE
this universal symbol? The Egg was incorporated as a sacred sign in the
cosmogony of every people on the Earth, and was revered both on account of its
form and its inner mystery. From the earliest mental conceptions of man, it was
known as that which represented most successfully the origin and secret of
being. The gradual development of the imperceptible germ within the closed
shell; the inward working, without any apparent outward interference of force,
which from a latent nothing produced an active something, needing nought save
heat; and which, having gradually evolved into a concrete, living creature,
broke its shell, appearing to the outward senses of all a self-generated, and
self-created being -- must have been a standing miracle from the beginning.
The
secret teaching explains the reason for this reverence by the Symbolism of the
prehistoric races. The "First Cause" had no name in the beginnings.
Later it was pictured in the fancy of the thinkers as an ever invisible,
mysterious Bird that dropped an Egg into Chaos, which Egg becomes the Universe.
Hence Brahm was called Kalahansa, "the swan in (Space and) Time." He
became the "Swan of Eternity," who lays at the beginning of each
Mahamanvantara a "Golden Egg." It typifies the great Circle, or O,
itself a symbol for the universe and its spherical bodies.
The
second reason for its having been chosen as the symbolical representation of
the Universe, and of our earth, was its form. It was a Circle and a Sphere; and
the ovi-form shape of our globe must have been known from the beginning of
symbology, since it was so universally adopted. The first manifestation of the
Kosmos in the form of an egg was the most widely diffused belief of antiquity.
As Bryant shows (iii., 165), it was a symbol adopted among the Greeks, the
Syrians, Persians, and Egyptians. In chap. liv. of the Egyptian Ritual, Seb,
the god of Time and of the Earth, is spoken of as having laid an egg, or the
Universe, "an egg conceived at the hour of the great one of the Dual
Force" (Sec. V., 2, 3, etc.).
Ra
is shown like Brahma gestating in the Egg of the Universe. The deceased is
"resplendent in the Egg of the land of mysteries" (xxii., 1). For,
this is "the Egg to which is given life among the gods" (xlii., 11).
"It is the Egg of the great clucking Hen, the Egg of Seb, who issues from
it like a hawk" (lxiv., 1, 2, 3; lxxvii., 1).
With
the Greeks the Orphic Egg is described by Aristophanes, and was part of the
Dionysiac and other mysteries, during which
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the
Mundane Egg was consecrated and its significance explained; Porphyry showing it
a representation of the world, [[Ermenenei de to oon kosmon]]. Faber and Bryant
have tried to show that the egg typified the ark of Noah, which, unless the
latter is accepted as purely allegorical and symbolical, is a wild belief. It
can have typified the ark only as a synonym of the moon, the argha which carries
the universal seed of life; but had surely nothing to do with the ark of the
Bible. Anyhow, the belief that the universe existed in the beginning in the
shape of an egg was general. And as Wilson has it: "A similar account of
the first aggregation of the elements in the form of an egg is given in all the
(Indian) Puranas, with the usual epithet Haima or Hiranya, 'golden' as it
occurs in Manu." Hiranya, however, means "resplendent,"
"shining," rather than "golden," as proven by the great
Indian scholar, the late Swami Dayanand Sarasvati, in his unpublished polemics
with Professor Max Muller. As said in the Vishnu Purana: "Intellect
(Mahat) . . . the (unmanifested) gross elements inclusive, formed an egg . . .
and the lord of the Universe himself abided in it, in the character of Brahma.
In that egg, O Brahman, were the continents, and seas and mountains, the
planets and divisions of the universe, the gods, the demons and mankind."
(Book i., ch. 2.) Both in Greece and in India the first visible male being, who
united in himself the nature of either sex, abode in the egg and issued from
it. This "first born of the world" was Dionysius, with some Greeks;
the god who sprang from the mundane egg, and from whom the mortals and
immortals were derived. The god Ra is shown in the Ritual (Book of the Dead,
xvii., 50) beaming in his egg (the Sun), and he starts off as soon as the god
Shoo (the Solar energy) awakens and gives him the impulse. "He is in the
Solar egg, the egg to which is given life among the gods" (Ibid., xlii.,
13). The Solar god exclaims: "I am the creative soul of the celestial
abyss. None sees my nest, none can break my egg, I am the Lord!" (Ibid.,
LXXXV.).
In
view of this circular form, the "|" issuing from the
"[[diagram]]," or the egg, or the male from the female in the
androgyne, it is strange to find a scholar saying -- on the ground that the
most ancient Indian MSS. show no trace of it -- that the ancient Aryans were
ignorant of the decimal notation. The 10, being the sacred number of the universe,
was secret and esoteric, both as the unit and cipher, or zero, the circle.
Moreover, Professor Max Muller says that "the two words cipher and zero,
which are but one, are sufficient to prove that our figures are borrowed from
the Arabs.* Cipher is the Arabic "cifron," and means
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Max Muller's "Our Figures."
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[[Vol.
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empty,
a translation of the Sanscrit name of nought "sunya," he says.* The
Arabs had their figures from Hindustan, and never claimed the discovery for
themselves.** As to the Pythagoreans, we need but turn to the ancient
manuscripts of Boethius's Geometry, composed in the sixth century, to find
among the Pythagorean numerals*** the 1 and the nought, as the first and final
ciphers. And Porphyry, who quotes from the Pythagorean Moderatus,**** says that
the numerals of Pythagoras were "hieroglyphical symbols, by means whereof
he explained ideas concerning the nature of things," or the origin of the
universe.
Now,
if, on the other hand, the most ancient Indian manuscripts show as yet no trace
of decimal notation in them, and Max Muller states very clearly that until now
he has found but nine letters (the initials of the Sanscrit numerals) in them;
on the other hand, we have records as ancient to supply the wanted proof. We
speak of the sculptures and the sacred imagery in the most ancient temples of
the far East. Pythagoras derived his knowledge from India; and we find
Professor Max Muller corroborating this statement, at least so far as to allow
the Neo-Pythagoreans to have been the first teachers of "ciphering,"
among the Greeks and Romans; that "they at Alexandria, or in Syria, became
acquainted with the Indian figures, and adapted them to the Pythagorean
abacus" (our figures). This cautious admission implies that Pythagoras
himself was acquainted with but nine figures. Thus we might reasonably answer
that, although we possess no certain proof (exoterically) that the decimal
notation was known by Pythagoras, who lived on the very close of the archaic
ages,***** we have yet sufficient evidence to show that the full numbers, as
given by Boethius, were known to the Pythagoreans, even before Alexandria was
built.****** This evidence we find in Aristotle, who says that "some
philosophers hold that ideas and numbers are of the same nature, and amount to
TEN in all."******* This, we believe, will be sufficient to show that the
decimal notation was known among them at least as early as four centuries B.C.,
for Aristotle does not seem to treat the question as an innovation of the
"Neo-Pythagoreans."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A Kabalist would be rather inclined to believe that as the Arabic cifron was
taken from the Indian Synya, nought, so the Jewish Kabalistic Sephiroth
(Sephrim) were taken from the word cipher, not in the sense of emptiness but
the reverse -- that of creation by number and degrees in their evolution. And
the Sephiroth are 10 or [[diagram]].
**
See Max Muller's "Our Figures."
***
See King's "Gnostics and their Remains," plate xiii.
****
"Vita Pythag."
*****
608 B.C.
******
This city was built 332 B.C.
*******
"Metaph." vii., F.
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But
we know more than that: we know that the decimal system must have been known to
the mankind of the earliest archaic ages, since the whole astronomical and
geometrical portion of the secret sacerdotal language was built upon the number
10, or the combination of the male and female principles, and since the Pyramid
of "Cheops" is built upon the measures of this decimal notation, or
rather upon the digits and their combinations with the nought. Of this,
however, sufficient was said in Isis Unveiled, and it is useless to repeat and
return to the same subject.
The
symbolism of the Lunar and Solar Deities is so inextricably mixed up, that it
is next to impossible to separate such glyphs as the egg, the lotus, and the
"sacred" animals from each other. The ibis, for instance, sacred to
Isis, who is often represented with the head of that bird, sacred also to
Mercury or Thoth, because that god assumed its form while escaping from Typhon,
-- the ibis was held in the greatest veneration in Egypt. There were two kinds
of ibises, Herodotus tells us (Lib. II. c. 75 et seq.) in that country: one
quite black, the other black and white. The former is credited with fighting
and exterminating the winged serpents which came every spring from Arabia and
infested the country. The other was sacred to the moon, because the latter
planet is white and brilliant on her external side, dark and black on that side
which she never turns to the earth. Moreover, the ibis kills land serpents, and
makes the most terrible havoc amongst the eggs of the crocodile, and thus saves
Egypt from having the Nile infested by those horrible Saurians. The bird is
credited with doing so in the moonlight, and thus being helped by Isis, as the
moon, her sidereal symbol. But the nearer esoteric truth underlying these
popular myths is, that Hermes, as shown by Abenephius (De cultu Egypt.),
watched under the form of that bird over the Egyptians, and taught them the
occult arts and sciences. This means simply that the ibis religiosa had and has
"magical" properties in common with many other birds, the albatross
pre-eminently, and the mythical white swan, the swan of Eternity or Time, the KALAHANSA.
Were
it otherwise, indeed, why should all the ancient peoples, who were no more
fools than we are, have had such a superstitious dread of killing certain
birds? In Egypt, he who killed an ibis, or the golden hawk -- the symbol of the
Sun and Osiris -- risked and could hardly escape death. The veneration of some
nations for birds was such that Zoroaster, in his precepts, forbids their
slaughter as a heinous crime. We laugh in our age at every kind of divination.
Yet why should so many generations have believed in divination by birds, and
even in zoomancy, said by Suidas to have been imparted by Orpheus, who taught
how to perceive in the yoke and white of
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the
egg, under certain conditions, that which the bird born from it would have seen
around it during its short life. This occult art, which demanded 3,000 years
ago the greatest learning and the most abstruse mathematical calculations, has
now fallen into the depths of degradation: it is old cooks and fortune-tellers
who read their future to servant-girls in search of husbands, by means of the
white of an egg in a glass.
Nevertheless,
even Christians have to this day their sacred birds; for instance, the dove,
the symbol of the Holy Ghost. Nor have they neglected the sacred animals. The
Evangelical zoolatry -- the Bull, the Eagle, the Lion, and the Angel (in
reality the Cherub, or Seraph, the fiery-winged Serpent), is as much pagan as
that of the Egyptians or the Chaldeans. These four animals are, in reality, the
symbols of the four elements, and of the four lower principles in man.
Nevertheless, they correspond physically and materially to the four
constellations that form, so to speak, the suite or cortege of the Solar God,
and occupy during the winter solstice the four cardinal points of the zodiacal
circle. These four "animals" may be seen in many of the Roman
Catholic New Testaments where the portraits of the evangelists are given. They are
the animals of Ezekiel's Mercabah.
As
truly stated by Ragon, "the ancient Hierophants have combined so cleverly
the dogmas and symbols of their religious philosophies, that these symbols can
be fully explained only by the combination and knowledge of all the keys."
They can be only approximately interpreted, even if one finds out three out of
these seven systems: the anthropological, the psychic, and the astronomical.
The two chief interpretations, the highest and the lowest, the spiritual and the
physiological, they preserved in the greatest secrecy until the latter fell
into the dominion of the profane. Thus far, with regard only to the
pre-historic Hierophants, with whom that which has now become purely (or
impurely) phallic, was a science as profound and as mysterious as biology and
physiology are now. This was their exclusive property, the fruit of their
studies and discoveries. The other two were those which dealt with the creative
gods (theogony), and with creative man, i.e., the ideal and the practical
mysteries. These interpretations were so cleverly veiled and combined, that
many were those who, while arriving at the discovery of one meaning, were
baffled in understanding the significance of the others, and could never
unriddle them sufficiently to commit dangerous indiscretions. The highest, the
first and the fourth -- theogony in relation to anthropogony -- were almost
impossible to fathom. We find the proofs of this in the Jewish "Holy
Writ."
It
is owing to the serpent being oviparous, that it became a symbol of wisdom and
an emblem of the Logoi, or the self-born. In the temple of Philoe in Upper
Egypt, an egg was artificially prepared of clay made of
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various
incenses, and it was made to hatch by a peculiar process, when a cerastes (the
horned viper) was born. The same was done in antiquity for the cobra in the
Indian temples. The creative God emerges from the egg that issues from the
mouth of Kneph -- as a winged serpent -- because the Serpent is the symbol of
the All-wisdom. With the Hebrews he is glyphed by the "flying or fiery
serpents" of the Wilderness and Moses, and with the Alexandrian mystics he
becomes the Ophio-Christos, the Logos of the Gnostics. The Protestants try to
show that the allegory of the Brazen Serpent and of the "fiery
serpents" has a direct reference to the mystery of Christ and
Crucifixion*; but it has a far nearer relation, in truth, to the mystery of generation,
when dissociated from the egg with the central germ, or the circle with its
central point. The brazen Serpent had no such holy meaning as that; nor was it,
in fact, glorified above the "fiery serpents" for the bite of which
it was only a natural remedy. The symbological meaning of the word
"brazen" being the feminine principle, and that of fiery, or
"gold," the male one.**
In
the Book of the Dead, as just shown, reference is often made to the Egg. Ra, the
mighty one, remains in his Egg, during the struggle between the "children
of the rebellion" and Shoo (the Solar Energy and the Dragon of Darkness)
(ch. xvii.). The deceased is resplendent in his
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And this only because the brazen serpent was lifted on a pole! It had rather a
reference to Mico the Egyptian egg standing upright supported by the sacred
Tau; since the Egg and the Serpent are inseparable in the old worship and
symbology of Egypt, and since both the Brazen and "fiery" serpents
were Saraphs, the "burning fiery" messengers, or the serpent Gods,
the nagas of India. It was a purely phallic symbol without the egg, while when
associated with it -- it related to cosmic creation.
**
"Brass was a metal symbolizing the nether world . . . . that of the womb
where life should be given . . . The word for serpent was in Hebrew Nakash, but
this is the same term for brass." It is said in Numbers (xxi.) that the
Jews complained of the Wilderness where there was no water (v. 5); after which
"the Lord sent fiery serpents" to bite them, when, to oblige Moses,
he gives him as a remedy the brazen serpent on a pole to look at; after which
"any man when he beheld the serpent of brass . . . . lived" (?).
After that the "Lord," gathering the people together at the well of
Beer, gives them water, (14-16), and grateful Israel sang this song,
"Spring up, O Well," (v. 17). When, after studying symbology, the
Christian reader comes to understand the innermost meaning of these three
symbols -- water, brazen, the serpent, and a few more -- in the sense given to
them in the Holy Bible, he will hardly like to connect the sacred name of his
Saviour with the "Brazen Serpent" incident. The Seraphim [[hebrew]]
(fiery winged serpents) are no doubt connected with, and inseparable from, the
idea "of the serpent of eternity -- God," as explained in Kenealy's
Apocalypse. But the word cherub also meant serpent, in one sense, though its
direct meaning is different; because the Cherubim and the Persian winged
[[gruphes]] "griffins" -- the guardians of the golden mountain -- are
the same, and their compound name shows their character, as it is formed of
[[hebrew]] (kr) circle, and [[hebrew]] "aub," or ob -- serpent --
therefore, a "serpent in a circle." And this settles the phallic
character of the Brazen Serpent, and justifies Hezekiah for breaking it. (See
II. Kings, 18, 4). Verbum sat. sapienti.
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Egg
when he crosses to the land of mystery (xxii. i.). He is the Egg of Seb (liv.
1-3). . . . The Egg was the symbol of life in immortality and eternity; as also
the glyph of the generative matrix; and the tau, associated with it, only of
life and birth in generation. The Mundane Egg was placed in Khnoom, the
"Water of Space," or the feminine abstract principle (Khnoom
becoming, with the fall of mankind into generation and phallicism, Ammon, the
creative God); and when Phtah, the "fiery god," carries the Mundane
egg in his hand, then the symbolism becomes quite terrestrial and concrete in
its significance. In conjunction with the hawk, the symbol of Osiris-Sun, the
symbol is dual: it relates to both lives -- the mortal and the immortal. In
Kircher's OEdipus Egyptiacus (vol. iii., p. 124) one can see, on the papyrus
engraved in it, an egg floating above the mummy. This is the symbol of hope and
the promise of a second birth for the Osirified dead; his Soul, after due
purification in the Amenti, will gestate in this egg of immortality, to be
reborn from it into a new life on earth. For this Egg, in the esoteric
Doctrine, is the Devachan, the abode of Bliss; the winged scarabeus being alike
a symbol of it. The "winged globe" is but another form of the egg,
and has the same significance as the scarabeus, the Khopiroo (from the root
Khoproo "to become," "to be reborn,") which relates to the
rebirth of man, as well as to his spiritual regeneration.
In
the Theogony of Mochus, we find AEther first, and then the air, from which
Ulom, the intelligible ([[noetos]]) deity (the visible Universe of Matter) is
born out of the Mundane Egg. (Mover's Phoinizer, p. 282.)
In
the Orphic Hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the divine Egg, which the AEthereal
Winds impregnate, wind being "the Spirit of the unknown Darkness" --
"the spirit of God" (as explains K. O. Muller, 236); the divine
"Idea," says Plato, "who is said to move AEther."
In
the Hindu Katakopanishad, Purusha, the divine spirit, already stands before the
original matter, "from whose union springs the great soul of the
world," Maha-Atma, Brahma, the Spirit of Life,* etc., etc.** Besides this
there are many charming allegories on this subject scattered through the sacred
books of the Brahmins. In one place it is the female creator who is first a
germ, then a drop of heavenly dew, a pearl, and then an egg. In such cases --
of which there are too many to enumerate them separately -- the Egg gives birth
to the four elements within the fifth, Ether, and is covered with seven
coverings, which become later on the seven upper and the seven lower worlds.
Breaking in two, the shell becomes the heaven, and the meat in the egg the
earth, the white forming the terres-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The latter appellations are all identical with Anima Mundi, or the
"Universal Soul," the astral light of the Kabalist and the Occultist,
or the "Egg of Darkness."
**
Weber, "Akad Vorles," pp. 213, 214 et seq.
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[[Vol.
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trial
waters. Then again, it is Vishnu who emerges from within the egg with a lotus
in his hand. Vinata, a daughter of Daksha and wife of Kasyapa ("the
Self-born sprung from Time," one of the seven "creators" of our
world), brought forth an egg from which was born Garuda, the vehicle of Vishnu,
the latter allegory having a relation to our Earth only, as Garuda is the Great
Cycle.
The
egg was sacred to Isis; the priests of Egypt never ate eggs on that account.*
Diodorus
Siculus states that Osiris was born from an Egg, like Brahma. From Leda's Egg
Apollo and Latona were born, as also Castor and Pollux -- the bright Gemini.
And though the Buddhists do not attribute the same origin to their Founder,
yet, no more than the ancient Egyptians or the modern Brahmins, do they eat
eggs, lest they should destroy the germ of life latent in them, and commit
thereby Sin. The Chinese believe that their first man was born from an egg,
which Tien, a god, dropped down from heaven to earth into the waters.** This
symbol is still regarded by some as representing the idea of the origin of
life, which is a scientific truth, though the human ovum is invisible to the
naked eye. Therefore we see respect shown to it from the remotest past, by the
Greeks, Phoenicians, Romans, the Japanese, and the Siamese, the North and South
American tribes, and even the savages of the remotest islands.
With
the Egyptians, the concealed god was Ammon (Mon). All their gods were dual: the
scientific reality for the Sanctuary; its double, the fabulous and mythical
Entity, for the masses. For instance, as observed in "Chaos, Theos,
Kosmos," the older Horus was the Idea of the world remaining in the demiurgic
mind "born in Darkness before the creation of the world;" the second
Horus*** was the same Idea going forth from the Logos, becoming clothed with
matter and assuming an actual existence. (Compare Mover's
"Phoinizer," p. 268.) The same with Khnoum and Ammon;**** both are
represented ram-headed, and both often confused, though their functions are
different. Khnoum is "the modeller of men," fashioning men and things
out of the Mundane Egg on a potter's wheel;
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Isis is almost always represented holding a lotus in one hand and in the other
a circle and the Cross (crux ansata), the Egg being sacred to her.
**
The Chinese seem to have thus anticipated Sir William Thomson's theory that the
first living germ had dropped to the Earth from some passing comet. Query! why
should this be called scientific and the Chinese idea a superstitious, foolish
theory?
***
Horus -- the "older," or Haroiri, is an ancient aspect of the solar
god, contemporary with Ra and Shoo; Haroiri is often mistaken for Hor
(Horsusi), Son of Osiris and Isis. The Egyptians very often represented the
rising Sun under the form of Hor the older, rising from a full-blown lotus, the
Universe, when the solar disc is always found on the hawk-head of that god.
Haroiri is Khnoum.
****
Ammon or Mon, the "hidden," the Supreme Spirit.
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Ammon-Ra,
the generator, is the secondary aspect of the concealed deity. Khnoum was
adored at Elephanta and Philoe,* Ammon at Thebes. But it is Emepht, the One,
Supreme Planetary principle, who blows the egg out of his mouth, and who is,
therefore, Brahma. The shadow of the deity, Kosmic and universal, of that which
broods over and permeates the egg with its vivifying Spirit until the germ
contained in it is ripe, was the mystery god whose name was unpronounceable. It
is Phtah, however, "he who opens," the opener of life and Death,**
who proceeds from the egg of the world to begin his dual work. (Book of
Numbers.)
According
to the Greeks, the phantom form of the Chemis (Chemi, ancient Egypt) which
floats on the ethereal waves of the Empyrean Sphere, was called into being by
Horus-Apollo, the Sun god, who caused it to evolve out of the Mundane egg.***
In
the Scandinavian Cosmogony -- placed by Professor Max Muller, in point of time,
as "far anterior to the Vedas" in the poem of Voluspa (the song of
the prophetess), the Mundane egg is again discovered in the phantom-germ of the
Universe, which is represented as lying in the Ginnungagap -- the cup of
illusion (Maya) the boundless and void abyss. In this world's matrix, formerly
a region of night and desolation, Nebelheim (the mist-place, the nebular as it
is called now, in the astral light) dropped a ray of cold light which
overflowed this cup and froze in it. Then the Invisible blew a scorching wind
which dissolved the frozen waters and cleared the mist. These waters (chaos),
called the streams of Elivagar, distilling in vivifying drops, fell down and
created the earth and the giant Ymir, who only had "the semblance of
man" (the Heavenly man), and the cow, Audhumla (the "mother" or
astral light, Cosmic Soul) from whose udder flowed four streams of milk (the
four cardinal points: the four heads of the four rivers of Eden, etc., etc.)
and which "four" allegorically are symbolized by the cube in all its
various and mystical meanings.
The
Christians -- especially the Greek and Latin Churches -- have fully adopted the
symbol, and see in it a commemoration of life eternal,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
His triadic goddesses are Sati and Anouki.
**
Phtah was originally the god of death, of destruction, like Siva. He is a solar
god only by virtue of the sun's fire killing as well as vivifying. He was the
national god of Memphis, the radiant and "fair-faced God." (See
Saqquarah Bronzes, Saitic Epoch.)
***
The Brahmanda Purana contains the mystery about Brahma's golden egg fully; and
this is why, perhaps, it is inaccessible to the Orientalists, who say that this
Purana, like the Skanda, is "no longer procurable in a collective
body," but "is represented by a variety of Khandas and Mahatmyas
professing to be derived from it." The "Brahmanda Purana" is
described as "that which is declared in 12,200 verses, the magnificence of
the egg of Brahma, and in which an account of the future Kalpas is contained as
revealed by Brahma." Quite so, and much more, perchance.
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[[Vol.
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of
salvation and of resurrection. This is found in and corroborated by the
time-honoured custom of exchanging "Easter Eggs." From the anguinum,
the "Egg" of the "pagan" Druid, whose name alone made Rome
tremble with fear, to the red Easter Egg of the Slavonian peasant, a cycle has
passed. And yet, whether in civilized Europe, or among the abject savages of
Central America, we find the same archaic, primitive thought; if we only search
for it and do not disfigure -- in the haughtiness of our fancied mental and
physical superiority -- the original idea of the symbol.
--------------
§
VII.
THE
DAYS AND NIGHTS OF BRAHMA.
THIS
is the name given to the Periods called MANVANTARA (Manuantara, or between the
Manus) and PRALAYA (Dissolution); one referring to the active periods of the
Universe, the other to its times of relative and complete rest -- according to
whether they occur at the end of a "Day," or an "Age" (a
life) of Brahma. These periods, which follow each other in regular succession,
are also called Kalpas, small and great, the minor and the Maha Kalpa; though,
properly speaking, the Maha Kalpa is never a "day," but a whole life
or age of Brahma, for it is said in the Brahma Vaivarta: "Chronologers
compute a Kalpa by the Life of Brahma; minor Kalpas, as Samvarta and the rest,
are numerous." In sober truth they are infinite; as they have never had a
commencement, i.e., there never was a first Kalpa, nor will there ever be a
last one, in Eternity.
One
Parardha -- in the ordinary acceptation of this measure of time -- or half of
the existence of Brahma (in the present Maha Kalpa) has already expired; the
last Kalpa was the Padma, or that of the Golden Lotos; the present one being
Varaha* (the "boar" incarnation, or Avatar).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There is a curious piece of information in the Buddhist esoteric traditions.
The exoteric or allegorical biography of Gautama Buddha shows this great Sage
dying of an indigestion of pork and rice, a very prosaic end, indeed, having
little of the solemn element in it. This is explained as an allegorical reference
to his having been born in the "Boar," or Varaha-Kalpa when Brahma
assumed the form of that animal to raise the Earth out of the "Waters of
Space." And as the Brahmins descend direct from Brahma and are, so to
speak, identified with him; and as they are at the same time the mortal enemies
of Buddha and Buddhism, we have the curious allegorical hint and combination.
Brahminism (of the Boar, or Varaha Kalpa) has slaughtered the religion of
Buddha in India, swept it away from its face; therefore Buddha, identified with
his philosophy, is said to have died from the effects of eating of the flesh of
a wild hog. [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 369 HUMAN GODS AND DIVINE MEN.
By
the scholar who studies the Hindu religion from the Puranas, one thing is to be
especially noted. He must not take literally, and in one sense only, the
statements therein found; since those which especially concern the Manvantaras or
Kalpas have to be understood in their several references. So, for instance,
these periods relate in the same language to both the great and the small
periods, to Maha Kalpas and to minor Cycles. The Matsya, or Fish Avatar,
happened before the Varaha or Boar Avatar; the allegories, therefore, must
relate to both the Padma and the present manvantara, and also to the minor
cycles which took place since the reappearance of our Chain of Worlds and
Earth. And, as the Matsya Avatar of Vishnu and Vaivasvata's Deluge are
correctly connected with an event that happened on our Earth during this Round,
it is evident that while it may relate to pre-cosmic events (in the sense of
our Kosmos or Solar system) it has reference in our case to a distant
geological period. Not even Esoteric philosophy can claim to know, except by
analogical inference, that which took place before the reappearance of our
Solar System and previous to the last Maha Pralaya. But it teaches distinctly
that after the first geological disturbance in the Earth's axis which ended in
the sweeping down to the bottom of the Seas of the whole second Continent, with
its primeval races -- of which successive "Earths" or Continents
Atlantis was the fourth -- there came another disturbance by the axis resuming
as rapidly its previous degree of inclination; when the Earth was indeed raised
once more out of the Waters, and -- as above so it is below; and vice versa.
There were "gods" on Earth in those days -- gods, and not men, as we
know them now, says the tradition. As will be shown in Book II., the
computation of periods in exoteric Hinduism refers to both the great cosmic and
the small terrestrial events and cataclysms, and the same may be shown for
names. For instance Yudishthira -- the first King of the Sacea, who opens the
Kali Yuga era, which has to last 432,000 years -- "an actual King and man
who lived 3,102 years B.C.," applies also, name and all, to the great
Deluge at the time of the first sinking of Atlantis. He is the
"Yudishthira* born on the mountain of the hundred peaks at the extremity
of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] The idea alone of one who established the most
rigorous vegetarianism and respect for animal life -- even to refusing to eat
eggs as vehicles of a latent future life -- dying of a meat indigestion, is
absurdly contradictory and has puzzled more than one Orientalist. But this
explanation, unveiling the allegory, explains all the rest. The Varaha,
however, is no simple boar, and seems to have meant at first some antediluvian
lacustrine animal "delighting to sport in water." (Vayu Purana.)
*
According to Colonel Wilford, the conclusion of the "Great War" was
B.C. 1370. (See A. R., Vol.9, p. 116); according to Bentley, 575 B.C.!! We may
hope, perhaps, that before the end of this century, the Mahabharatean epics
will be found and proclaimed identical with the wars of the great Napoleon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 370 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
world beyond which nobody can go" and "immediately after the
flood." (See Royal Asiat. Soc., Vol. 9, p. 364.) We know of no
"Flood" 3,102 years B.C. -- not even that of Noah, for, agreeably
with Judaeo-Christian chronology, it took place 2,349 years B.C.
This
relates to an esoteric division of time and a mystery explained elsewhere, and
may therefore be left aside for the present. Suffice to remark at this juncture
that all the efforts of imagination of the Wilfords, Bentleys, and other
would-be OEdipuses of esoteric Hindu Chronology have sadly failed. No
computation of either the Four Ages, or the Manvantaras, has ever been
unriddled by our very learned Orientalists, who have therefore cut the Gordian
Knot by proclaiming the whole "a figment of the Brahmanical brain."
So be it, and may the great scholars rest in peace. This "figment" is
given in the Preliminary Sections which preface Anthropogenesis in Book II.,
and with esoteric additions.
Let
us see, however, what were the three kinds of pralayas, and what is the popular
belief about them. For once it agrees with Esotericism.
Of
the pralaya before which fourteen Manvantaras elapse, having over them as many
presiding Manus, and at whose close occurs the "incidental" or
Brahma's dissolution, it is said in Vishnu Purana, in condensed form, that
"at the end of a thousand periods of four ages, which complete a day of
Brahma, the earth is almost exhausted. The eternal Avyaya (Vishnu) assumes then
the character of Rudra (the destroyer, Siva) and re-unites all his creatures to
himself. He enters the Seven rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of
the globe; he causes the moisture to evaporate, thus drying up the whole Earth.
Oceans and rivers, torrents and small streams, are all exhaled. Thus fed with
abundant moisture the seven solar rays become sevens suns by dilation, and they
finally set the world on fire. Hari, the destroyer of all things, who is 'the
flame of time, Kalagni,' finally consumes the Earth. Then Rudra, becoming
Janardana, breathes clouds and rain."
There
are many kinds of Pralaya, but three chief ones are specially mentioned in old
Hindu books; and of these, as Wilson shows:-- The first is called NAIMITTIKA*
"occasional" or "incidental," caused by the intervals of
"Brahma's Days;" it is the destruction of creatures, of all that
lives and has a form, but not of the substance which remains in statu quo till
the new DAWN in that "Night." The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Vedanta and Nyaya "nimitta" (from which
"Naimittika") is rendered as the efficient cause, when antithesized
with upadana the physical or material cause. In the Sankhya pradhana is a cause
inferior to Brahma, or rather Brahma being himself a cause, is superior to
Pradhana. Hence "incidental" is wrongly translated, and ought to be
translated, as shown by some scholars, "Ideal" cause, and even real
cause would have been better.
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[[Vol.
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other
is called PRAKRITIKA -- and occurs at the end of the Age or Life of Brahma,
when everything that exists is resolved into the primal element, to be
remodelled at the end of that longer night. But the third, Atyantika, does not
concern the Worlds or the Universe, but only the individualities of some
people; it is thus individual pralaya or NIRVANA; after having reached which,
there is no more future existence possible, no rebirth till after the Maha Pralaya.
The latter night, lasting as it does 311,040,000,000,000 years, and having the
possibility of being almost doubled in case the lucky Jivanmukti reaches
Nirvana at an early period of a Manvantara, is long enough to be regarded as
eternal, if not endless. The Bhagavata (XII., iv, 35) speaks of a fourth kind
of pralaya, the Nitya or constant dissolution, and explains it as the change
which takes place imperceptibly in everything in this Universe from the globe
down to the atom -- without cessation. It is growth and decay (life and death).
When
the Maha Pralaya arrives, the inhabitants of Swar-loka (the upper sphere)
disturbed by the conflagration, seek refuge "with the Pitris, their progenitors,
the Manus, the Seven Rishis, the various orders of celestial Spirits and the
Gods, in Maharloka." When the latter is reached also, the whole of the
above enumerated beings migrate in their turn from Maharloka, and repair to
Jana-loka in "their subtile forms, destined to become re-embodied, in
similar capacities as their former, when the world is renewed at the beginning
of the succeeding Kalpa;" (Vayu Purana).
"
. . . . These clouds, mighty in size, and loud in thunder, fill up all space
(Nabhas-tala)," goes on Vishnu Purana. -- (Book VI., ch. iii.)
"Showering down torrents of water, these clouds quench the dreadful fires,
and then they rain uninterruptedly for a hundred (divine) years, and deluge the
whole world (Solar System). Pouring down, in drops as large as dice, these
rains overspread the earth, and fill the middle region (Bhuvaloka) and inundate
heaven. The world is now enveloped in darkness, and all things animate, or
inanimate, having perished, the clouds continue to pour down their waters"
. . . "and the Night of Brahma reigns supreme over the scene of desolation
. . . . ."
This
is what we call in the Esoteric Doctrine a "Solar Pralaya" . . . When
the waters have reached the region of the Seven Rishis, and the world (our
Solar System) is one ocean, they stop. The breath of Vishnu becomes a strong
wind, which blows for another hundred (divine) years until all clouds are
dispersed. The wind is then reabsorbed: and "THAT, of which all things are
made, the Lord by whom all things exist, He who is inconceivable, without
beginning, the beginning of the universe, reposes, sleeping upon Sesha (the
Serpent of Infinity) in the midst of the deep. The Adikrit
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[[Vol.
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(Creator?)
Hari, sleeps upon the ocean of Space in the form of Brahma -- glorified by
Sanaka* and the Siddha (Saints) of Jana-loka, and contemplated by the holy
denizens of Brahma-loka, anxious for final liberation, involved in mystic
slumber, the celestial personification of his own illusions. . . ." This
is the Pratisanchara (dissolution?) termed incidental because Hari is its
incidental (ideal) Cause. . . . .** When the Universal Spirit wakes, the world
revives; when he closes his eyes, all things fall upon the bed of mystic
slumber. In like manner, as 1,000 great ages constitute a Day of Brahma (in the
original it is Padma-yoni, the same as Abjayoni -- "lotos-born," not
Brahma), so his Night consists of the same period. "Awaking at the end of
his night, the unborn . . . creates the Universe anew. . . ." (Vishnu
Purana.)
This
is "incidental" pralaya; what is the Elemental Dissolution?
"When by dearth and fire," says Parasara to Maitreya, "all the
worlds and Patalas (hells) are withered up . . .*** the progress of elemental
dissolution is begun. Then, first the waters swallow up the property of Earth
(which is the rudiment of smell), and earth deprived of this property proceeds
to destruction -- and becomes one with water . . . . when the Universe is thus
pervaded by the waves of the watery Element, its rudimentary flavour is locked
up by the elements of fire . . . on account of which the waters themselves are
destroyed . . . and become one with fire; and the Universe is therefore,
entirely filled with flame (ethereal) which gradually overspreads the whole
world. While Space is one flame, the element of wind seizes upon the rudimental
property or form, which is the cause of light, and that being withdrawn
(pralina) all becomes of the nature of air. The rudiment of form being
destroyed, and Vibhavasu (fire?) deprived of its rudiment, air extinguishes
fire and spreads over space, which is deprived of light when fire merges into
air. Air, then, accompanied by sound, which is the source of Ether, extends
everywhere throughout the ten regions . . . . until Ether seizes upon cohesion
(Sparsa -- Touch?) its rudimental property, by the loss of which, air is
destroyed, and KHA remains unmodified; devoid of form, flavour, touch (Sparsa),
and smell, it exists, embodied (murttimat) and vast, and pervades the whole
Space. Akasa, whose characteristic property and rudiment is sound (the
"Word"), occupies the whole containment of Space. Then the origin
(Noumenon?) of the Elements (Bhutadi), devours sound (collective Demiurgos);
and the hosts of Dhyan Chohans, and all the existing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The chief Kumara or Virgin-god (a Dhyan Chohan) who refuses to create. A
prototype of St. Michael, who refuses to do the same.
**
See concluding lines in Section, "Chaos, Theos, Kosmos."
***
This prospect would hardly suit Christian theology, which prefers an eternal,
everlasting hell for its followers.
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 373 THE DISSOLUTION OF THE EGG.
Elements*
are at once merged into their original. The primary Element, Consciousness,
combined with tamasa (spiritual darkness) is itself disintegrated by MAHAT (the
Universal Intellect), whose characteristic property is Buddhi, and earth and
Mahat are the inner and outer boundaries of the Universe." Thus as (in the
beginning) "were the seven forms of Prakriti (nature) reckoned from Mahat
to earth, so these seven successively re-enter into each other."**
"The
Egg of Brahma (Sarva-mandala) is dissolved in the waters that surround it, with
its seven zones (dwipas) seven oceans, seven regions, and their mountains; the
investure of water is drunk by the fire; the (stratum of) fire is absorbed by
(that of) air; air blends itself with ether (Akasa); the Bhutadi (the origin,
or rather the cause, of the primary element) devours the ether and is (itself)
destroyed by Mahat (the Great, the Universal mind), which along with all these
is seized upon by Prakriti and disappears. The Prakriti is essentially the
same, whether discrete or indiscrete; only that which is discrete is finally
absorbed by and lost in the indiscrete. PUMS (Spirit) also, which is one, pure,
imperishable, eternal, all-pervading, is a portion of that Supreme spirit which
is all things. That Spirit (Sarvesa) which is other than (embodied) Spirit, and
in which there are no attributes of name, species (naman and jati, or rupa,
hence body rather than species), or the like -- remains as the sole existence
(SATTA). . . Prakriti and Purusha both resolving finally into SUPREME SPIRIT. .
. ." (From Vishnu Purana, Wilson's mistakes being here corrected, and
original words put in brackets).
This
is the final PRALAYA*** -- the Death of Kosmos -- after which its Spirit rests
in Nirvana, or in THAT for which there is neither Day nor Night. All the other
pralayas are periodical and follow, in regular succession, the Manvantaras, as
the night follows the day of every human creature, animal, and plant. The cycle
of creation of the lives of Kosmos is run down, the energy of the manifested
"Word" having
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The term "Elements" must be understood here to mean not only the
visible and physical Elements, but also that which St. Paul calls Elements --
the spiritual, intelligent Potencies -- Angels and Demons in their Manvantaric
form.
**
When this description is correctly understood by Orientalists in its esoteric
significance then it will be found that this Cosmic correlation of
World-Elements may explain the correlation of physical forces better than those
now known. At any rate, theosophists will perceive that Prakriti has seven
forms, or principles, "reckoned from Mahat to Earth." The
"Waters" mean here the Mystic "mother"; the Womb of
abstract nature, in which the manifested Universe is conceived. The Seven
"zones" have reference to the Seven Divisions of that Universe, or
the Noumena of the Forces that bring it into being. It is all allegorical.
***
As it is the Maha, the Great, or so-called final PRALAYA which is here
described, every thing is re-absorbed into its original ONE Element -- the
"Gods themselves, Brahma and the rest" being said to die and
disappear during that long NIGHT.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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its
growth, culmination, and decrease, as have all things temporary, however long
their duration. The Creative Force is Eternal as Noumenon; as a phenomenal
manifestation in its aspects, it has a beginning and must, therefore, have an
end. During that interval it has its periods of activity and its periods of
rest. And these are the "Days and the nights of Brahma." But Brahma,
the Noumenon, never rests, as IT never changes and ever IS, though IT cannot be
said to be anywhere. . . . .
The
Jewish Kabalists felt this necessity of immutability in an eternal, infinite
Deity, and therefore applied the same thought to the anthropomorphic god. The
idea is poetical and very appropriate in its application. In the Zohar we read
as follows:--
"As
Moses was keeping a vigil on Mount Sinai, in company with the deity, who was
concealed from his sight by a cloud, he felt a great fear overcome him, and
suddenly asked: 'Lord, where art thou . . . . sleepest thou, O Lord? . . .' And
the Spirit answered him: 'I never sleep: were I to fall asleep for a moment
BEFORE MY TIME, all the creation would crumble into dissolution in one
instant.' "
"Before
my time" is very suggestive. It shows the God of Moses to be only a
temporary substitute, like Brahma the male, a substitute and an aspect of THAT
which is immutable, and which therefore can take no part in the
"days," or in the "nights," nor have any concern whatever
with reaction or dissolution.
While
the Eastern Occultists have seven modes of interpretation, the Jews have only
four -- namely, the real-mystical; the allegorical; the moral; and the literal
or Pashut. The latter is the key of the exoteric Churches and not worth
discussion. Read in the first, or mystical key, here are several sentences
which show the identity of the foundations of construction in every Scripture.
It is given in Mr. T. Myer's excellent book on the Kabalistic works he seems to
have well studied. I quote verbatim. "B'raisheeth barah elohim ath hash
ama yem v'ath haa'retz -- i.e., 'In the beginning the God(s) created the
heavens and the earth;" (the meaning of which is:) the six Sephiroth of
Construction,* over which B'raisheeth stands, all belong Below. It created six
(and) on these stand all Things. And those depend upon the seven forms of the
Cranium up to the Dignity of all Dignities. And the second 'Earth' does not
come into calculation, therefore it has been said: 'And from it (that Earth)
which underwent the curse, came it forth.' . . . . 'It (the Earth) was without
form and void; and darkness was over the face of the Abyss, and the Spirit of
elohim . . . . was breathing (me' racha 'phath) -- i.e., hovering, brooding
over, moving. . . . . Thirteen depend on thirteen
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Builders" of the Stanzas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(forms)
of the most worthy Dignity. Six thousand years hang (are referred to) in the
first six words. The seventh (thousand, the millennium) above it (the cursed Earth)
is that which is strong by Itself. And it was rendered entirely desolate during
twelve hours (one . . . . Day) as is written. . . . . In the thirteenth, It
(the Deity) shall restore all . . . . and everything shall be renewed as
before; and all those six shall continue . . . . etc." (Qabbalah, p. 233,
from Siphrah Dzeniuta, c. i., § 16, s. 9.)
The
"Sephiroth of Construction" are the six Dhyan Chohans, or Manus, or
Prajapati, synthesized by the seventh "B'raisheeth (the First Emanation or
Logos), and who are called, therefore, the Builders of the Lower or physical
Universe" all belong Below. These six [[diagram]] whose essence is of the
Seventh -- are the Upadhi, the base or fundamental stone on which the objective
Universe is built, the noumenoi of all things. Hence they are, at the same
time, the Forces of nature, the Seven Angels of the Presence, the sixth and
seventh principles in man; the spirito-psycho-physical spheres of the Septenary
chain, the Root Races, etc., etc. They all "depend upon the Seven forms of
the Cranium" up to the highest. The "second Earth" "does
not come into calculation" because it is no Earth, but the Chaos or Abyss
of Space in which rested the paradigmatic, or model universe in ideation of the
OVER-SOUL brooding over it. The term "Curse" is here very misleading,
for it means simply doom or destiny, or that fatality which sent it forth into
the objective state. This is shown by that "Earth" under the
"Curse" being described as "without form and void," in
whose abysmal depths the "Breath" of the Elohim (collective Logoi)
produced or photographed the first divine IDEATION of the things to be. This
process is repeated after every Pralaya before the beginnings of a new
Manvantara, or period of sentient individual being. "Thirteen depend on
thirteen forms," refers to the thirteen periods personified by the
thirteen Manus, with Swayambhuva the fourteenth (13, instead of 14, being an
additional veil): those fourteen Manus who reign within the term of a Mahayuga,
a "Day" of Brahma. These (thirteen-fourteen) of the objective
Universe depend on the thirteen (fourteen) paradigmatic, ideal forms. The
meaning of the "Six thousand years" which "hang in the first six
words," has again to be sought in the Indian Wisdom. They refer to the
primordial six (seven) "Kings of Edom" who typify the worlds (or
spheres) of our chain during the first Round, as well as the primordial men of
this Round. They are the septenary pre-Adamic (or before the Third, Separated
Race) first Root-race. As they were shadows, and senseless (they had not eaten
yet of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge), they could not see the
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[[Vol.
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Parguphim,
or "Face could not see Face" (primeval men were unconscious),
"therefore, the primordial (seven) Kings died," i.e., were destroyed
(vide Sepherah Djenioutha). Now, who are they? They are the Kings who are
"the Seven Rishis, certain (secondary) divinities, Sakra (Indra), Manu, and
the Kings his Sons, who are created and perish at one period," as said in
Vishnu Purana (Book I. chap. iii.). For the seventh ("thousand") (not
the millennium of exoteric Christianity, but that of Anthropogenesis)
represents both the "seventh period of creation," that of physical
man (Vishnu Purana), and the seventh Principle -- both macrocosmic and
microcosmic, -- as also the pralaya after the Seventh period, the
"Night" which has the same duration as the "Day" of Brahma.
"It was rendered entirely desolate during twelve hours, as is
written." It is in the Thirteenth (twice six and the Synthesis) that
everything shall be restored "and the six will continue."
Thus
the author of the Qabbalah remarks quite truly that "Long before his (Ibn
Gebirol's) time . . . many centuries before the Christian era, there was in
Central Asia a 'Wisdom Religion;' fragments of which subsequently existed among
the learned men of the archaic Egyptians, the ancient Chinese, Hindus, etc. . .
." and that . . . . . "The Qabbalah most likely originally came from
Aryan sources, through Central Asia, Persia, India and Mesopotamia, for from Ur
and Haran came Abraham and many others into Palestine" (p. 221). And such
was the firm conviction of C. W. King, the author of "The Gnostics and their
Remains."
Vamadeva
Modelyar (Modely) describes the coming "night" most poetically.
Though it is given in Isis Unveiled, it is worthy of repetition.
"Strange
noises are heard, proceeding from every point . . . These are the precursors of
the Night of Brahma; dusk rises at the horizon, and the Sun passes away behind
the thirteenth degree of Macara (sign of the Zodiac), and will reach no more
the sign of the Minas (zodiacal pisces, or fish). The gurus of the pagodas
appointed to watch the rasichakr (Zodiac), may now break their circle and
instruments, for they are henceforth useless.
"Gradually
light pales, heat diminishes, uninhabited spots multiply on the earth, the air
becomes more and more rarified; the springs of waters dry up, the great rivers
see their waves exhausted, the ocean shows its sandy bottom and plants die. Men
and animals decrease in size daily. Life and motion lose their force, planets
can hardly gravitate in space; they are extinguished one by one, like a lamp
which the hand of the chokra (servant) neglects to replenish. Surya (the Sun)
flickers and goes out, matter falls into dissolution (pralaya), and Brahma
merges back into Dayus, the Unrevealed God, and, his task being
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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accomplished,
he falls asleep. Another day is passed, night sets in, and continues until the
future dawn.
"And
now again he re-enters into the golden egg of His Thought, the germs of all
that exist, as the divine Manu tells us. During His peaceful rest, the animated
beings, endowed with the principles of action, cease their functions, and all
feeling (manas) becomes dormant. When they are all absorbed in the SUPREME
SOUL, this Soul of all the beings sleeps in complete repose till the day when
it resumes its form, and awakes again from its primitive darkness."*
As
the "Satya-yuga" is always the first in the series of the four ages
or Yugas, so the Kali ever comes the last. The Kali yuga reigns now supreme in
India, and it seems to coincide with that of the Western age. Anyhow, it is
curious to see how prophetic in almost all things was the writer of Vishnu
Purana when foretelling to Maitreya some of the dark influences and sins of
this Kali Yug. For after saying that the "barbarians" will be masters
of the banks of the Indus, of Chandrabhaga and Kasmera, he adds:
"There
will be contemporary monarchs, reigning over the earth -- kings of churlish
spirit, violent temper, and ever addicted to falsehood and wickedness. They
will inflict death on women, children, and cows; they will seize upon the
property of their subjects, and be intent upon the wives of others; they will
be of unlimited power, their lives will be short, their desires insatiable. . .
. People of various countries intermingling with them, will follow their
example; and the barbarians being powerful (in India) in the patronage of the
princes, while purer tribes are neglected, the people will perish (or, as the
Commentator has it, 'The Mlechchhas will be in the centre and the Aryas in the
end.')** Wealth and piety will decrease until the world will be wholly
depraved. Property alone will confer rank; wealth will be the only source of
devotion; passion will be the sole bond of union between the sexes; falsehood
will be the only means of success in litigation; and women will be objects
merely of sensual gratification. . . . . . External types will be the only
distinction of the several orders of life; . . . . . a man if rich will be
reputed pure; dishonesty (anyaya) will be the universal means of subsistence,
weakness the cause of dependence, menace and presumption will be substituted
for learning; liberality will be devotion; mutual assent, marriage; fine
clothes, dignity. He who is the strongest will reign; the people, unable to
bear the heavy burthen, Khara bhara (the load of taxes) will take refuge among
the valleys. . . . Thus, in the Kali age will decay constantly proceed, until
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Jacquolliot's "Les Fils de Dieu"; l'Inde des Brahmes, p. 230.
**
If this is not prophetic, what is?
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[[Vol.
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the
human race approaches its annihilation (pralaya) . . . . When the close of the
Kali age shall be nigh, a portion of that divine being which exists, of its own
spiritual nature . . . shall descend on Earth . . . (Kalki Avatar) endowed with
the eight superhuman faculties. . . . He will re-establish righteousness on
earth, and the minds of those who live at the end of Kali Yuga shall be
awakened and become as pellucid as crystal. The men who are thus changed . . .
shall be the seeds of human beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall
follow the laws of the Krita age, the age of purity. As it is said, 'When the
sun and moon and the lunar asterism Tishya and the planet Jupiter are in one
mansion, the Krita (or Satya) age shall return.' "
".
. . . Two persons, Devapi, of the race of Kuru and Moru, of the family of
Ikshwaku, continue alive throughout the four ages, residing at Kalapa.* They
will return hither in the beginning of the Krita age . . . Moru** the son of
Sighru through the power of Yoga is still living . . . . and will be the
restorer of the Kshattriya race of the Solar dynasty."*** (Vayu Purana,
Vol. III, p. 197).
Whether
right or wrong with regard to the latter prophecy, the blessings of Kali Yuga
are well described, and fit in admirably even with that which one sees and hears
in Europe and other civilized and Christian lands in full XIXth, and at the
dawn of the XXth century of our great era of ENLIGHTENMENT.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Matsya Purana gives Katapa.
**
Max Muller translates the name as Morya, of the Morya dynasty, to which
Chandragupta belonged (see Sanscrit Literature). In Matsya Purana, chapter
cclxxii, the dynasty of ten Moryas (or Maureyas) is spoken of. In the same
chapter, cclxxii, it is stated that the Moryas will one day reign over India,
after restoring the Kshattriya race many thousand years hence. Only that reign
will be purely Spiritual and "not of this world." It will be the
kingdom of the next Avatar. Colonel Tod believes the name Morya (or Maureyas) a
corruption of Mori, a Rajpoot tribe, and the commentary on Mahavansa thinks
that some princes have taken their name Maurya from their town called Mori, or,
as Professor Max Muller gives it, Morya-Nagara, which is more correct, after
the original Mahavansa. Vachaspattya, we are informed by our Brother, Devan
Badhadur R. Ragoonath Rao, of Madras, a Sanscrit Encyclopedia, places Katapa
(Kalapa) on the northern side of the Himalayas, hence in Tibet. The same is
stated in chapter xii. (Skanda) of Bhagavat, Vol. III, p. 325.
***
The Vayu Purana declares that Moru will re-establish the Kshattriya in the
Nineteenth coming Yuga. (See "Five years of Theosophy," p. 483.
"The Moryas and Koothoomi.")
--------------
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[[Vol.
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§
VIII.
THE
LOTUS, AS A UNIVERSAL SYMBOL.
THERE
are no ancient symbols, without a deep and philosophical meaning attached to them;
their importance and significance increasing with their antiquity. Such is the
LOTUS. It is the flower sacred to nature and her Gods, and represents the
abstract and the Concrete Universes, standing as the emblem of the productive
powers of both spiritual and physical nature. It was held sacred from the
remotest antiquity by the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the Buddhists after
them; revered in China and Japan, and adopted as a Christian emblem by the
Greek and Latin Churches, who made of it a messenger as the Christians do now,
who replace it with the water lily.* It had, and still has, its mystic meaning
which is identical with every nation on the earth. We refer the reader to Sir
William Jones.** With the Hindus, the lotus is the emblem of the productive
power of nature, through the agency of fire and water (spirit and matter).
"Eternal!" says a verse in the Bhagavad Gita, "I see Brahm the
creator enthroned in thee above the lotus!"; and Sir W. Jones shows, as
noted in the Stanzas, that the seeds of the lotus contain, even before they
germinate, perfectly-formed leaves, the miniature shapes of what one day, as
perfected plants, they will become. The lotus, in India, is the symbol of
prolific earth, and what is more, of Mount Meru. The four angels or genii of
the four quarters of Heaven (the Maharajahs, see Stanzas) stand each on a
lotus. The lotus is the two-fold type of the Divine and human hermaphrodite,
being of dual sex, so to say.
The
spirit of Fire (or Heat), which stirs up, fructifies, and develops into
concrete form everything (from its ideal prototype), which is born of WATER or
primordial Earth, evolved Brahma -- with the Hindus. The lotus flower,
represented as growing out of Vishnu's navel -- that God resting on the waters
of space and his Serpent of Infinity -- is the most graphic allegory ever made:
the Universe evolving from the central Sun, the POINT, the ever-concealed germ.
Lakshmi, who is the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Christian religion Gabriel, the Archangel, holding in his hand a spray
of water lilies, appears to the Virgin Mary in every picture of the
Annunciation. This spray typifying fire and water, or the idea of creation and
generation, symbolizes precisely the same idea as the lotus in the hand of the
Bodhisat who announces to Maha-Maya, Gautama's mother, the birth of the world's
Saviour, Buddha. Thus also, Osiris and Horus were represented by the Egyptians
constantly in association with the lotus-flower, the two being Sun-gods or Fire
(the Holy Ghost being still typified by "tongues of fire"), (Acts).
**
See Sir William Jones' "Dissertations Relating to Asia."
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[[Vol.
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female
aspect of Vishnu,* and who is also called Padma, the lotus, is likewise shown
floating at "Creation," on a lotus flower, and during the
"churning of the ocean" of space, springing from the "sea of
milk," like Venus from the froth.
".
. . Then seated on a lotus
Beauty's
bright goddess, peerless Sri, arose
Out
of the waves . . . "
sings
an English Orientalist and poet (Sir Monier Williams).
The
underlying idea in this symbol is very beautiful, and it shows, furthermore,
its identical parentage in all the religious systems. Whether in the lotus or
water-lily shape it signifies one and the same philosophical idea -- namely,
the emanation of the objective from the subjective, divine Ideation passing
from the abstract into the concrete or visible form. For, as soon as DARKNESS
-- or rather that which is "darkness" for ignorance -- has
disappeared in its own realm of eternal Light, leaving behind itself only its
divine manifested Ideation, the creative Logoi have their understanding opened,
and they see in the ideal world (hitherto concealed in the divine thought) the
archetypal forms of all, and proceed to copy and build or fashion upon these
models forms evanescent and transcendent.
At
this stage of action, the Demiurge** is not yet the Architect. Born in the
twilight of action, he has yet to first perceive the plan, to realise the ideal
forms which lie buried in the bosom of Eternal Ideation, as the future
lotus-leaves, the immaculate petals, are concealed within the seed of that
plant. . . . .
In
chapter lxxxi. of the Ritual (Book of the Dead), called "Transformation
into the Lotus," a head emerging from this flower, the god exclaims:
"I am the pure lotus, emerging from the Luminous one. . . . . I carry the
messages of Horus. I am the pure lotus which comes from the Solar Fields. . . .
."
The
lotus-idea may be traced even in the Elohistic chapter, the 1st of Genesis, as
stated in Isis.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Lakshmi is Venus -- Aphrodite, and, like the latter, she sprang from the froth
of the ocean with a lotus in her hand. In the Ramayana she is called Padma.
**
In Esoteric philosophy the Demiurge or Logos, regarded as the CREATOR, is
simply an abstract term, an idea, like "army." As the latter is the
all-embracing term for a body of active forces or working units -- soldiers --
so is the Demiurge the qualitative compound of a multitude of Creators or
Builders. Burnouf, the great Orientalist, has seized the idea perfectly when
saying that Brahma does not create the earth, any more than the rest of the
universe. "Having evolved himself from the soul of the world, once
separated from the first cause, he evaporates with, and emanates all nature out
of himself. He does not stand above it, but is mixed up with it; Brahma and the
universe form one Being, each particle of which is in its essence Brahma
himself, who proceeded out of himself."
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[[Vol.
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It
is in this idea that we must look for the origin and explanation of the verse
in the Jewish cosmogony, which reads: "And God said, Let the earth bring
forth . . . . the fruit-tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in
itself." In all the primitive religions, the "Son of the Father"
is the creative God -- i.e., His thought made visible; and before the Christian
era, from the Trimurti of the Hindus down to the three kabalistic heads of the
scriptures as explained by the Jews, the triune godhead of each nation was
fully defined and substantiated in its allegories.
Such
is the cosmic and ideal significance of this great symbol with the Eastern
peoples. But, applied to practical and exoteric worship -- which had also its
esoteric symbology -- the lotus became in time the carrier and container of a
more terrestrial idea. No dogmatic religion has ever escaped the sexual element
in it; and to this day it soils the moral beauty of the root idea. The following
is quoted from the same Kabalistic MSS. already mentioned:--
"Pointing
to like signification was the lotus growing in the waters of the Nile. Its mode
of growth peculiarly fitted it as a symbol of the generative activities. The
flower of the lotus, which is the bearer of the seed for reproduction, as the
result of its maturing, is connected by its placenta-like attachment with
mother-earth, or the womb of Isis, through the water of the womb, that is, the
river Nile, by means of the long cord-like stalk, the umbilicus. Nothing can be
plainer than the symbol, and to make it perfect in its intended signification,
a child is sometimes represented as seated in or issuing from the flower.* Thus
Osiris and Isis, the children of Chronos, or time without end, in the
development of their nature-forces, in this picture become the parents of man
under the name Horus. . ." (See § X., "Deus Lunus.")
"We
cannot lay too great stress upon the use of this generative function as a basis
for a symbolical language and a scientific art-speech. Thought upon the idea
leads at once to reflection upon the subject of creative cause. In its workings
Nature is observed to have fashioned a wonderful piece of living mechanism
governed by an added living soul; the life development and history of which
soul, as to its whence, its present, and its whither, surpasses all efforts of
the human intellect.** The new born is an ever-recurring miracle, an evidence
that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In Indian Puranas it is Vishnu, the first, and Brahma, the second logos, or the
ideal and practical creators, who are respectively represented, one as
manifesting the lotus, the other as issuing from it.
**
Not the "efforts" of the trained psychic faculties of an Initiate
into Eastern metaphysics, and the mysteries of creative Nature. It is the
profane of the past ages who have degraded the pure ideal of cosmic creation
into an emblem of mere human reproduction and sexual functions: it is the
esoteric teachings, and the initiates of the Future, whose mission it is, and
will be, to redeem and ennoble once more the primitive conception so sadly
profaned by its crude and gross application to exoteric dogmas and personations
by theological and ecclesiastical religionists. The silent worship of abstract
or noumenal Nature, the only divine manifestation, is the one ennobling
religion of Humanity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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within
the workshop of the womb an intelligent creative power has intervened to fasten
a living soul to a physical machine. The amazing wonderfulness of the fact
attaches a holy sacredness to all connected with the organs of reproduction, as
the dwelling and place of evident constructive intervention of deity."
This
is a correct rendering of the underlying ideas of old, of the purely
pantheistic conceptions, impersonal and reverential, of the archaic philosophers
of the prehistoric ages. Not so, however, when applied to sinful humanity, to
the gross ideas attached to personality. Therefore, no pantheistic philosopher
would fail to find the remarks that follow the above and which represent the
anthropomorphism of Judean symbology, other than dangerous for the sacredness
of true religion, and fitting only our materialistic age, which is the direct
outcome and result of that anthropomorphic character. For this is the key-note
to the entire spirit and essence of the Old Testament. "Therefore,"
goes on the MSS., treating of the symbolism of art-speech of the Bible:--
"The
locality of the womb is to be taken as the MOST HOLY PLACE, the SANCTUM
SANCTORUM, and the veritable TEMPLE OF THE LIVING GOD.* With man the possession
of the woman has always been considered as an essential part of himself, to
make one out of two, and jealously guarded as sacred. Even the part of the
ordinary house or home consecrated to the dwelling of the wife was called the
penetralia, the secret or sacred, and hence the metaphor of the Holy of Holies
of sacred constructions taken from the idea of the sacredness of the organs of
generation. Carried to the extreme of description** by metaphor, this part of
the house is described in the Sacred Books as the "between the thighs of
the house," and sometimes the idea is carried out constructively in the
great door-opening of Churches placed inward between flanking buttresses."
No
such thought "carried to the extreme" ever existed among the old primitive
Aryans. This is proven by the fact that in the Vedic period their women were
not placed apart from men in penetralia, or "Zenanas." Their
seclusion began when the Mahomedans -- the next heirs to Hebrew symbolism after
Christian ecclesiasticism -- had conquered the land and gradually enforced
their ways and customs upon the Hindus. The pre- and post-Vedic woman was as
free as man; and no impure terrestrial thought was ever mixed with the
religious symbo-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Surely the words of the old Initiate into the primitive mysteries of
Christianity, "Know ye not ye are the Temple of God" (I Corinth. iii.
16) could not be applied in this sense to men? The meaning may have been, and
was so, undeniably, in the minds of the Hebrew compilers of the Old Testament.
And here is the abyss that lies between the symbolism of the New Testament and
the Jewish canon. This gulf would have remained and ever widened, had not
Christianity -- especially and most glaringly the Latin Church -- thrown a
bridge over it? Modern Popery has now spanned it entirely, by its dogma of the
two immaculate conceptions, and the anthropomorphic and at the same time
idolatrous character it has conferred upon the Mother of its God.
**
It was so carried only in the Hebrew Bible, and its servile copyist, Christian
theology.
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[[Vol.
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logy
of the early Aryans. The idea and application are purely Semitic. This is
corroborated by the writer of the said intensely learned and Kabalistic
revelation himself, when he closes the above-quoted passages by adding:--
"If
to these organs as symbols of creative cosmic agencies the idea of the origin
of measures as well as of time-periods can be attached, then indeed, in the
constructions of the Temples as Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that part
designated as the Holy of Holies, or the Most Holy place, should borrow its
title from the recognised sacredness of the generative organs, considered as
symbols of measures as well as of creative cause. With the ancient WISE, there
was no name and no idea, and no symbol of A FIRST CAUSE." . . . .
Most
decidedly not. Rather never give a thought to it and leave it for ever
nameless, as the early Pantheists did, than degrade the sacredness of that
Ideal of Ideals, by dragging down its symbols into such anthropomorphic forms!
Here again one perceives the immense chasm between Aryan and Semitic religious
thought: two opposite poles -- Sincerity and Concealment. With the Brahmins,
who have never invested with an "original Sin" element the natural
procreative functions of mankind, it is a religious duty to have a son. A
Brahmin, in days of old, having accomplished his mission of human creator,
retired to the jungle and passed the rest of his days in religious meditations.
He had accomplished his duty to nature as mortal man and its co-worker, and
henceforth gave all his thoughts to the spiritual immortal portion in himself,
regarding the terrestrial as a mere illusion, an evanescent dream -- which it
is. With the Semite, it was different. He invented a temptation of flesh in a
garden of Eden; showed his God (esoterically, the Tempter and the Ruler of
Nature) CURSING for ever an act, which was in the logical programme of that
nature.* All this exoterically, as in the cloak and dead letter of Genesis and
the rest; and at the same time esoterically he regarded the supposed sin and
FALL as an act so sacred, as to choose the organ, the perpetrator of the
original sin, as the fittest and most sacred symbol to represent that God, who
is shown as branding its entering into function as disobedience and everlasting
SIN!
Who
can ever fathom the paradoxical depths of the Semitic mind? And this
paradoxical element, minus its innermost significance, has now passed entirely
into Christian theology and dogma!
Whether
the early Fathers of the Church knew the esoteric meaning of the Hebrew (Old)
Testament, or whether only a few of them were aware of it, while the others
remained ignorant of the secret, is for
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The same idea is carried out exoterically in the incidents of Egypt. The Lord
God tempts sorely Pharaoh and "plagues him with great plagues," lest
the king should escape punishment, and thus afford no pretext for one more
triumph to his "Chosen people."
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[[Vol.
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posterity
to decide. One thing is certain, at any rate. As the esotericism of the New
Testament agrees perfectly with that of the Hebrew Mosaic Books; and since, at
the same time, a number of purely Egyptian symbols and pagan dogmas in general
-- the Trinity for example -- have been copied by, and incorporated into, the
Synoptics and St. John, it becomes evident that the identity of those symbols
was known to the writers of the New Testament, whoever they were. They must have
been aware also of the priority of the Egyptian esotericism, since they have
adopted several such symbols that typify purely Egyptian conceptions and
beliefs -- in their outward and inward meaning -- and which are not to be found
in the Jewish Canon. One of such is the water-lily in the hands of the
Archangel in the early representations of his appearance to the Virgin Mary;
and these symbolical images are preserved to this day in the iconography of the
Greek and Roman Churches. Thus water, fire, the Cross, as well as the Dove, the
Lamb, and other sacred animals, with all their combinations, yield esoterically
an identical meaning, and must have been accepted as an improvement upon
Judaism pure and simple.
For
the Lotus and Water are among the oldest symbols, and in their origin are
purely Aryan, though they became common property during the branching-off of
the fifth race. Let us give an example. Letters, as much as numbers, were all
mystic, whether in combination or each taken separately. The most sacred of all
is the letter M. It is both feminine and masculine, or androgyne, and is made
to symbolize WATER, the great deep, in its origin. It is mystic in all the
languages, Eastern and Western, and stands as a glyph for the waves, thus:
[[diagram]]. In the Aryan Esotericism, as in the Semitic, this letter has
always stood for the waters; e.g., in Sanskrit MAKARA -- the tenth sign of the
Zodiac -- means a crocodile, or rather an aquatic monster associated always
with water. The letter MA is equivalent to and corresponds with number 5 --
composed of a binary, the symbol of the two sexes separated, and of the
ternary, symbol of the third life, the progeny of the binary. This, again, is
often symbolised by a Pentagon, the latter being a sacred sign, a divine Monogram.
MAITREYA is the secret name of the Fifth Buddha, and the Kalki Avatar of the
Brahmins -- the last MESSIAH who will come at the culmination of the Great
Cycle. It is also the initial letter of the Greek Metis or Divine Wisdom; of
Mimra, the "word" or Logos; and of Mithras (the Mihr), the Monad,
Mystery. All these are born in, and from, the great Deep, and are the Sons of
Maya -- the Mother; in Egypt, Mouth, in Greece Minerva (divine wisdom), Mary,
or Miriam, Myrrha, etc.; of the Mother of the Christian Logos, and of Maya, the
mother of Buddha. Madhava and Madhavi are the titles of the most important gods
and goddesses of the Hindu Pantheon. Finally, Mandala is in
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[[Vol.
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Sanskrit
"a circle," or an orb (the ten divisions of the Rig Veda). The most
sacred names in India begin with this letter generally -- from Mahat, the first
manifested intellect, and Mandara, the great mountain used by the gods to churn
the Ocean, down to Mandakin, the heavenly Ganga (Ganges), Manu, etc., etc.
Shall
this be called a coincidence? A strange one it is then, indeed, when we find
even Moses -- found in the water of the Nile -- having the symbolical consonant
in his name. And Pharaoh's daughter "called his name Moses . . .
because," she said, "I drew him out of WATER" (Exod. ii., 10.)*
Besides which the Hebrew sacred name of God applied to this letter M is
Meborach, the "Holy" or the "Blessed," and the name for the
water of the Flood is M'bul. A reminder of the "three Maries" at the
Crucifixion and their connection with Mar, the Sea, or Water, may close this
example. This is why in Judaism and Christianity the Messiah is always
connected with Water, Baptism, the Fishes (the sign of the Zodiac called Meenam
in Sanskrit), and even with the Matsya (fish) Avatar, and the Lotus -- the
symbol of the womb, or the water-lily, which is the same.
In
the relics of ancient Egypt, the greater the antiquity of the votive symbols
and emblems of the objects exhumed, the oftener are the lotus flowers and the
water found in connection with the Solar Gods. The god Khnoom -- the moist
power -- water, as Thales taught it, being the principle of all things, sits on
a throne enshrined in a lotus (Saitic epoch, Serapeum). The god Bes stands on a
lotus, ready to devour his progeny. (Ibid, Abydos.) Thot, the god of mystery
and Wisdom, the sacred Scribe of Amenti, wearing the Solar disc as head gear,
sits with a bull's head (the sacred bull of Mendes being a form of Thot) and a
human body, on a full blown lotus. (IVth Dynasty.) Finally it is the goddess
Hiquet, under her shape of a frog, who rests on the lotus, thus showing her
connection with water. And it is this frog-symbol, undeniably the most ancient
of their Egyptian deities, from whose unpoetical shape the Egyptologists have
been vainly trying to unravel her mystery and functions. Its adoption in the
Church by the early Christians shows that they knew it better than our modern
Orientalists. The "frog or toad goddess" was one of the chief cosmic
deities connected with creation, on account of her amphibious nature, and
chiefly because of her apparent resurrection, after long ages of solitary life
enshrined in old walls, in rocks, etc. She not only participated in the
organization of the world, together with Khnoom, but was also connected with
the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Even to the seven daughters of the Midian priest, who, coming to draw the
water, had Moses water their flock, for which service the Midian gives to Moses
Zipporah (sippara = the shining wave) as wife (Exod. ii.) All this has the same
secret meaning.
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[[Vol.
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dogma
of resurrection.* There must have been some very profound and sacred meaning
attached to this symbol, since, notwithstanding the risk of being charged with
a disgusting form of zoolatry, the early Egyptian Christians adopted it in
their Churches. A frog or toad enshrined in a lotus flower, or simply without
the latter emblem, was the form chosen for the Church lamps, on which were
engraved the words "I am the resurrection" "[[ego eimi
anastasis]]."** These frog goddesses are also found on all the mummies.
-------------
§
IX
THE
MOON, DEUS LUNUS, PHOEBE.
THIS
archaic symbol is the most poetical of all symbols, as also the most
philosophical. The ancient Greeks brought it into prominence, and the modern poets
have worn it threadbare. The Queen of Night, riding in the majesty of her
peerless light in heaven, throwing all, even Hesperos, into darkness, and
spreading her silver mantle over the whole sidereal world, has ever been a
favourite theme with all the poets of Christendom, from Milton and Shakespeare
down to the latest versifier. But the refulgent lamp of night, with her suite
of stars unnumbered, spoke only to the imagination of the profane. Until
lately, Religion and Science had nought to do with the beautiful mythos. Yet,
the cold chaste moon, she, in the words of Shelley --
.
. . . "Who makes all beautiful on which she smiles
That
wandering shrine of soft, yet icy flame,
Which
ever is transformed, yet still the same,
And
warms, but not illumines." . . . .
stands
in closer relations to Earth than any other sidereal orb. The Sun is the giver
of life to the whole planetary system; the Moon is the giver of life to our
globe; and the early races understood and knew it, even in their infancy. She
is the Queen and she is the King, and was King Soma before she became
transformed into Phoebe and the chaste Diana. She is pre-eminently the deity of
the Christians, through the Mosaic and Kabalistic Jews, though the civilized
world may have remained ignorant of the fact for long ages; in fact, ever since
the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
With the Egyptians it was the resurrection in rebirth after 3,000 years of
purification, either in Devachan or "the fields of bliss."
**
Such "frog-goddesses" may be seen at Bulaq, in the Cairo Museum. For
the statement about the Church lamps and inscriptions it is the learned
ex-director of the Bulaq Museum, Mr. Gaston Maspero, who must be held
responsible. (See his "Guide du Visiteur au Musee de Bulaq," p. 146.)
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[[Vol.
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last
initiated Father of the Church died, carrying with him into his grave the
secrets of the pagan temples. For the "Fathers" -- such as Origen or
Clemens Alexandrinus -- the Moon was Jehovah's living symbol: the giver of Life
and the giver of Death, the disposer of being -- in our World. For, if Artemis
was Luna in Heaven, and, with the Greeks, Diana on Earth, who presided over
child-birth and life: with the Egyptians, she was Hekat (Hecate) in Hell, the
goddess of Death, who ruled over magic and enchantments. More than this: as the
personified moon, whose phenomena are triadic, Diana-Hecate-Luna is the three
in one. For she is Diva triformis, tergemina, triceps -- three heads on one
neck,* like Brahma-Vishnu-Siva. Hence she is the prototype of our Trinity,
which has not always been entirely male. The number seven, so prominent in the
Bible, so sacred in its seventh (Sabbath) day, came to the Jews from Antiquity,
deriving its origin from the four-fold number 7 contained in the 28 days of the
lunar month, each septenary portion thereof being typified by one quarter of
the moon.
It
is worth the trouble of presenting in this work a bird's-eye view of the origin
and development of the lunar myth and worship in historical antiquity, on our
side of the globe. Its earlier origin is untraceable by exact science,
rejecting as it does tradition; while for Theology, which, under the guidance
of the crafty Popes, has put a brand on every fragment of literature that does
not bear the imprimatur of the Church of Rome, its archaic history is a sealed
book. Whether the Egyptian or the Aryan Hindu religious philosophy is the more
ancient -- and the Secret Doctrine says it is the latter -- does not much
matter in this instance, as the lunar and solar "worship" are the
most ancient in the world. Both have survived, and prevail to this day
throughout the whole world, with some openly, with others -- e.g., in Christian
symbolics -- secretly. The cat, a lunar symbol, was sacred to Isis, herself the
Moon in one sense, as Osiris was the Sun. The cat is often seen on the top of
the Sistrum in the hand of the goddess. This animal was held in great
veneration in the city of Bubaste, which went into deep mourning after the
death of every sacred cat, because Isis, as the Moon, was particularly
worshipped in this city of mysteries. The astronomical symbolism connected with
it has already been given in Section I. of "Symbolism," and no one
has better described it than Mr. G. Massey, in his Lectures and in "The
Natural Genesis." The eye of the cat, it is said, seems to follow the
lunar phases in its growth and decline, and its orbs shine like two stars in
the darkness of night. Hence the mythological allegory which shows Diana hiding
under the shape of a cat in the Moon, when, in company with other deities, she
was seeking to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The goddess [[Trimorphos]] in the statuary of Alcamenes.
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[[Vol.
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escape
the pursuit of Typhon (Vide the Metamorphoses of Ovid). The moon in Egypt was both
the "Eye of Horus" and the "Eye of Osiris," the Sun.
The
same with the Cynocephalus. The dog-headed ape was a glyph to symbolise the sun
and moon, in turn, though the Cynocephalus is more a Hermetic than a religious
symbol. For it is the hieroglyph of Mercury, the planet, as of the Mercury of
the Alchemical philosophers, "as," say the Alchemists, "Mercury
has to be ever near Isis, as her minister, as without Mercury neither Isis nor
Osiris can accomplish anything in the GREAT WORK." Cynocephalus, whenever
represented with the Caduceus, the Crescent, or the Lotus, is a glyph of the
"philosophical" Mercury; but when seen with a reed, or a roll of
parchment, he stands for Hermes, the secretary and adviser of Isis, as Hanuman
filled the same office with Rama.
Though
the regular Sun-Worshippers, the Parsis, are few, yet not only is the bulk of
the Hindu mythology and history based upon and interblended with these two
worships, but so is also the Christian religion itself. From their origin down
to our modern day it has coloured the theologies of both the Roman Catholic and
Protestant Churches. The difference, indeed, between the Aryan Hindu and the
Aryan European faiths is very small, if only the fundamental ideas of both are
taken into consideration. Hindus are proud of calling themselves Suryas and
Chandravansas (of the Solar and Lunar dynasties). The Christians pretend to
regard it as idolatry, and yet they adhere to a religion entirely based upon
the solar and lunar worships. It is useless and vain for the Protestants to
exclaim against the Roman Catholics for their "Mariolatry," based on
the ancient cult of lunar goddesses, when they themselves worship Jehovah,
pre-eminently a lunar god, and when both Churches have accepted in their
theologies the "Sun"-Christ and the lunar trinity.
What
is known of Chaldaean Moon-Worship, of the Babylonian god, Sin, called by the
Greeks "Deus Lunus," is very little, and that little is apt to
mislead the profane student who fails to grasp the esoteric significance of the
symbols. As popularly known to the ancient profane philosophers and writers
(for those who were initiated were pledged to silence) the Chaldaea were the
worshippers of the moon under her (and his) various names, just as were the
Jews, who came after them.
In
the unpublished MSS. on the Art Speech, already mentioned, giving a key to the
formation of the ancient (symbolical) languages a logical raison d'etre is
brought forward for this double worship. It is written by a wonderfully
well-informed and acute scholar and Mystic, who gives it in the comprehensive
form of a hypothesis. The latter, however, becomes forcibly a proven fact in
the history of religious
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evolution
in human thought, to anyone who has ever had a glimpse into the secret of
ancient Symbology. Thus, he says:--
"One
of the first occupations among men, connected with those of actual necessity,
would be the perception of time periods,* marked on the vaulted arch of the
heavens sprung and rising over the level floor of the horizon, or the plain of
still water. These would come to be marked as those of day and night, of the
phases of the moon, of its stellar or synodic revolutions, and of the period of
the solar year with recurrence of the seasons, and with the application to such
periods of the natural measure of day or night, or of the day divided into the
light and the dark. It would also be discovered that there was a longest and
shortest solar day, and two solar days of equal day and night, within the
period of the solar year; and the points in the year of these could be marked
with the greatest precision in the starry groups of the heavens or the
constellations, subject to that retrograde movement thereof, which in time
would require a correction by intercalation, as was the case in the description
of the Flood, where correction of 150 days was made for a period of 600 years,
during which confusion of landmarks had increased. . . . This would naturally
come to pass . . . . with all races in all time; and such knowledge must be
taken to have been inherent in the human race, prior to what we call the
historic period. . . . ."
On
this basis, the author seeks for some natural physical function possessed in
common by the human race, and connected with the periodical manifestations,
such that "the connection between the two kinds of phenomena . . . became
fixed in popular usage." He finds it "(a) in the feminine physiological
phenomena every lunar month of 28 days, or" 4 weeks of 7 days each, so
that 13 occurrences of the period should happen in 364 days, which is the solar
week year of 52 weeks of 7 days each. (b) The quickening of the foetus is
marked by a period of 126 days, or 18 weeks of 7 days each. (c) That period
which is called "the period of viability" is one of 210 days, or 30
weeks of 7 days each. (d) The period of parturition is accomplished in 280
days, or a period of 40 weeks of 7 days each, or 10 lunar months of 28 days each,
or of 9 calendar months of 31 days each, counting on the royal arch of heavens
for the measure of the period of traverse from the darkness of the womb to the
light and glory of conscious existence, that continuing inscrutable mystery and
miracle . . . Thus the observed periods of time marking the workings of the
birth function would naturally become a basis of astronomical calculation . . .
We may almost affirm . . . that this was the mode of reckoning among all
nations, either independently, or intermediately and indirectly by tuition. It
was the mode with the Hebrews, for even to-day they calculate the calendar by
means of the 354 and 355 of the lunar year, and we possess a special evidence
that it was the mode with the ancient Egyptians, as to which this is the
proof:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ancient Mythology includes ancient Astronomy as well as Astrology. The planets
were the hands pointing out, on the dial of our solar system, the hours of
certain periodical events. Thus, Mercury was the messenger appointed to keep
time during the daily solar and lunar phenomena, and was otherwise connected
with the God and Goddess of Light.
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"The
basic idea underlying the religious philosophy of the Hebrews was that God
contained all things within himself*; and that man was his image, man including
woman . . . The place of the man and woman with the Hebrews was among the
Egyptians occupied by the bull and the cow, sacred to Osiris and Isis,** who
were represented, respectively, by a man having a bull's head, and a woman
having the head of a cow, which symbols were worshipped. Notoriously Osiris was
the Sun and the river Nile, the tropical year of 365 days, which number is the
value of the word Neilos, and the bull, as he was also the principle of fire
and of life-giving force, while Isis was the Moon, the bed of the river Nile,
or the Mother Earth, for the parturient energies of which water was a
necessity, the lunar year of 354-364 days, the time-maker of the periods of
gestation, and the cow marked by, or with, the crescent new moon." . . . .
"But
the use of the cow of the Egyptians for the women of the Hebrews was not
intended as of any radical difference of signification, but a concurrence in
the teaching intended, and merely as a substitution of a symbol of common
import, which was this, viz., the period of parturition with the cow and the
woman was held to be the same, or 280 days, or ten lunar months of four weeks
each. And in this period consisted the essential value of this animal symbol,
whose mark was that of the crescent moon.*** . . . These parturient and natural
periods are found to have been subjects of symbolism all over the world. They
were thus used by the Hindus, and are found to be most plainly set forth by the
ancient Americans, in the Richardson and Gest tablets, in the Palenque Cross;
and manifestly lay at the base of the formation of the calendar forms of the
Mayas of Yucatan, the Hindus, the Assyrians, and the ancient Babylonians, as
well as the Egyptians and old Hebrews. The natural symbols . . . would be
either the phallus or the phallus and yoni, . . . or male and female. Indeed,
the words translated by the generalizing terms male and female, in the 27th
verse of the 1st chapter of Genesis are . . . sacr and n'cabrah, or literally,
phallus and yoni,**** while the representation of the phallic emblems would
barely indicate the genital members of the human body, when their functions and
the development of the seed-vesicles emanating from them was considered; then
would come into indication a mode of measures of lunar time, and, through
lunar, of solar time." . . .
This
is the physiological or anthropological key to the Moon symbol. The key that
opens the mystery of theogony, or the evolution of the Manvantaric gods, is
more complicated, and has nothing phallic in it. All is mystical and divine
there. But the Jews, beyond connecting Jehovah directly with the Moon as a
generative god, preferred to ignore the higher hierarchies, and have made of
some of them (zodiacal constellations and planetary gods) their Patriarchs,
thus euhemerizing the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A caricatured and dwarfed Vedantin notion of Parabrahmam containing within
itself the whole Universe as being that boundless Universe itself, and there
existing nothing outside of itself.
**
Just as they are to this day in India, the bull of Siva and the cow
representing several Sakti -- goddesses.
***
Hence the worship of the moon by the Hebrews.
****
"Male and female, created he them."
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[[Vol.
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purely
theosophical idea and dragging it down to the level of sinful humanity. (See
section "Holy of Holies" in the "Symbolism" of Book II.)
The MSS. from which the above is extracted explains very clearly to what
hierarchy of gods Jehovah belonged, and who this Jewish GOD was; for it shows
in clear language that which the writer has always insisted upon -- namely,
that the God with which the Christians have burdened themselves was no better
than the lunar symbol of the reproductive or generative faculty in nature. They
have ever ignored even the Hebrew secret god of the Kabalists, Ain-Soph, as
grand as Parabrahmam in the earliest Kabalistic and mystical conceptions. But
it is not the Kabala of Rosenroth that can ever give the true original
teachings of Simeon-Ben-Iochai, as metaphysical and philosophical as any. And
how many are there among the students of the Kabala who knew anything of them
except in their distorted Latin translations. Let us glance at the idea which
led the ancient Jews to adopt a substitute for the ever UNKNOWABLE, and which
has misled the Christians into mistaking the substitute for the reality.
"If
to these organs (phallus and yoni) as symbols of creative cosmic agencies the
idea of . . . . time periods can be attached, then, indeed, in the construction
of Temples as Dwellings of Deity, or of Jehovah, that post designated as the
Holy of Holies, or the most High Place, should borrow its title from the
recognized sacredness of the generative organs, considered as symbols of
measures as well as of creative Cause."
"With
the ancient wise, there was no name, and no idea, and no symbol, of a First
Cause.* With the Hebrews, the indirect conception of such was couched in a term
of negation of comprehension -- viz., Ain-Soph, or the Without Bounds. But the
symbol of its first comprehensible manifestation, was the conception of a
circle with its diameter line. . . . . (See the Proem of Book I., Part I.) to
carry at once a geometric, phallic, and astronomic idea . . . . for the one
takes its birth from the nought or the Circle, without which it could not be,
and from one, or primal one, spring the nine digits, and, geometrically, all
plane shapes. So in the Kabala this Circle, with its diameter line, is the
picture of the ten Sephiroth or Emanations, composing the Adam Kadmon, the
Archetypal Man, the creative origin of all things. . . . . This idea of
connecting the circle and its diameter line, that is, number ten, with the signification
of the reproductive organs, and the Most Holy Place, was carried out
constructively in the King's Chamber, or Holy of Holies, of the great Pyramid,
in the Tabernacle of Moses, and in the Holy of Holies of the Temple of Solomon.
. . . . It is the picture of a double-womb, for in Hebrew the letter he
[[diagram]] is at the same time the number 5 and symbol of the womb, and twice
5 is 10, or the phallic number."
This
"double womb" also shows the duality of the idea carried from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Because it was too sacred. It is referred to as THAT in the Vedas: it is the
"Eternal Cause," and cannot, therefore, be spoken of as a "First
Cause," a term implying the absence of any cause, at one time.
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[[Vol.
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the
highest, spiritual, down to the lowest or terrestrial plane; and by the Jews
limited to the latter. With them, therefore the number 7 has acquired the most
prominent place in their exoteric religion, a cult of external forms and empty
rituals; as their Sabbath, for instance, the seventh day sacred to their deity,
the moon, symbolical of the generative Jehovah. While with other nations the number
seven was typical of theogonic evolution, of cycles, cosmic planes, and the
Seven Forces and Occult Powers in Kosmos, as a boundless whole, whose first
upper triangle was unreachable to the finite intellect of man -- while other
nations, therefore, busied themselves, in their forcible limitation of Kosmos
in Space and Time, only with its septenary manifested plane, the Jews centred
this member solely in the moon, and based all their sacred calculations
thereupon. Hence we find the thoughtful author of the MSS. just quoted,
remarking, in reference to the metrology of the Jews that: "If 20,612 be
multiplied by 4/3 the product will afford a base for the ascertainment of the
mean revolution of the moon, and if this product be again multiplied by 4/3,
this continued product will afford a base for finding the exact period of the
mean solar year, . . . this form . . . becoming, for the finding of
astronomical periods of time, of very great service." This double number
(male and female) is symbolized also in some well-known idols: e.g.,
"Ardanari-Iswara, the Isis of the Hindus, Eridanus, or Ardan, or the
Hebrew Jordan, or source of descent. She is standing on a lotus-leaf flowing on
the water. But the signification is, that it is androgyne or hermaphrodite, that
is phallus and yoni combined, the number 10, the Hebrew letter Jod [[diagram]],
the containment of Jehovah. She, or rather she-he, gives the minutes of the
same circle of 360 degrees."
"Jehovah,"
in its best aspect is Binah, "the Upper mediating Mother, the Great Sea or
Holy Spirit;" therefore rather a synonym of Mary, the Mother of Jesus,
than of his Father; that "Mother, being the Latin Mare" the Sea is
here also, Venus, the Stella del Mare, or "Star of the Sea."
The
ancestors of the mysterious Akkadians -- the Chandra or Indovansas, the Lunar
Kings whom tradition shows reigning at Prayag (Allahabad) ages before our era
-- had come from India, and brought with them the worship of their forefathers,
of Soma, and his son Budha, which afterwards became that of the Chaldeans. Yet
such adoration, apart from popular Astrolatry and Heliolatry, was in no sense
idolatry. No more, at any rate, than the modern Roman Catholic symbolism which
connects their Virgin Mary -- the Magna Mater of the Syrians and Greeks -- with
the Moon.
Of
this worship, the most pious Roman Catholics feel quite proud,
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[[Vol.
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and
loudly confess to it. In a Memoire to the French Academy, the Marquis De
Mirville says:--
"It
is only natural that, as an unconscious prophecy, Ammon-Ra should be his
mother's husband, since the Magna Mater of the Christians is precisely the
spouse of that son she conceives. . . . We (Christians) can understand now why
Neithis throws radiance on the sun, while remaining the Moon, since the VIRGIN,
who is the QUEEN OF HEAVEN, as Neith was, clothes herself in her radiance, and
clothes in his turn the CHRIST-SUN. "Tu vestis solem et te sol vestit.".
. . is sung by the Roman Catholics during their service, and he adds:--
"We
(Christians) understand also how it is that the famous inscription at Sais
should have stated that 'none has ever lifted my peplum (veil),' considering
that this sentence, literally translated, is the summary of what is sung in the
Church on the day of the immaculate conception." (ARCHAEOLOGY OF THE
VIRGIN MOTHER," p. 117.)
Surely
nothing could be more sincere than this! It justifies entirely what Mr. Gerald
Massey has said in his Lecture on "Luniolatry, Ancient and Modern":--
"The
man in the moon (Osiris-Sut, Jehovah-Satan, Christ-Judas, and other Lunar
twins) is often charged with bad conduct. . . . In the lunar phenomena the moon
was one as the moon, which was two-fold in sex, and three-fold in character --
as mother, child, and adult male. Thus the child of the moon became the consort
of his own mother! It could not be helped if there was to be any reproduction.
He was compelled to be his own father! These relationships were repudiated by
later sociology, and the primitive man in the moon got tabooed. Yet, in its
latest, most inexplicable phase, this has become the central doctrine of the
grossest superstition the world has seen, for these lunar phenomena and their
humanly represented relationships, the incestuous included, are the very
foundations of the Christian Trinity in Unity. Through ignorance of the
symbolism, the simple representation of early time has become the most profound
religious mystery in modern Luniolatry. The Roman Church, without being in any
wise ashamed of the proof, portrays the Virgin Mary arrayed with the sun, and
the horned moon at her feet, holding the lunar infant in her arms -- as child
and consort of the mother moon. The mother, child, and adult male, are fundamental."
"In
this way it can be proved that our Christology is mummified mythology, and
legendary lore, which have been palmed off upon us in the Old Testament and the
New, as divine revelation uttered by the very voice of God."
A
charming allegory is found in the Zohar, one which unveils better than anything
ever did the true character of Jehovah or YHVH in the primitive conception of
the Hebrew Kabalists. It is now found in the philosophy of I'bn Gebirol's
Kabbalah, translated by Isaac Myer. "In the introduction written by
R'Hez'quee-yah, which is very old," says our author, "and forms part
of our Brody edition of the Zohar (I, 5b. sq.) is an account of a journey taken
by R. El'azar, son of R. Shim-on b. Io'hai, and Rabbi Abbah." They met a
man with a heavy burden and asked his name; but he refused to give it and
proceeded to explain to them Thorah
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[[Vol.
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(Law).
"They asked: 'Who caused thee thus to walk and carry such a heavy load?'
He answered: 'The letter [[diagram]], (Yod, which = 10, and is the symbolical
letter of Kether and the essence and germ of the Holy name [[diagram]] YHVH) .
. . . They said to him: 'If thou wilt tell us the name of thy father, we will
kiss the dust of thy feet.' He replied: 'As to my father, he had his dwelling
in the Great Sea, and was a fish therein' (like Vishnu and Dagon or Oannes),
'which (first) destroyed the great sea' . . . . . and he was great and mighty
and 'Ancient of Days,' until he swallowed all the other fishes in the (Great)
Sea . . . R. El'azar listened and said to him: 'Thou art the Son of the Holy
Flame, thou art the Son of Rab Ham -- 'nun-ah Sabah [the old: the fish in
Aramaic or Chaldee is nun (noon)] thou art the Son of the Light of the
Thorah," (Dharma) etc. Then the author explains that the feminine
Sephiroth, Binah, is termed by the Kabalist the great sea: therefore Binah,
whose divine names are Jehovah, Yah, and Elohim, is simply the Chaldean Tiamat,
the female power, the Thalatth of Berosus, who presides over the Chaos, and was
made out later by Christian theology to be the serpent and the Devil. She-He
(Yah-hovah) is the supernal (Heh, and Eve). This Yah-hovah then or Jehovah, is
identical with our Chaos -- Father, Mother, Son, -- on the material plane and
in the purely physical World. Demon and Deus at one and the same time; the sun
and moon, good and evil, God and Demon.
Lunar
magnetism generates life, preserves and destroys it, psychically as well as
physically. And if, astronomically, she is one of the seven planets of the
ancient world, in theogony she is one of the regents thereof; with Christians
now as much as with Pagans, the former referring to her under the name of one
of their archangels, and the latter under that of one of their gods.
Therefore
the meaning of the "fairy tale" translated by Chwolson from an old
Chaldean MSS. translated into Arabic, about Qu-tamy being instructed by the
idol of the moon, is easily understood (vide Book III.) Seldenus tells us the
secret as well as Maimonides (More Nevochim, Book III., ch. xxx). The
worshippers of the Teraphim (the Jewish Oracles) "carved images and
claimed that the light of the principal stars (planets) permeating these
through and through, the angelic VIRTUES (or the regents of the stars and
planets) conversed with them, teaching them many most useful things and
arts." And Seldenus explains that the Teraphim were built and composed
after the position of certain planets, those which the Greeks called
[[stoicheia]], and according to figures that were located in the sky and called
[[alexeteroi]], or the tutelary gods. Those who traced out the [[stoicheia]]
were called [[stoicheiomatichoi]], or the diviners by the [[stoicheia]]. (De
Diis Syriis, Teraph, II. Synt. p. 31) vide infra, the Teraphim.
It
is such sentences, however, in the "Nabathean agriculture," that
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[[Vol.
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have
frightened the men of science and made them proclaim the work "either an
apocrypha or a fairy tale, unworthy of the notice of an Academician." At
the same time, as shown, zealous Roman Catholics and Protestants tore it
metaphorically to pieces; the former because "it described the worship of
demons," the latter because it is "ungodly." They are all wrong,
once more. It is not a fairy tale; and as far as regards pious Churchmen, the
same worship may be shown in the Scriptures, however disfigured by translation.
Solar and Lunar worship, as well as that of the Stars and Elements, are traced,
and figure in the Christian theology; defended by Papists, they are stoutly
denied by the Protestants only at their own risk and peril. Two instances may
be given.
Ammianus
Marcellinus teaches that ancient divinations were always accomplished with the
help of the Spirits of the Elements, "Spiritus elementorum, and in Greek
[[pneumata ton stoicheion]]" (1. I., 21).
But
it is found now that the planets, the Elements, and the Zodiac, were figured
not only in Heliopolis by the twelve stones called "mysteries of the
elements," elementorum arcana, but also in Solomon's temple, and, as
pointed out by various writers, in several old Italian churches and even at
Notre Dame de Paris where they can be seen to this day.
No
symbol -- the sun included -- was more complex in its manifold meanings than
the lunar symbol. The sex was, of course, dual. With some it was male, e.g.,
the Hindu "King Soma," and the Chaldean Sin; with other nations it
was female, the beauteous goddesses Diana-Luna, I'lythia, Lucina. In Tauris,
human victims were sacrificed to Artemis, a form of the lunar goddess; the
Cretans called her Dictynna, and the Medes and Persians Anaitis, as shown by an
inscription of Koloe: '[[Artemidi 'Anaeiti]]. But, we are now concerned chiefly
with the most chaste and pure of the virgin goddesses, Luna-Artemis, to whom
Pamphos was the first to give the surname of [[Kalliste]], and of whom Hippolitus
wrote: [[Kallista polu parthenon]]. (See Pausanias viii., 35, 8.) This
Artemis-Lochia, the goddess that presided at conception and child-birth (Iliad,
Pausanias, etc., etc.), is, in her functions and as the triple Hecate, the
Orphic deity, the predecessor of the God of the Rabbins and pre-Christian
Kabalists, and his lunar type. The goddess [[Trimorphos]] was the personified
symbol of the various and successive aspects represented by the moon in each of
her three phases; and this interpretation was already that of the Stoics
(Cornut. De Nat, D. 34, 1), while the Orpheans explained the epithet
([[Trimorphos]]) by the three kingdoms of nature over which she reigned.
jealous, blood-thirsty, revengeful and exacting, Hecate-Luna is a worthy
counterpart of the "Jealous God" of the Hebrew prophets.
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The
whole riddle of the solar and lunar worship, as now traced in the churches,
hangs indeed on this world-old mystery of lunar phenomena. The correlative
forces in the "Queen of Night," that lie latent for modern science,
but are fully active to the knowledge of Eastern adepts, explain well the
thousand and one images under which the moon was represented by the ancients.
It also shows how much more profoundly learned in the Selenic mysteries were
the ancients than are now our modern astronomers. The whole Pantheon of the
lunar gods and goddesses, Nephtys or Neith, Proserpina, Melytta, Cybele, Isis,
Astarte, Venus, and Hecate, on the one hand, and Apollo, Dionysius, Adonis,
Bacchus, Osiris, Atys, Thammuz, etc., etc., on the other, all show on the face
of their names and titles -- those of "Sons" and "Husbands"
of their mothers -- their identity with the Christian Trinity. In every
religious system the gods were made to merge their functions as Father, Son,
and Husband, into one, and the goddesses were identified as "Wife, Mother,
and Sister" of the male God; the former synthesizing the human attributes
as the "Sun, the giver of Life," the latter merging all the other
titles in the grand synthesis known as Maia, Maya, Maria, etc., a generic name.
Maia, in its forced derivation, has come to mean with the Greeks,
"mother," from the root ma (nurse), and even gave its name to the
month of May, which was sacred to all those goddesses before it became
consecrated to Mary.* Its primitive meaning, however, was Maya, Durga,
translated by the Orientalists as "inaccessible," but meaning in
truth the "unreachable," in the sense of illusion and unreality; as
being the source and cause of spells, the personification of ILLUSION.
In
religious rites the moon served a dual purpose. Personified as a female goddess
for exoteric purposes, or as a male god in allegory and symbol, in occult
philosophy our satellite was regarded as a sexless Potency to be well studied,
because it was to be dreaded. With the initiated Aryans, Khaldii, Greeks and
Romans, Soma, Sin, Artemis Soteira (the hermaphrodite Apollo, whose attribute
is the lyre, and the bearded Diana of the bow and arrow), Deus Lunus, and
especially Osiris-lunus and Thot-lunus,** were the occult potencies of the
moon. But whether male or female, whether Thot or Minerva, Soma or Astoreth,
the Moon is the Occult mystery of mysteries, and more a symbol of evil than of
good. Her seven phases (original, esoteric division) are divided into three
astronomical phenomena and four
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Roman Catholics are indebted for the idea of consecrating the month of May
to the Virgin, to the pagan Plutarch, who shows that "May is sacred to
Maia ([[Maia]]) or Vesta" (Aulus-Gellius, word Maia) -- our mother-earth,
our nurse and nourisher personified.
**
Thot-Lunus is "Budha-Soma" of India, or "Mercury and the
Moon."
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[[Vol.
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purely
psychic phases. That the moon was not always reverenced is shown in the
Mysteries, in which the death of the moon-god (the three phases of gradual
waning and final disappearance) was allegorized by the moon standing for the
genius of evil that triumphs for the time over the light and life-giving god
(the sun), and all the skill and learning of the ancient Hierophants in Magic
was required to turn this triumph into a defeat.
It
was the most ancient worship of all, that of the third Race of our Round, the
Hermaphrodites, to whom the male-moon became sacred, when after the
"Fall" so-called, the sexes had become separated. "Deus
Lunus" then became an androgyne, male and female in turn; to serve
finally, for purposes of sorcery, as a dual power, to the Fourth Root-race, the
Atlanteans. With the Fifth (our own) the lunar-solar worship divided the
nations into two distinct, antagonistic camps. It led to events described aeons
later in the Mahabharatan War, which to the Europeans is the fabulous, to the
Hindus and Occultists the historical, strife between the Suryavansas and the
Indovansas. Originating in the dual aspect of the moon, the worship of the
female and the male principles respectively, it ended in distinct solar and
lunar cults. Among the Semitic races, the sun was for a very long time feminine
and the moon masculine -- the latter notion being adopted by them from the
Atlantean traditions. The moon was called "the Lord of the sun,"
Bel-Skemesh,* before the Shemesh worship. The ignorance of the incipient
reasons for such a distinction, and of occult principles, led the nations into
anthropomorphic idol-worship. But the religion of every ancient nation had been
primarily based upon the Occult manifestations of a purely abstract Force or
Principle now called "God." The very establishment of such worship
shows, in its details and rites, that the philosophers who evolved those
systems of nature, subjective and objective, possessed profound knowledge, and
were acquainted with many facts
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
During that period which is absent from the Mosaic books -- from the exile of
Eden to the allegorical Flood -- the Jews worshipped with the rest of the
Semites Dayanisi [[hebrew]] "the Ruler of Men," the
"Judge," or the SUN. Though the Jewish canon and Christianism have
made the sun become the "Lord God" and Jehovah in the Bible, yet the
latter is full of indiscreet traces of the androgyne Deity, which was Jehovah
the sun, and Astoreth the moon in its female aspect, and quite free from the
present metaphorical element given to it. God is a "consuming fire,"
appears in, and is encompassed by fire." It was not only in vision that
Ezekiel (viii., 16) saw the Jews "worshipping the sun." The Baal of
the Israelites (the Shemesh of the Moabites and the Moloch of the Ammonites)
was the identical "Sun-Jehovah," and he is till now "the King of
the Host of Heaven," the Sun, as much as Astoreth was the "Queen of
Heaven" -- or the moon. The "Sun of Righteousness" has become a
metaphorical expression only now.
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of
a scientific nature. For besides being purely Occult, the rites of lunar
worship were based, as just shown, upon a knowledge of physiology (quite a
modern science with us), psychology, sacred mathematics, geometry and
metrology, in their right applications to symbols and figures, which are but
glyphs, recording observed natural and scientific facts; in short, upon a most
minute and profound knowledge of nature. Lunar magnetism generates life,
preserves and kills it. Soma embodies the triple power of the Trimurti, though
it passes unrecognized by the profane to this day. The allegory that makes
Soma, the moon, produced by the churning of the Ocean of Life (Space) by the gods
in another Manvantara (i.e., in the pregenetic day of our planetary system),
and that other allegory, which shows "the Rishis milking the earth, whose
calf was Soma, the moon," has a deep cosmographical meaning; for it is
neither our earth which is milked, nor was the moon, which we know, the calf.*
Had our wise men of science known as much of the mysteries of nature as the
ancient Aryans did, they would surely never have imagined that the moon was
projected from the Earth. Once more, the oldest of permutations in theogony,
the Son becoming his own father and the mother generated by the Son, has to be
remembered and taken into consideration if the symbolical language of the
ancients is to be understood by us. Otherwise mythology will be ever haunting the
Orientalists as simply "the disease which springs up at a peculiar stage
of human culture!" -- as Renouf gravely observes in a Hibbert lecture.
The
ancients taught the, so to speak, auto-generation of the Gods: the one divine
essence, unmanifested, perpetually begetting a second-self, manifested, which
second-self, androgynous in its nature, gives birth in an immaculate way to
everything macro- and micro-cosmical in this universe. This was shown in the
Circle and the Diameter, or the Sacred 10, a few pages back.
But
our Orientalists, their extreme desire to discover one homogeneous element in
nature notwithstanding, will not see it; cramped in their researches by such
ignorance, they -- the Aryanists and Egyptologists -- are constantly led astray
from truth in their speculations. Thus, de Rouge is unable to understand, in
the text which he translates, the meaning of Ammon-Ra saying to King Amenophes
(supposed to be Memnon), "Thou art my Son, I have begotten thee"; and
as he
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The earth flees for her life in the allegory, before Prithu, who pursues her.
She assumes the shape of a cow, and, trembling with terror, runs away and hides
even in the regions of Brahma. Therefore, it is not our Earth. Again, in every
Purana, the calf changes name. In one it is Manu Swayambhuva, in another Indra,
in a third the Himavat (Himalayas) itself, while Meru was the milker. This is a
deeper allegory than one thinks.
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finds
the same idea in many a text and under various forms, this very Christian
Orientalist is finally compelled to exclaim that "for this idea to have
entered the mind of a hierogrammatist, there must have been in their religion a
more or less defined doctrine, indicating as a possible fact that might come to
pass, a divine and immaculate incarnation under a human form." Precisely.
But why throw the explanation on an impossible prophecy, when the whole secret
is explained by the later religion copying the earlier?
That
doctrine was universal, and it was not the mind of any one hierogrammatist that
evolved it; for the Indian avatars are a proof to the contrary. After which,
having come "to realize clearer"* what "the Divine Father and
Son" were with the Egyptians, de Rouge still fails to account for, and
perceive what were the functions attributed to the feminine principle in that
primordial generation. He does not find it in the goddess Neith, of Sais. Yet
he quotes the sentence of the Commander to Cambyses when introducing that king
into the Saitic temple: "I made known to his Majesty the dignity of Sais,
which is the abode of Neith, the great (female) producer, genitrix of the Sun,
who is the first-born, and who is not begotten, but only brought forth,"
and hence is the fruit of an immaculate mother.
How
much more grandiose, philosophical and poetical is the real distinction -- for
whoever is able to understand and appreciate it -- made between the immaculate
virgin of the ancient Pagans and the modern Papal conception. With the former,
the ever-youthful mother nature, the antitype of her prototypes, the sun and
moon, generates and brings forth her "mind-born" son, the Universe.
The Sun and Moon, as male-female deities, fructify the earth, the microcosmical
mother, and the latter conceives and brings forth, in her turn. With the
Christians, "the first-born" (primogenitus) is indeed generated, i.e.,
begotten, "genitum, non factum," and positively conceived and brought
forth -- "Virgo pariet," explains the Latin Church. Thus, she drags
down the noble spiritual ideal of the Virgin Mary to the earth, and, making her
"of the earth earthy," degrades that ideal to the lowest of the
anthropomorphic goddesses of the rabble.
Truly,
Neith, Isis, Diana, etc., etc., were each of them "a demiurgical goddess,
at once visible and invisible, having her place in Heaven, and helping to the
generation of species" -- the moon, in short. Her occult aspects and
powers are numberless, and, in one of them, the moon becomes with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
His clear realization of it is, that the Egyptians prophesied Jehovah (!) and
his incarnated Redeemer (the good serpent), etc., etc.; even to identifying
Typhon with the wicked dragon of the garden of Eden, and this passes as serious
and sober science.
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[[Vol.
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the
Egyptians Hathor, another aspect of Isis,* and both of these goddesses are
shown suckling Horus. Behold in the Egyptian Hall of the British Museum, Hathor
worshipped by Pharaoh Thotmes, who stands between her and the Lord of Heavens.
The monolith was taken from Karnac; and the same goddess has the following
legend inscribed on her throne: "THE DIVINE MOTHER AND LADY, OR QUEEN OF
HEAVEN"; also "the MORNING STAR," and the "LIGHT OF THE SEA"
(Stella matutina and Lux maris). All the lunar goddesses had a dual aspect --
one divine, the other infernal. All were the virgin mothers of an immaculately
born Son -- the SUN. Raoul Rochetti shows the moon-goddess of the Athenians --
Pallas, or Cybele, Minerva, or again Diana -- holding her child-son on the lap,
invoked in her festivals as [[Monogenes Theou]], "the one Mother of
God," sitting on a lion, and surrounded by twelve personages; in whom the
Occultist recognises the twelve great gods, and the pious Christian Orientalist
the apostles, or rather the Grecian pagan prophecy thereof.
They
are both right, for the immaculate goddess of the Latin Church is a faithful
copy of the older pagan goddesses; the number (twelve) of the apostles is that
of the twelve tribes, and the latter are a personification of the twelve great
gods, and of the twelve signs of the Zodiac. Every detail almost in the
Christian dogma is borrowed from the heathens. Semele, the wife of Jupiter and
mother of Bacchus, the Sun, is, according to Nonnus, also "carried,"
or made to ascend to heaven after her death, where she presides between Mars
and Venus, under the name of the Queen of the World, or the universe,
[[panbasileia]]; "at the names of which, as at the names of Hathor,
Hecate, and other infernal goddesses," "tremble all the
demons."**
"[[Semelen
premousi daimones]]." This Greek inscription on a small temple, reproduced
on a stone that was found by somebody, and copied by Montfaucon, as De Mirville
tells us (113, Archaeologie de la Vierge mere) informs us of the stupendous
fact, that the Magna Mater of the old world was an impudent plagiarism,
perpetrated by the Demon, of the Immaculate Virgin Mother of his Church.
Whether so, or vice versa, is of no importance. That which is interesting to
note is the perfect identity between the ARCHAIC COPY and the MODERN ORIGINAL.
Did
space permit we might show the inconceivable coolness and unconcern exhibited
by certain followers of the Roman Catholic Church, when made to face the
revelations of the Past. To Maury's remark that "the Virgin took
possession of all the Sanctuaries of Ceres and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hathor is the infernal Isis, the goddess pre-eminently of the West or the
nether world.
**
This is De Mirville, who proudly confesses the similarity, and he ought to
know.
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[[Vol.
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Venus,
and that the pagan rites, proclaimed and practised in honour of those
goddesses, were in a good measure transferred to the mother of Christ,"
the advocate of Rome answers:--
"That
such is the fact, and that it is just as it should be and quite natural. As the
dogma, the liturgy, and the rites professed by the Roman Apostolical Church in
1862 are found engraved on monuments, inscribed on papyri, and cylinders hardly
posterior to the Deluge, it does seem impossible to deny the existence of a
FIRST ANTE-HISTORICAL (Roman) CATHOLICISM OF WHICH OUR OWN IS BUT THE FAITHFUL
CONTINUATION. . . . But while the former was the culmination, the summum of the
impudence of demons and Goetic necromancy . . . . the latter is divine. If in
our (Christian) Revelation (l'Apocalypse), Mary, clothed with the Sun and having
the moon under her feet, has nothing more in common with the humble servant of
Nazareth (sic.), it is because she has now become the greatest of theological
and cosmological powers in our universe." -- (Archaeol. de la Vierge, pp.
116 and 119, and by the Marquis de Mirville).
Verily
so, since Pindar's Hymns to Minerva (p. 19) . . . "who sits at the right
hand of her Father Jupiter, and who is more powerful than all the other (angels
or) gods," are likewise applied to the Virgin. It is St. Bernard, who, quoted
by Cornelius a Lapide, is made to address the Virgin Mary in this wise:--
"The
Sun-Christ lives in thee and thou livest in him." (Sermon on the Holy
Virgin.) . . . .
Again
the Virgin is admitted to be the MOON by the same unsophisticated holy man.
Being the Lucina of the Church, that is in childbirth, the verse of Virgil --
"Casta fove Lucina, tuus jam regnat Apollo" -- is applied to her.
Like the moon, the Virgin is the Queen of Heaven," adds the innocent
saint; (Apocal., ch. xii., Comm. by Cornelius a Lapide).
This
settles the question. The more similarity, according to such writers as De
Mirville, there exists between the pagan conceptions and the Christian dogmas,
the more divine appears the Christian religion, and the more is it seen to be
the only truly inspired one, especially in its Roman Catholic form. The
unbelieving scientists and the academicians who think they see in the Latin
Church quite the opposite of divine inspiration, and who will not believe in
the satanic tricks of plagiarism by anticipation, are severely taken to task.
But then "they believe in nothing and reject even the 'Nabathean
Agriculture' as a romance and a pack of superstitious nonsense," complains
the memorialist. "In their perverted opinion Qu-ta-my's 'idol of the moon'
and the statue of the Madonna are one!" A noble Marquis wrote twenty years
ago six huge volumes, or, as he calls them "Memoires to the French
Academy," with the sole object of showing Roman Catholicism an inspired
and revealed faith. As a proof thereof, he furnishes numberless facts, all
tending to show that the entire ancient world, ever since
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[[Vol.
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the
deluge, had been, with the help of the devil, systematically plagiarizing the
rites, ceremonies, and dogmas of the future Holy Church to be born ages later.
What would that faithful son of Rome have said had he heard his co-religionist
-- M. Renouf, the distinguished Egyptologist of the British Museum --
declaring, in one of his learned lectures, that "neither Hebrews nor
Greeks borrowed any of their ideas from Egypt?"*
But
perhaps it is just this that M. Renouf intended to say namely -- that it is the
Egyptians, the Greeks, and the Aryans, who borrowed theirs from the Latin
Church? And if so, why, in the name of logic, do the Papists reject the
additional information which the Occultists may give them on Moon-worship,
since it all tends to show their (the Roman Catholic) worship as old as the world
-- OF SABAEANISM AND ASTROLATRY?
The
reason of early Christian and later Roman Catholic astrolatry, or the
symbolical worship of Sun and Moon -- identical with that of the Gnostics,
though less philosophical and pure than the "Sun worship" of the
Zoroastrians -- is a natural consequence of its birth and origin. The adoption
by the Latin Church of such symbols as the water, fire, sun, moon and stars,
and a good many other things, is simply a continuation by the early Christians
of the old worship of Pagan nations. Thus Odin got his wisdom, power, and
knowledge, by sitting at the feet of Mimir, the thrice-wise Jotun, who passed
his life by the fountain of primeval Wisdom, the crystalline waters of which
increased his knowledge daily. Mimir "drew the highest knowledge from the
fountain, because the world was born of water; hence primeval wisdom was to be
found in that mysterious element" ("Asgard and the Gods," 86).
The eye which Odin had to pledge to acquire that knowledge may be "the Sun,
which enlightens and penetrates all things; his other eye being the moon, whose
reflection gazes out of the deep, and which at last, when setting, sinks into
the Ocean." (Ibid.) But it is something more, besides this. Loki, the
fire-god, is said to have hidden in the water, as well as in the moon, the
light-giver, whose reflection he found therein; and this belief that the fire
finds refuge in the water was not limited to the old Scandinavians. It was
shared by all nations and was finally taken up by the early Christians, who
symbolized the Holy Ghost under the shape of Fire, "cloven tongues like as
fire" -- the breath of the Father-SUN. This "Fire" descends also
into the Water or the Sea: Mar, Mary. The dove was the symbol of the Soul with
several nations, it was sacred to Venus, the goddess born from the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Quoted in Mr. G. Massey's Lecture.
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[[Vol.
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sea-foam,
and it became later the symbol of the Christian Anima Mundi, or the Holy
Spirit.
One
of the most occult chapters in the "Book of the Dead" is ch. lxxx.,
entitled: "To make the transformation into the god giving light to the
path of Darkness," wherein "Woman-light of the Shadow" serves
Thot in his retreat in the moon. Thot-Hermes is said to hide therein, because
he is the representative of the Secret Wisdom. He is the manifested logos of
its light side, the concealed deity or "Dark Wisdom" when he is
supposed to retire to the opposite hemisphere. Speaking of her power, the moon
calls herself repeatedly: "The Light which shineth in Darkness," the
"Woman-Light." Hence it became the accepted symbol of all the
Virgin-Mother goddesses. As the wicked "evil" spirits warred against
the moon in days of yore, so they are supposed to war now, without being able
to prevail, however, against the actual Queen of Heaven, Mary, the moon. Hence
also the moon was intimately connected in all the Pagan theogonies with the
Dragon, her eternal enemy; the Virgin, or Madonna, standing on the mythical
Satan under that form, crushed and made powerless, under her feet. This,
because the head and tail of the Dragon, which represent in Eastern astronomy
to this day the ascending and descending nodes of the moon, were also
symbolized in ancient Greece by the two serpents. Hercules kills them on the
day of his birth, and so does the babe in his virgin mother's arms. As Mr.
Gerald Massey aptly observes in this connection: "All such symbols figured
their own facts from the first, and did not pre-figure others of a totally
different order. The Iconography (and dogmas, too) had survived in Rome from a
period remotely pre-Christian. There was neither forgery nor interpolation of
types; nothing but a continuity of imagery with a perversion of its
meaning."
--------------
c--------------
§
XI.
DEMON
EST DEUS INVERSUS.
THIS
symbolical sentence, in its many-sided forms, is certainly most dangerous and
iconoclastic in the face of all the dualistic later religions -- or rather
theologies -- and especially so in the light of Christianity. Yet it is neither
just nor correct to say that it is Christianity which has conceived and brought
forth Satan. As an "adversary," the opposing Power required by the
equilibrium and harmony of things in Nature -- like Shadow to throw off still
brighter the Light, like Night to bring into greater relief the Day, and like
cold to make one appreciate the more the comfort of heat -- SATAN has ever
existed. Homogeneity is one and indivisible. But if the homogeneous One and
Absolute is no mere figure of speech, and if heterogeneity in its dualistic
aspect, is its offspring -- its bifurcous shadow or reflection -- then even
that divine Homogeneity must contain in itself the essence of
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[[Vol.
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both
good and evil. If "God" is Absolute, Infinite, and the Universal Root
of all and everything in Nature and its universe, whence comes Evil or D'Evil
if not from the same "Golden Womb" of the absolute? Thus we are
forced either to accept the emanation of good and evil, of Agathodaemon and
Kakodaemon as offshoots from the same trunk of the Tree of Being, or to resign
ourselves to the absurdity of believing in two eternal Absolutes!
Having
to trace the origin of the idea to the very beginnings of human mind, it is but
just, meanwhile, to give his due even to the proverbial devil. Antiquity knew
of no isolated, thoroughly and absolutely bad "god of evil." Pagan
thought represented good and evil as twin brothers, born from the same mother
-- Nature; so soon as that thought ceased to be Archaic, Wisdom too became
Philosophy. In the beginning the symbols of good and evil were mere
abstractions, Light and Darkness; then their types became chosen among the most
natural and ever-recurrent periodical Cosmic phenomena -- the Day and the
Night, or the Sun and Moon. Then the Hosts of the Solar and Lunar deities were
made to represent them, and the Dragon of Darkness was contrasted with the
Dragon of Light (See Stanzas V., VII. of Book I.) The Host of Satan is a Son of
God, no less than the Host of the B'ni Alhim, these children of God coming to
"present themselves before the Lord," their father (see Job ii.).
"The Sons of God" become the "Fallen Angels" only after
perceiving that the daughters of men were fair, (Genesis vi.) In the Indian
philosophy, the Suras are among the earliest and the brightest gods, and become
Asuras only when dethroned by Brahminical fancy. Satan never assumed an
anthropomorphic, individualized shape, until the creation by man, of a
"one living personal god," had been accomplished; and then merely as
a matter of prime necessity. A screen was needed; a scape-goat to explain the
cruelty, blunders, and but too-evident injustice, perpetrated by him for whom
absolute perfection, mercy, and goodness were claimed. This was the first
Karmic effect of abandoning a philosophical and logical Pantheism, to build, as
a prop for lazy man, "a merciful father in Heaven," whose daily and
hourly actions as Natura naturans, the "comely mother but stone
cold," belie the assumption. This led to the primal twins, Osiris-Typhon,
Ormazd-Ahriman, and finally Cain-Abel and the tutti-quanti of contraries.
Having
commenced by being synonymous with Nature, "God," the Creator, ended
by being made its author. Pascal settles the difficulty very cunningly:
"Nature has perfections, in order to show that she is the image of God:
and defects, in order to show that she is only his image," he says.
The
further back one recedes into the darkness of the prehistoric
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ages,
the more philosophical does the prototypic figure of the later Satan appear.
The first "Adversary" in individual human form that one meets with in
old Puranic literature is one of her greatest Rishis and Yogis -- Narada,
surnamed the "Strife-maker."
And
he is a Brahmaputra, a son of Brahma, the male. But of him later on. Who the
great "Deceiver" really is, one can ascertain by searching for him
with open eyes and an unprejudiced mind, in every old cosmogony and Scripture.
It
is the anthropomorphised Demiurge, the Creator of Heaven and Earth, when
separated from the collective Hosts of his fellow-Creators, whom, so to speak,
he represents and synthesizes. It is now the God of theologies. "The
thought is father to the wish." Once upon a time, a philosophical symbol
left to perverse human fancy; afterwards fashioned into a fiendish, deceiving,
cunning, and jealous God.
Dragons
and other fallen angels being described in other parts of this work, a few
words upon the much-slandered Satan will be sufficient. That which the student
will do well to remember is that, with every people except the Christian
nations, the Devil is to this day no worse an entity than the opposite aspect
in the dual nature of the so-called Creator. This is only natural. One cannot
claim God as the synthesis of the whole Universe, as Omnipresent and Omniscient
and Infinite, and then divorce him from evil. As there is far more evil than
good in the world, it follows on logical grounds that either God must include
evil, or stand as the direct cause of it, or else surrender his claims to
absoluteness. The ancients understood this so well that their philosophers --
now followed by the Kabalists -- defined evil as the lining of God or Good:
Demon est Deus inversus, being a very old adage. Indeed, evil is but an
antagonizing blind force in nature; it is reaction, opposition, and contrast,
-- evil for some, good for others. There is no malum in se: only the shadow of
light, without which light could have no existence, even in our perceptions. If
evil disappeared, good would disappear along with it from Earth. The "Old
Dragon" was pure spirit before he became matter, passive before he became
active. In the Syro-Chaldean magic both Ophis and Ophiomorphos are joined in
the Zodiac, at the sign of the Androgyne Virgo-Scorpio. Before its fall on
earth the "Serpent" was Ophis-Christos, and after its fall it became
Ophiomorphos-CHRESTOS. Everywhere the speculations of the Kabalists treat of
Evil as a FORCE, which is antagonistic, but at the same time essential, to
Good, as giving it vitality and existence, which it could never have otherwise.
There would be no life possible (in the Mayavic sense) without Death, nor
regeneration and reconstruction without destruction. Plants would perish in
eternal sunlight, and so would man, who would become an automaton without the
exercise of his free will and aspirations
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after
that sunlight, which would lose its being and value for him had he nothing but
light. Good is infinite and eternal only in the eternally concealed from us,
and this is why we imagine it eternal. On the manifested planes, one
equilibrates the other. Few are those theists and believers in a personal God,
who do not make of Satan the shadow of God; or who, confounding both, do not
believe they have a right to pray to that idol asking its help and protection
for the exercise and impunity of their evil and cruel deeds. "Lead us not
into Temptation" is addressed daily to "our Father, which art in
Heaven," and not to the Devil, by millions of human Christian hearts. They
do so, repeating the very words put in the mouth of their Saviour, and do not
give one thought to the fact that their meaning is contradicted point blank by
James "the brother of the Lord." "Let no man say when he is
tempted, I am tempted of God: for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither
tempteth he any man." -- (The Gen. Ep. of James, i, 13). Why, then, say
that it is the Devil who tempts us, when the Church teaches us on the authority
of Christ that it is God who does so? Open any pious volume in which the word
"temptation" is defined in its theological sense, and forthwith you
find two definitions: (1) "Those afflictions and troubles whereby God
tries his people;" (2) Those means and enticements which the Devil makes
use of to ensnare and allure mankind. (St. James i., 2, 12, and Mat. vi., 13.)
If accepted literally, the two teachings of Christ and James contradict each other,
and what dogma can reconcile the two if the occult meaning is rejected?
Between
the alternative allurements, wise will be that philosopher who will be able to
decide where God disappears to make room for the Devil! Therefore when we read
that "the Devil is a liar and the father of it," i.e., INCARNATE LIE,
and are told in the same breath that Satan -- the Devil -- was a son of God and
the most beautiful of his archangels, rather than believe that Father and Son
are a gigantic, personified and eternal LIE, we prefer to turn to Pantheism and
to Pagan philosophy for information.
Once
that the key to Genesis is in our hands, it is the scientific and symbolical
Kabala which unveils the secret. The great Serpent of the Garden of Eden and
the "Lord God" are identical, and so are Jehovah and Cain ONE -- that
Cain who is referred to in theology as the "murderer" and the LIAR to
God! Jehovah tempts the King of Israel to number the people, and Satan tempts
him to do the same in another place. Jehovah turns into the fiery serpents to
bite those he is displeased with; and Jehovah informs the brazen serpent that
heals them.
These
short, and seemingly contradictory, statements in the Old Testament
(contradictory because the two Powers are separated instead of being regarded
as the two faces of one and the same thing) are the
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[[Vol.
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echoes
-- distorted out of recognition by exotericism and theology -- of the universal
and philosophical dogmas in nature, so well understood by the primitive Sages.
We find the same groundwork in several personifications in the Puranas, only
far more ample and philosophically suggestive.
Thus
Pulastya, a "Son of God" -- one of the first progeny -- is made the
progenitor of Demons, the Rakshasas, the tempters and the Devourers of men.
Pisacha (female Demon) is a daughter of Daksha, a "Son of God" too,
and a God, and the mother of all the Pisachas (Padma Purana). The Demons, so
called in the Puranas, are very extraordinary devils when judged from the
standpoint of European and orthodox views about these creatures, since all of
them -- Danavas, Daityas, Pisachas, and the Rakshasas -- are represented as
extremely pious, following the precepts of the Vedas, some of them even being
great Yogis. But they oppose the clergy and Ritualism, sacrifices and forms --
just what the full-blown Yogins do to this day in India -- and are no less
respected for it, though they are allowed to follow neither caste nor ritual;
hence all those Puranic giants and Titans are called Devils. The Missionaries,
ever on the watch to show, if they can, the Hindu traditions no better than a
reflection of the Jewish Bible, have evolved a whole romance on the alleged identity
of Pulastya with Cain, and of the Rakshasas with the Cainites, "the
accursed," the cause of the Noachian Deluge. (See the work of Abbe
Gorresio, who "etymologises" Pulastya's name as meaning the
"rejected," hence Cain, if you please). Pulastya dwells in Kedara, he
says, which means a "dug-up place," a mine, and Cain is shown in
tradition and the Bible as the first worker in metals and a miner thereof!
While
it is very probable that the Gibborim (the giants) of the Bible are the Rakshasas
of the Hindus, it is still more certain that both are Atlanteans, and belong to
the submerged races. However it may be, no Satan could be more persistent in
slandering his enemy, or more spiteful in his hatred, than the Christian
theologians are in cursing him as the father of every evil. Compare their
vituperations and opinions given about the Devil with the philosophical views
of the Puranic sages and their Christ-like mansuetude. When Parasara, whose
father was devoured by a Rakshasa, was preparing himself to destroy (magically)
the whole race, his grandsire, Vasishta, says a few extremely suggestive words
to him. He shows the irate Sage, on his own confession, that there is Evil and
Karma, but no "evil spirits." "Let thy wrath be appeased,"
he says. "The Rakshasas are not culpable; thy father's death was the work
of Karma. Anger is the passion of fools; it becometh not a wise man. By whom,
it may be asked, is any one killed? Every man reaps the consequences of his own
acts. Anger, my son, is the destruction of
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all
that man obtains . . . and prevents the attainment of emancipation. The sages
shun wrath. Be not thou, my child, subject to its influence. Let not those
unoffending spirits of darkness be consumed; let thy sacrifice cease. Mercy is
the might of the righteous" (Vishnu Purana, Book i., ch. i.). Thus, every
such "sacrifice" or prayer to God for help is no better than an act of
black magic. That which Parasara prayed for, was the destruction of the Spirits
of Darkness, for his personal revenge. He is called a Pagan, and the Christians
have doomed him as such, to eternal hell. Yet, in what respect is the prayer of
sovereigns and generals, who pray before every battle for the destruction of
their enemy, any better? Such a prayer is in every case black magic of the
worst kind, concealed like a demon "Mr. Hyde" under a sanctimonious
"Dr. Jekyll."
In
human nature, evil denotes only the polarity of matter and Spirit, a struggle
for life between the two manifested Principles in Space and Time, which
principles are one per se, inasmuch they are rooted in the Absolute. In Kosmos,
the equilibrium must be preserved. The operations of the two contraries produce
harmony, like the centripetal and centrifugal forces, which are necessary to
each other -- mutually inter-dependent -- "in order that both should
live." If one is arrested, the action of the other will become immediately
self-destructive.
Since
the personification called Satan has been amply analyzed from its triple aspect
-- in the Old Testament, Christian theology and the ancient Gentile attitude of
thought -- those who would learn more of it are referred to Vol. II. of ISIS
UNVEILED, chap. x. See also several sections in Book II., Part II. of this
work. The present subject is touched upon and fresh explanations attempted for
a very good reason. Before we can approach the evolution of physical and divine
man, we have first to master the idea of cyclic evolution, to acquaint
ourselves with the philosophies and beliefs of the four races which preceded
our present race, to learn what were the ideas of those Titans and giants --
giants, verily, mentally as well as physically. The whole of antiquity was
imbued with that philosophy which teaches the involution of spirit into matter,
the progressive, downward cyclic descent, or active, self-conscious evolution.
The Alexandrian Gnostics have sufficiently divulged the secret of initiations,
and their records are full of "the sliding down of AEons" in their
double qualification of Angelic Beings and Periods: the one the natural
evolution of the other. On the other hand, Oriental traditions on both sides of
the "black water" -- the oceans that separate the two Easts -- are as
full of allegories about the downfall of Pleroma, of that of the gods and
Devas. One and all, they allegorized and explained the FALL as the
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desire
to learn and acquire knowledge -- to KNOW. This is the natural sequence of
mental evolution, the spiritual becoming transmuted into the material or
physical. The same law of descent into materiality and re-ascent into
spirituality asserted itself during the Christian era, the reaction having
stopped only just now, in our own special sub-race.
That
which, perhaps ten millenniums ago, was allegorized in Pymander in a triune
character of interpretation, meant as a record of an astronomical,
anthropological, and even alchemical fact, namely, the allegory of the seven
rectors breaking through the seven circles of fire, was dwarfed into one
material and anthropomorphic interpretation -- the rebellion and Fall of the
Angels. The multivocal, profoundly philosophical narrative, under its poetical
form of the "Marriage of Heaven with Earth," the love of nature for
Divine form and the "Heavenly man," enraptured with his own beauty
mirrored in nature -- i.e., Spirit attracted into matter -- has now become,
under theological handling: "the seven Rectors disobeying Jehovah, self
admiration generating Satanic Pride, followed by their FALL, Jehovah permitting
no worship to be lost save upon himself." In short, the beautiful
Planet-Angels, the glorious cyclic aeons of the ancients, became henceforward
synthesized in their most orthodox shape in Samael, the chief of the Demons in
the Talmud, "That great serpent with twelve wings that draws down after
himself, in his Fall, the solar system, or the Titans." But Schemal, the
alter ego and the Sabean type of Samael, meant, in his philosophical and
esoteric aspect, the "year" in its astrological evil aspect, its
twelve months or wings of unavoidable evils, in nature; and in esoteric
theogony (see Chwolson in NABATHEAN AGRICULTURE, Vol. II., p. 217), both
Schemal and Samael represented a particular divinity. With the Kabalists they
are "the Spirit of the Earth," the personal god that governs it,
identical de facto with Jehovah. For the Talmudists admit themselves that
SAMAEL is a god-name of one of the seven Elohim. The Kabalists, moreover, show
the two, Schemal and Samael, as a symbolical form of Saturn, CHRONOS, the
twelve wings standing for the 12 months, and the symbol in its collectivity representing
a racial cycle. Jehovah and Saturn are also glyphically identical.
This
leads in its turn to a very curious deduction from a Roman Catholic dogma. Many
renowned writers belonging to the Latin Church admit that a difference exists,
and should be made, between the Uranian Titans, the antediluvian giants (also
Titans), and those post-diluvian giants in whom they (the Roman Catholics) will
see the descendants of the mythical Ham. In clearer words, there is a
difference to be made between the Cosmic, primordial opposing Forces -- guided
by cyclic law -- the Atlantean human giants, and the post-diluvian great
adepts, whether
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of
the right or the left hand. At the same time they show that Michael, "the
generalissimos of the fighting Celestial Host, the bodyguard of Jehovah,"
as it would seem (see de Mirville) is also a Titan, only with the adjective of
"divine" before the cognomen. Thus those "Uranides" who are
called everywhere "divine Titans," and who, having rebelled against
Kronos (Saturn), are therefore also shown to be the enemies of Samael (an
Elohim, also and synonymous with Jehovah in his collectivity), are identical
with Michael and his host. In short, the roles are reversed, all the combatants
are confused, and no student is able to distinguish clearly which is which.
Esoteric explanation may, however, bring some order into this confusion, in
which Jehovah becomes Saturn, and Michael and his army, Satan and the
rebellious angels, owing to the indiscreet endeavours of the too faithful
zealots to see in every pagan god a devil. The true meaning is far more
philosophical, and the legend of the first "Fall" (of the angels) assumes
a scientific colouring when correctly understood.
Kronos
stands for endless (hence immovable) Duration, without beginning, without an
end, beyond divided Time and beyond Space. Those "Angels," genii, or
Devas, who were born to act in space and time, i.e., to break through the seven
circles of the superspiritual planes into the phenomenal, or circumscribed,
super-terrestrial regions, are said allegorically to have rebelled against
Kronos and fought the (then) one living and highest God. In his turn, when
Kronos is represented as mutilating Uranus, his father, the meaning of this
mutilation is very simple: Absolute Time is made to become the finite and the
conditioned; a portion is robbed from the whole, thus showing that Saturn, the
father of the gods, has been transformed from Eternal Duration into a limited
Period. Chronos cuts down with his scythe even the longest and (to us)
seemingly endless cycles, yet, for all that, limited in Eternity, and puts down
with the same scythe the mightiest rebels. Aye, not one will escape the scythe
of Time! Praise the god or gods, or flout, one or both, and that scythe will
not be made to tremble one millionth of a second in its ascending or descending
course.
The
Titans of Hesiod's Theogony were copied in Greece from the Suras and Asuras of
India. These Hesiodic Titans, the Uranides, numbered once upon a time as only
six, have been recently discovered to be seven -- the seventh being called
Phoreg -- in an old fragment relating to the Greek myth. Thus their identity
with the Seven rectors is fully demonstrated. The origin of the "War in
Heaven" and the FALL has, in our mind, to be traced unavoidably to India,
and perhaps far earlier than the Puranic accounts thereof. For TARAMAYA was in
a later age, and there are three accounts, each of a distinct war, to be traced
in almost every Cosmogony.
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The
first war happened in the night of time, between the gods the (A)-suras, and
lasted for the period of one "divine year."* On this occasion the
deities were defeated by the Daityas, under the leadership of Hrada. After
that, owing to a device of Vishnu, to whom the conquered gods applied for help,
the latter defeated the Asuras. In the Vishnu Purana no interval is found
between the two wars. In the Esoteric Doctrine, one war takes place before the
building of the Solar system; another, on earth, at the "creation" of
man; and a third "war" is mentioned as taking place at the close of
the 4th Race, between its adepts and those of the 5th Race, i.e., between the
Initiates of the "Sacred Island" and the Sorcerers of Atlantis. We
shall notice the first contest, as recounted by Parasara, while trying to
separate the two accounts, purposely blended together. It is there stated that
as the Daityas and Asuras were engaged in the duties of their respective orders
(Varna) and followed the paths prescribed by holy writ, practising also
religious penance (a queer employment for demons if they are identical with our
devils, as it is claimed) -- it was impossible for the gods to destroy them.
The prayers addressed by the gods to Vishnu are curious as showing the ideas
involved in an anthropomorphic deity. Having, after their defeat, "fled to
the Northern shore of the Milky Ocean (Atlantic Ocean),** the discomfited gods
address many supplications "to the first
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
One "Day of Brahma" lasting 4,320,000,000 years -- multiply this by
365! The Asuras here (no-gods, but demons) are still Suras, gods higher in
hierarchy than such secondary gods as are not even mentioned in the Vedas. The
duration of the war shows its significance, and that they are only the
personified Cosmic powers. It is evidently for sectarian purposes and out of
odium theologicum that the illusive form assumed by Vishnu Mayamoha, was
attributed in later rearrangements of old texts to Buddha and the Daityas, in
the Vishnu Purana, unless it was a fancy of Wilson himself. He also fancied he
found an allusion to Buddhism in Bhagavatgita, whereas, as proved by K. T.
Telang, he had only confused the Buddhists and the older Charvaka materialists.
The version exists nowhere in other Puranas if the inference does, as Professor
Wilson claims, in the "Vishnu Purana"; the translation of which,
especially of Book iii., ch. xviii., where the reverend Orientalist arbitrarily
introduces Buddha, and shows him teaching Buddhism to Daityas -- led to another
"great war" between himself and Col. Vans Kennedy. The latter charged
him publicly with wilfully distorting Puranic texts. "I affirm,"
wrote the Colonel at Bombay, in 1840, "that the Puranas do not contain
what Professor Wilson has stated is contained in them . . . until such passages
are produced I may be allowed to repeat my former conclusions, that Professor
Wilson's opinion, that the Puranas as now extant are compilations made between
the eighth and seventeenth centuries (A.D.!) rests solely on gratuitous
assumptions and unfounded assertions, and that his reasoning in support of it
is either futile, fallacious, contradictory, or improbable." (See Vishnu
Purana, trans. by Wilson, edit. by Fitzedward Hall, Vol. V., Appendix.)
**
This statement belongs to the third War, since the terrestrial continents, seas
and rivers are mentioned in connection with it.
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of
beings, the divine Vishnu," and among others this one: "Glory to
thee, who art one with the Saints, whose perfect nature is ever blessed. . . .
Glory to thee, who art one with the Serpent-race, double-tongued, impetuous,
cruel, insatiate of enjoyment and abounding with wealth. . . . Glory to thee, .
. . . O Lord, who hast neither colour nor extension, nor size (ghana), nor any
predicable qualities, and whose essence (rupa), purest of the pure is
appreciable only by holy Paramarshi (greatest of sages or Rishis). We bow to
thee, in the nature of Brahma uncreated, undecaying (avyaya), who art in our
bodies and in all other bodies, and in all living creatures, and beside whom
nothing exists. We glorify that Vasudeva, the lord of all, who is without soil,
the seed of all things, exempt from dissolution, unborn, eternal; being in
essence Paramapadatmavat (beyond the condition of spirit) and in essence and
substance (rupa), the whole of this (Universe)." (Book III., ch. xvii.,
Vish. Purana.)
The
above is quoted as an illustration of the vast field offered by the Puranas to
adverse and erroneous criticism, by every European bigot who forms an estimate
of an alien religion on mere external evidence. Any man accustomed to subject
what he reads to thoughtful analysis, will see at a glance the incongruity of
addressing the accepted "Unknowable," the formless, and attributeless
ABSOLUTE, such as the Vedantins define BRAHMA, as being "one with the
serpent-race, double-tongued, cruel and insatiable," thus associating the
abstract with the concrete, and bestowing adjectives on that which is freed
from any limitations, and conditionless. Even Dr. Wilson, who, after living
surrounded by Brahmins and Pundits in India for so many years, ought to have
known better -- even that scholar lost no opportunity to criticize the Hindu
Scriptures on this account. Thus, he exclaims:--*
"The
Puranas constantly teach incompatible doctrines! According to this passage, the
Supreme being is not the inert cause of creation only, but exercises the
functions of an active providence. The Commentator quotes a text of the Veda in
support of this view: 'Universal Soul entering into men, governs their
conduct.' Incongruities, however, are as frequent in the Vedas as in the
Puranas. . . . ."
Less
frequent, in sober truth, than in the Mosaic Bible. But prejudice is great in
the hearts of our Orientalists -- especially in those of "reverend"
scholars. UNIVERSAL SOUL is not the inert Cause of Creation or (Para) Brahma,
but simply that which we call the sixth principle of intellectual Kosmos, on
the manifested plane of being. It is Mahat, or Mahabuddhi, the great Soul, the
vehicle of Spirit, the first primeval reflection of the formless CAUSE, and
that which is even beyond SPIRIT.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In Book I., chap. xvii., narrating the story of Prahlada -- the Son of
Hiranyakasipu, the Puranic Satan, the great enemy of Vishnu, and the King of
the three worlds -- into whose heart Vishnu entered.
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So
much for Professor Wilson's uncalled-for fling. As for the apparently incongruous
appeal to Vishnu by the defeated gods, the explanation is there, in the text of
Vishnu Purana, if Orientalists would only notice it.* There is Vishnu, as
Brahma, and Vishnu in his two aspects, philosophy teaches. There is but one
Brahma, "essentially prakriti and Spirit," &c.
Therefore,
it is not Vishnu -- "the inert cause of creation" -- which exercised
the functions of an active Providence, but the Universal Soul, that which E.
Levi calls Astral Light in its material aspect. And this "Soul" is,
in its dual aspect of spirit and matter, the true anthropomorphic God of the
Theists; as this God is a personification of that Universal Creative Agent,
pure and impure both, owing to its manifested condition and differentiation in
this Mayavic World -- God and Devil -- truly. But Dr. Wilson failed to see how
Vishnu, in this character, closely resembles the Lord God of Israel,
"especially in his policy of deception, temptation, and cunning."
In
the Vishnu Purana this is made as plain as can be. For it is said there, that
"at the conclusion of their prayers (stotra) the gods beheld the Sovereign
Deity Hari (Vishnu) armed with the conch, the discus, and the mace, riding on
Garuda. ." Now "Garuda" is the manvantaric cycle, as will be shown
in its place. Vishnu, therefore, is the deity in space and time; the peculiar
God of the Vaishnavas (a tribal or racial God, as they are called in esoteric
philosophy): i.e., one of the many Dhyanis or Gods, or Elohim, one of whom was
generally chosen for some special reasons by a nation or a tribe, and thus
became gradually a "God above all Gods" (2 Chronicles ii. 5,) the
"highest God" as Jehovah, Osiris, Bel, or any other of the Seven
Regents.
"The
tree is known by its fruit," -- the nature of a God by his actions. The latter,
we have either to judge by the dead-letter narratives, or to accept
allegorically. If we compare the two -- Vishnu, as the defender and champion of
the defeated gods; and Jehovah, the defender and champion of the
"chosen" people, so called by antiphrasis, no doubt, as it is the
Jews who had chosen that "jealous" God -- we shall find that both use
deceit and cunning. They do so on the principle of "the end justifying the
means," in order to have the best of their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This ignorance is truly and beautifully expressed in the praise of the Yogins
to Brahma, "the upholder of the earth" (in Book I., chap. iv. of V.
P.), when they say, "Those who have not practised devotion conceive
erroneously of the nature of the world. The ignorant who do not perceive that
this Universe is of the nature of wisdom, and judge of it as an object of
perception only, are lost in the ocean of spiritual ignorance. But they who
know true wisdom, and whose minds are pure, behold this whole world as one with
divine knowledge, as one with thee, O God! Be favourable, O universal
Spirit!"
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[[Vol.
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respective
opponents and foes -- the demons. Thus while (according to the Kabalists)
Jehovah assumes the shape of the tempting Serpent in the Garden of Eden; sends
Satan with a special mission to tempt Job; and harasses and wearies Pharaoh
with Sarai, Abraham's wife, and "hardens" his heart against Moses,
lest there should be no opportunity for plaguing his victims "with great
plagues" (Genesis xii., Exodus) -- Vishnu is made in his Purana to resort
to a trick no less unworthy of any respectable god.
"Have
compassion upon us, O Lord, and protect us, who have come to thee for succour
from the Daityas (demons)!" pray the defeated Gods. "They have seized
upon the three worlds, and appropriated the offerings which are our portion,
taking care not to transgress the Precepts of the Veda. Although we, as well as
they, are parts of thee.* . . . . engaged as they are in the paths prescribed
by the holy writ . . . . it is impossible for us to destroy them. Do thou,
whose wisdom is immeasurable (Ameyatman) instruct us in some device by which we
may be able to exterminate the enemies of the gods!"
"When
the mighty Vishnu heard their request, he emitted from his body an illusory
form (Mayamoha, "the deluder by illusion") which he gave to the Gods
and thus spake: "This Mayamoha shall wholly beguile the Daityas, so that
being led astray from the path of the Vedas, they may be put to death. . . . Go
then and fear not. Let this delusive vision precede you. It shall this day be
of great service unto you, O Gods!"
"After
this, the great Delusion, Mayamoha, descending to earth, beheld the Daityas
engaged in ascetic penances, and approaching them, in the semblance of a
Digambara (naked mendicant) with his head shaven . . . he thus addressed them,
in gentle accents: "Ho, lords of the Daitya race, wherefore is it that you
practise these acts of penances?" etc., etc. (Book II., xviii.).
Finally
the Daityas were seduced by the wily talk of Mahamoha, as Eve was seduced by
the advice of the Serpent. They became apostates to the Vedas. As Dr. Muir
translates the passage:--
"The
great Deceiver, practising illusion, next beguiled other Daityas, by means of
many other sorts of heresy. In a very short time, these Asuras (-Daityas)
deluded by the Deceiver (who was Vishnu) abandoned the entire system founded on
the ordinances of the triple Veda. Some reviled the Vedas, others the Gods,
others the ceremonial of sacrifice, and others the Brahmans. This, they
exclaimed, is a doctrine which will not bear discussion. The slaughter of
animals in sacrifice is not conducive to religious merit. To say that oblations
of butter consumed in the fire produce any future reward, is the assertion of a
child. . . . If it be a fact that a beast slain in sacrifice is exalted to
heaven, why does not the worshipper slaughter his own father? . . . .
Infallible utterances do not, great Asuras, fall from the skies; it is only
assertions founded on reasoning that are accepted by me and by other
intelligent persons like yourselves! Thus by numerous methods the Daityas were
unsettled by the great Deceiver (Reason). . . . When
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"There was a day when the Sons of God came before the Lord, and Satan came
with his brothers, also before the Lord" (Job ii., Abyss., Ethiopic text).
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[[Vol.
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they
had entered on the path of error, the gods mustered all their energies and
approached to battle. Then followed a combat between the gods and the Asuras;
and the latter, who had abandoned the right road, were smitten by the former.
In previous times they had been defended by the armour of righteousness which
they bore, but when that had been destroyed they, also, perished."
(Journal of the Royal Asiat. Society, Vol. XIX., p. 302.)
Whatever
may be thought of Hindus, no enemy of theirs can regard them as fools. A people
whose holy men and sages have left to the world the greatest and most sublime
philosophies that ever emanated from the minds of men, must have known the
difference between right and wrong. Even a savage can discern white from black,
good from bad, and deceit from sincerity and truthfulness. Those who had
narrated this event in the biography of their god, must have seen that in this
case it was that God who was the arch-Deceiver, and the Daityas, who
"never transgressed the precepts of the Vedas," who had the sunny
side in the transaction, and who were the true "Gods." Thence there
must have been, and there is a secret meaning hidden under this allegory. In no
class of Society, in no nation, are deceit and craft considered as Divine
virtues -- except perhaps in the clerical classes of theologians and modern
Jesuitism.
The
Vishnu Purana,* like all other works of this kind, has passed at a later period
into the hands of the temple-Brahmins, and the old MSS. have, no doubt, been
once more tampered with by sectarians. But there was a time when the Puranas
were esoteric works, and so they are still for the Initiates who can read them
with the key that is in their possession.
Whether
the Brahmin Initiates will ever give out the full meaning of these allegories,
is a question with which the writer is not concerned. The present object is to
show that, while honouring the creative Powers in their multiple forms, no
philosopher could, or ever has, accepted the allegory for the true Spirit,
except, perhaps, some philosophers belonging to the present "superior and
civilized" Christian races. For, as shown, Jehovah is not one whit the
superior of Vishnu on the plane of ethics. This is why the Occultists and even
some Kabalists, whether they regard or not those creative Forces as living and
conscious Entities -- and one does not see why they should not be so accepted
-- will never confuse the CAUSE with the effect, and accept the Spirit of the
Earth for Parabrahm or Ain-Soph. At all events they know well the true nature
of what was called Father-AEther by the Greeks, Jupiter-Titan, etc., etc. They
know that the soul of the ASTRAL LIGHT is divine, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Wilson's opinion that the "Vishnu Purana" is a production of our era,
and that in its present form it is not earlier than between the VIIIth and the
XVIIth (!!) century, is absurd beyond noticing.
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[[Vol.
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its
body (the light-waves on the lower planes) infernal. This Light is symbolized
by the "Magic Head" in the Zohar, the double Face on the double
Pyramid: the black pyramid rising against a pure white ground, with a white
head and face within its black triangle; the white pyramid, inverted -- the
reflection of the first in the dark waters, showing the black reflection of the
white face. . . . .
This
is the "Astral Light," or DEMON EST DEUS INVERSUS.
--------------
§
XII.
THE
THEOGONY OF THE CREATIVE GODS.
TO
thoroughly comprehend the idea underlying every ancient cosmology necessitates
the study, in a comparative analysis, of all the great religions of antiquity;
as it is only by this method that the root idea will be made plain. Exact
science -- could the latter soar so high, while tracing the operations of
nature to their ultimate and original sources -- would call this idea the
hierarchy of Forces. The original, transcendental and philosophical conception
was one. But as systems began to reflect with every age more and more the
idiosyncracies of nations; and as the latter, after separating, settled into
distinct groups, each evolving along its own national or tribal groove, the
main idea gradually became veiled with the overgrowth of human fancy. While in
some countries the FORCES, or rather the intelligent Powers of nature, received
divine honours they were hardly entitled to, in others -- as now in Europe and
the civilized lands -- the very thought of any such Force being endowed with
intelligence seems absurd, and is proclaimed unscientific. Therefore one finds
relief in such statements as are found in the Introduction to "Asgard and
the Gods: Tales and Traditions of our Northern Ancestors," by W. S. W.
Anson. The author remarks, on p. 3: "Although in Central Asia, or on the
banks of the Indus, in the land of the Pyramids, and in the Greek and Italian
peninsulas, and even in the North, whither Kelts, Teutons and Slavs wandered,
the religious conceptions of the people have taken different forms, yet their
common origin is still perceptible. We point out this connection between the
stories of the gods, and the deep thought contained in them, and their
importance, in order that the reader may see that it is not a magic world of
erratic fancy which opens out before him, but that . . . Life and nature formed
the basis of the existence and action of these divinities." And though it
is impossible for any Occultist or student of Eastern Esotericism to concur in
the strange idea that "the religious con-
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[[Vol.
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ceptions
of the most famous nations of antiquity are connected with the beginnings of
civilization amongst the Germanic races," he is yet glad to find such
truths expressed as that: "These fairy tales are not senseless stories
written for the amusement of the idle; they embody the profound religion of our
forefathers . . . "
Precisely
so. Not only their religion, but likewise their History. For a myth, in Greek
[[mythos]], means oral tradition, passed from mouth to mouth from one
generation to the other; and even in the modern etymology the term stands for a
fabulous statement conveying some important truth; a tale of some extraordinary
personage whose biography has become overgrown, owing to the veneration of
successive generations, with rich popular fancy, but which is no wholesale
fable. Like our ancestors, the primitive Aryans, we believe firmly in the
personality and intelligence of more than one phenomenon-producing Force in
nature.
As
time rolled on, the archaic teaching grew dimmer; and those nations more or
less lost sight of the highest and One principle of all things, and began to
transfer the abstract attributes of the "causeless cause" to the caused
effects -- become in their turn causative -- the creative Powers of the
Universe: the great nations, out of the fear of profaning the IDEA, the
smaller, because they either failed to grasp it or lacked the power of
philosophic conception needed to preserve it in all its immaculate purity. But
one and all, with the exception of the latest Aryans, now become Europeans and
Christians, show this veneration in their Cosmogonies. As Thomas Taylor,* the
most intuitional of all the translators of Greek Fragments, shows, no nation
has ever conceived the One principle as the immediate creator of the visible
Universe, for no sane man would credit a planner and architect with having
built the edifice he admires with his own hands. On the testimony of Damascius ([[Peri
archon]]) they referred to it as "the Unknown DARKNESS." The
Babylonians passed over this principle in silence: "To that god,"
says Porphyry, in [[Peri apoches empsuchon]], "who is above all things,
neither external speech ought to be addressed, nor yet that which is inward. .
. . ." Hesiod begins his theogony with: "Chaos of all things was the
first produced,"** thus allowing the inference that its cause or producer
must be passed over in reverential silence. Homer in his poems ascends no
higher than Night, whom he represents Zeus as reverencing. According to all the
ancient theologists, and to the doctrines of Pythagoras and Plato, Zeus, or the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Magazine" for April, 1797.
**
[[Etoi men protista chaos genet; geneto]] being considered in antiquity as
meaning "Was generated" and not simply was. (See "Taylor's
Introd. to the Parmenides of Plato," p. 260.
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[[Vol.
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immediate
artificer of the universe, is not the highest god; any more than Sir
Christopher Wren in his physical, human aspect is the MIND in him which
produced his great works of art. Homer, therefore, is not only silent with
respect to the first principle, but likewise with respect to those two
principles immediately posterior to the first, the AEther and Chaos of Orpheus
and Hesiod, and the bound and infinity of Pythagoras and Plato.* . . . .
Proclus says of this highest principle that it is. . . . "the Unity of
Unities, and beyond the first adyte. . . . . more ineffable than all silence,
and more occult than all Essence. . . . . concealed amidst the intelligible
gods." (Ibid.)
To
what was written by Thomas Taylor in 1797 -- namely, that the "Jews appear
to have ascended no higher. . . . than the immediate artificer of the
universe"; as "Moses introduces a darkness on the face of the deep,
without even insinuating that there was any cause of its existence,"** one
might add something more. Never have the Jews in their Bible (a purely
esoteric, symbolical work) degraded so profoundly their metaphorical deity as
have the Christians, by accepting Jehovah as their one living yet personal God.
This
first, or rather ONE, principle was called "the circle of Heaven,"
symbolized by the hierogram of a point within a circle or equilateral triangle,
the point being the LOGOS. Thus, in the Rig Veda, wherein Brahma is not even
named, Cosmogony is preluded with the Hiranyagharha, "the Golden
Egg," and Prajapati (Brahma later on), from whom emanate all the
hierarchies of "Creators." The Monad, or point, is the original and
is the unit from which follows the entire numeral system. This Point is the
First Cause, but THAT from which it emanates, or of which, rather, it is the
expression, the Logos, is passed over in silence. In its turn, the universal
symbol, the point within the circle, was not yet the Architect, but the cause
of that Architect; and the latter stood to it in precisely the same relation as
the point itself stood to the circumference of the Circle, which cannot be
defined, according to Hermes Trismegistus. Porphyry shows that the Monad and
the Duad of Pythagoras are identical with Plato's infinite and finite in
"Philebus" -- or what Plato calls the [[apeiron]] and [[peras]]. It
is the latter only (the mother) which is substantial, the former being the
"cause of all unity and measure of all things" (Vit. Pyth. p. 47);
the Duad (Mulaprakriti, the VEIL) being thus shown to be the mother of the
Logos and, at the same time, his daughter -- i.e., the object of his perception
-- the produced
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is the "bound" confused with the "Infinite," that Kapila
overwhelms with sarcasms in his disputations with the Brahman Yogis, who claim
in their mystical visions to see the "Highest One."
**
See T. Taylor's article in his Monthly Magazine quoted in the Platonist, edited
by T. M. Johnson, F.T.S., Osceola, Missouri. (Feb. Number of 1887.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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producer
and the secondary cause of it. With Pythagoras, the MONAD returns into silence
and Darkness as soon as it has evolved the triad, from which emanate the
remaining seven numbers of the 10 (ten) numbers which are at the base of the
manifested universe.
In
the Norse cosmogony it is again the same. "In the beginning was a great
abyss (Chaos), neither day nor night existed; the abyss was Ginnungagap, the
yawning gulf, without beginning, without end. ALL FATHER, the Uncreated, the
Unseen, dwelt in the depth of the 'Abyss' (SPACE) and willed, and what was
willed came into being." (See "Asgard and the Gods.") As in the
Hindu cosmogony, the evolution of the universe is divided into two acts: called
in India the Prakriti and Padma Creations. Before the warm rays pouring from
the "Home of Brightness" awake life in the Great Waters of Space, the
Elements of the first creation come into view, and from them is formed the
Giant Ymir (also Orgelmir) -- primordial matter differentiated from Chaos
(literally seething clay). Then comes the cow Audumla, the nourisher,* from
whom is born Buri (the Producer) who, by Bestla, the daughter of the
"Frost-Giants" (the sons of Ymir) had three sons, Odin, Willi and We,
or "Spirit," "Will," and "Holiness." (Compare the
Genesis of the Primordial Races, in this work.) This was when Darkness still
reigned throughout Space, when the Ases, the creative Powers (Dhyan Chohans)
were not yet evolved, and the Yggdrasil, the tree of the universe of Time and
of Life, had not yet grown, and there was, as yet, no Walhalla, or Hall of
Heroes. The Scandinavian legends of creation, of our earth and world, begin
with time and human life. All that precedes it is for them
"Darkness," wherein All-Father, the cause of all, dwells. As observed
by the editor of "Asgard and the Gods," though these legends have in
them the idea of that ALL-FATHER, the original cause of all, "he is
scarcely more than mentioned in the poems," not because, as he thinks,
before the preaching of the gospel, the idea "could not rise to distinct
conceptions of the Eternal," but on account of its great esoteric
character. Therefore, all the creative gods, or personal Deities, begin at the
secondary stage of Cosmic evolution. Zeus is born in, and out of Kronos --
Time. So is Brahma the production and emanation of Kala, "eternity and
time," Kala being one of the names of Vishnu. Hence we find Odin, the
father of the gods and of the Ases, as Brahma is the father of the gods and of
the Asuras, and hence also the androgyne character of all the chief creative
gods, from the second MONAD of the Greeks down to the Sephiroth Adam Kadmon, the
Brahma or Prajapati-Vach of the Vedas, and the androgyne of Plato, which is but
another version of the Indian symbol.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vach -- the "melodious cow, who milks sustenance and water," and yields
us "nourishment and sustenance" as described in Rig-Veda.
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[[Vol.
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The
best metaphysical definition of primeval theogony in the spirit of the Vedantins
may be found in the "Notes on the Bhagavat-Gita," by Mr. T. Subba
Row. (See "Theosophist" for February, 1887.) Parabrahmam, the unknown
and the incognisable, as the lecturer tells his audience:
".
. . . . Is not Ego, it is not non-ego, nor is it consciousness . . . . . it is
not even Atma" . . . . . "but though not itself an object of
knowledge, it is yet capable of supporting and giving rise to every kind of
object and every kind of existence which becomes an object of knowledge. It is
the one essence from which starts into existence a centre of energy . . . .
." which he calls Logos.
This
Logos is the Sabda Brahmam of the Hindus, which he will not even call Iswara
(the "lord" God), lest the term should create confusion in the
people's minds. But it is the Avalokiteswara of the Hindus, the Verbum of the
Christians in its real esoteric meaning, not in the theological disfigurement.
"It
is," he says, "the Gnatha or the Ego in the Kosmos, and every other
Ego . . . . . . is but its reflection and manifestation. . . . . . It exists in
a latent condition in the bosom of Parabrahmam at the time of Pralaya. . .
." (During Manvantara) "it has a consciousness and an individuality
of its own . . . . ." (It is a centre of energy, but) . . . . . such
centres of energy are almost innumerable in the bosom of Parabrahmam . . . .
." "It must not be supposed, that even the logos is the Creator, or
that it is but a single centre of energy . . . . . . their number is almost
infinite." "This Ego," he adds, "is the first that appears
in Kosmos, and is the end of all evolution. It is the abstract Ego" . . .
. . "this is the first manifestation (or aspect) of Parabrahmam."
"When once it starts into conscious being . . . . . . from its objective
standpoint, Parabrahmam appears to it as Mulaprakriti." "Please bear
this in mind," observes the lecturer, "for here is the root of the
whole difficulty about Purusha and Prakriti felt by the various writers on
Vedantic philosophy. This Mulaprakriti is material to it (the Logos), as any
material object is material to us. This Mulaprakriti is no more Parabrahmam
than the bundle of attributes of a pillar is the pillar itself; Parabrahmam is
an unconditioned and absolute reality, and Mulaprakriti is a sort of veil
thrown over it. Parabrahmam by itself cannot be seen as it is. It is seen by
the Logos with a veil thrown over it, and that veil is the mighty expanse of
Cosmic matter. . . ." "Parabrahmam, after having appeared on the one
hand as the Ego, and on the other as Mulaprakriti, acts as the one energy
through the Logos."
And
the lecturer explains what he means by this acting of something which is
nothing, though it is the ALL, by a fine simile. He compares the Logos to the
sun through which light and heat radiate, but whose energy, light and heat,
exist in some unknown condition in Space and are diffused in Space only as
visible light and heat, the sun being only the agent thereof. This is the first
triadic hypostasis. The quaternary is made up by the energizing light shed by
the Logos.
The
Hebrew Kabalists give it in a shape which esoterically is
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[[Vol.
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identical
with the Vedantic. AIN-SOPH, they taught, could not be comprehended, could not
be located, nor named, though the causeless cause of all. Hence its name --
AIN-SOPH -- is a term of negation, "the inscrutable, the incognizable, and
the unnameable." They made of it, therefore, a boundless circle, a sphere,
of which human intellect, with the utmost stretch, could only perceive the
vault. In the words of one who has unriddled much in the Kabalistical system,
in one of its meanings thoroughly, in its numerical and geometrical
esotericism:-- "Close your eyes, and from your own consciousness of
perception try and think outward to the extremest limits in every direction.
You will find that equal lines or rays of perception extend out evenly in all
directions, so that the utmost effort of perception will terminate in the vault
of a sphere. The limitation of this sphere will, of necessity, be a great
Circle, and the direct rays of thought in any and every direction must be right
line radii of the circle. This, then, must be, humanly speaking, the extremest
all-embracing conception of the Ain-Soph manifest, which formulates itself as a
geometrical figure, viz., of a circle, with its elements of curved
circumference and right line diameter divided into radii. Hence, a geometrical
shape is the first recognisable means of connection between the Ain-Soph and
the intelligence of man."*
This
great circle (which Eastern Esotericism reduces to the point within the
Boundless Circle) is the Avalokiteswara, the Logos or Verbum of which Mr. Subba
Row speaks. But this circle or manifested God is as unknown to us, except
through its manifested universe, as the ONE, though easier, or rather more
possible to our highest conceptions. This Logos which sleeps in the bosom of
Parabrahmam during Pralaya, as our "Ego is latent (in us) at the time of
sushupti, sleep"; which cannot cognize Parabrahmam otherwise than as
Mulaprakriti -- the latter being a cosmic veil which is "the mighty
expanse of cosmic matter" -- is thus only an organ in cosmic creation,
through which radiate the energy and wisdom of Parabrahmam, unknown to the
Logos, as it is to ourselves. Moreover, as the Logos is as unknown to us as
Parabrahmam is unknown in reality to the Logos, both Eastern Esotericism and
the Kabala -- in order to bring the Logos within the range of our conceptions
-- have resolved the abstract synthesis into concrete images; viz., into the
reflections or multiplied aspects of that Logos or Avalokiteswara, Brahma,
Ormazd, Osiris, Adam-Kadmon, call it by any of these names -- which aspects or
Manvantaric emanations are the Dhyan Chohans, the Elohim, the Devas, the
Amshaspends, &c., &c. Metaphysicians explain the root and germ of the
latter, according to Mr. Subba Row, as the first manifestation of Parabrahmam, "the
highest trinity that we
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
From the Masonic Review for June, 1886.
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[[Vol.
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are
capable of understanding," which is Mulaprakriti (the veil), the Logos,
and the conscious energy "of the latter," or its power and light*; or
-- "matter, force and the Ego, or the one root of self, of which every
other kind of self is but a manifestation or a reflection." It is then
only in this "light" (of consciousness) of mental and physical
perception, that practical Occultism can throw this into visibility by
geometrical figures; which, when closely studied, will yield not only a scientific
explanation of the real, objective, existence** of the "Seven sons of the
divine Sophia," which is this light of the Logos, but show by means of
other yet undiscovered keys that, with regard to Humanity, these "Seven
Sons" and their numberless emanations, centres of energy personified, are
an absolute necessity. Make away with them, and the mystery of Being and
Mankind will never be unriddled, not even closely approached.
It
is through this light that everything is created. This ROOT of mental SELF is
also the root of physical Self, for this light is the permutation, in our
manifested world, of Mulaprakriti, called Aditi in the Vedas. In its third
aspect it becomes Vach,*** the daughter and the mother of the Logos, as Isis is
the daughter and the mother of Osiris, who is Horus; and Mout, the daughter,
wife, and mother of Ammon, in the Egyptian Moon-glyph. In the Kabala, Sephira
is the same as Shekinah, and is, in another synthesis, the wife, daughter, and
mother of the "Heavenly man," Adam Kadmon, and is even identical with
him, just as Vach is identical with Brahma, and is called the female Logos. In
the Rig-Veda, Vach is "mystic speech," by whom Occult Knowledge and
Wisdom are communicated to man, and thus Vach is said to have "entered the
Rishis." She is "generated by the gods;" she is the divine Vach
-- the "Queen of gods"; and she is associated -- like Sephira with
the Sephiroth -- with the Prajapati in their work of creation. Moreover, she is
called "the mother of the Vedas," "since it is through her power
(as mystic speech) that Brahma revealed them, and also owing to her power that
he produced the universe" -- i.e., through speech, and words (synthesized
by the "WORD") and numbers.****
But
Vach being also spoken of as the daughter of Daksha -- "the god who lives
in all the Kalpas" -- her Mayavic character is thereby shown:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Called, in the Bhagavat-Gita, Daiviprakriti.
**
Objective -- in the world of Maya, of course; still as real as we are.
***
"In the course of cosmic manifestation, this Daiviprakriti, instead of
being the mother of the Logos, should, strictly speaking, be called his
daughter." ("Notes on the Bhagavat-Gita," p. 305, Theosophist.)
****
The wise men, like Stanley Jevons amongst the moderns, who invented the scheme
which makes the incomprehensible assume a tangible form, could only do so by
resorting to numbers and geometrical figures.
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[[Vol.
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during
the pralaya she disappears, absorbed in the one, all-devouring Ray.
But
there are two distinct aspects in universal Esotericism, Eastern and Western,
in all those personations of the female Power in nature, or nature -- the
noumenal and the phenomenal. One is its purely metaphysical aspect, as
described by the learned lecturer in his "Notes on the
Bhagavat-Gita;" the other terrestrial and physical, and at the same time
divine from the stand-point of practical human conception and Occultism. They
are all the symbols and personifications of Chaos, the "Great Deep"
or the Primordial Waters of Space, the impenetrable VEIL between the
INCOGNISABLE and the LOGOS of Creation. "Connecting himself through his
mind with Vach, Brahma (the Logos) created the primordial waters." In the
Kathaka Upanishad it is stated still more clearly: "Prajapati was this
Universe. Vach was a second to him. He associated with her . . . she produced
these creatures and again re-entered Prajapati."*
And
here we may incidentally point out one of the many unjust slurs thrown by the
pious and good missionaries in India on the religion of the land. This allegory
-- in the "Satapatha Brahmana" -- namely, that Brahma, as the father
of men, performed the work of procreation by incestuous intercourse with his
own daughter Vach, also called Sandhya (twilight), and Satarupa (the hundred
formed), is incessantly thrown into the teeth of the Brahmins, as condemning
their "detestable, false religion." Besides the fact, conveniently
forgotten by the Europeans, that the Patriarch Lot is shown guilty of the same
crime under the human form, whereas Brahma, or rather Prajapati, accomplished
the incest under the form of a buck with his daughter, who had that of a hind
(rohit), the esoteric reading of Genesis (ch. iii.) shows the same. Moreover,
there is certainly a cosmic, not a physiological meaning attached to the Indian
allegory, since Vach is a permutation of Aditi and Mulaprakriti (Chaos), and
Brahma a permutation of Narayana, the Spirit of God entering into, and
fructifying nature; therefore, there is nothing phallic in the conception at
all.
As
already stated, Aditi-Vach is the female Logos, or the "word,"
Verbum; and Sephira in the Kabala is the same. These feminine Logoi are all
correlations, in their noumenal aspect, of Light, and Sound, and Ether, showing
how well-informed were the ancients both in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This connects Vach and Sephira with the goddess Kwan-Yin, the "merciful
mother," the divine VOICE of the soul even in Exoteric Buddhism; and with
the female aspect of Kwan-Shai-yin, the Logos, the verbum of Creation, and at
the same time with the voice that speaks audibly to the Initiate, according to
Esoteric Buddhism. Bath Kol, the filia Vocis, the daughter of the divine voice
of the Hebrews, responding from the mercy seat within the veil of the temple is
-- a result.
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[[Vol.
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physical
science (as now known to the moderns), and as to the birth of that science in
the Spiritual and Astral spheres.
"Our
old writers said that Vach is of four kinds . . . . para, pasyanti, madhyama,
vaikhari (a statement found in the Rig-Veda and the Upanishads) . . . .
Vaikhari Vach is what we utter." It is sound, speech, that again which
becomes comprehensive and objective to one of our physical senses and may be
brought under the laws of perception. Hence: "Every kind of Vaikhari-Vach
exists in its Madhyama . . . . Pasyanti and ultimately in its Para form. . . .
. The reason why this Pranava* is called Vach is this, that these four
principles of the great Kosmos correspond to these four forms of Vach. . . . .
The whole Kosmos in its objective form is Vaikhari Vach; the light of the Logos
is the madhyama form; and the Logos itself the pasyanti form; while Parabrahmam
is the para (beyond the noumenon of all Noumena) aspect of that Vach."
(Notes on the Bhagavad-Gita).
Thus
Vach, Shekinah, or the "music of the spheres" of Pythagoras, are one,
if we take for our example instances in the three most (apparently) dissimilar
religious philosophies in the world -- the Hindu, the Greek and the Chaldean
Hebrew. These personations and allegories may be viewed under four (chief) and
three (lesser) aspects or seven in all, as in Esotericism. The para form is the
ever subjective and latent Light and Sound, which exist eternally in the bosom
of the INCOGNISABLE; when transferred into the ideation of the Logos, or its
latent light, it is called pasyanti, and when it becomes that light expressed,
it is madhyama.
Now
the Kabala gives the definition thus: "There are three kinds of light, and
that (fourth) which interpenetrates the others; (1) the clear and the
penetrating, the objective light, (2) the reflected light, and (3) the abstract
light. The ten Sephiroth, the three and the Seven, are called in the Kabala the
10 words, D-BRIM (Dabarim), the numbers and the Emanations of the heavenly
light, which is both Adam Kadmon and Sephira, or (Brahma) Prajapati-Vach.
Light, Sound, Number, are the three factors of creation in the Kabala.
Parabrahmam cannot be known except through the luminous Point (the LOGOS),
which knows not Parabrahmam but only Mulaprakriti. Similarly Adam Kadmon knew
only Shekinah, though he was the vehicle of Ain-Soph. And, as Adam Kadmon, he
is in the esoteric interpretation the total of the number ten, the Sephiroth
(himself a trinity, or the three attributes of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pranava, like Om, is a mystic term pronounced by the Yogis during meditation;
of the terms called, according to exoteric Commentators, Vyahritis, or "Om,
Bhur, Bhuva, Swar" (Om, earth, sky, heaven) -- Pranava is the most sacred,
perhaps. They are pronounced with breath suppressed. See Manu II. 76-81, and
Mitakshara commenting on the Yajnavahkya-Suriti, i. 23. But the esoteric
explanation goes a great deal further.
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[[Vol.
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incognisable
DEITY in One).* "When the Heavenly man (or LOGOS) first assumed the form
of the Crown** (Kether) and identified himself with Sephira, he caused seven
splendid lights to emanate from it (the Crown)," which made in their
totality ten; so the Brahma-Prajapati, once he became separated from, yet
identical with Vach, caused the seven Rishis, the seven Manus or Prajapatis to
issue from that crown. In Exotericism one will always find 10 and 7, of either
Sephiroth or Prajapati; in Esoteric rendering always 3 and 7, which yield also
10. Only when divided in the manifested sphere into 3 and 7, they form
[[diagram]], the androgyne, and [[diagram]], or the figure X manifested and
differentiated.
This
will help the student to understand why Pythagoras esteemed the Deity (the
Logos) to be the centre of unity and "Source of Harmony." We say this
Deity was the Logos, not the MONAD that dwelleth in Solitude and Silence,
because Pythagoras taught that UNITY being indivisible is no number. And this
is also why it was required of the candidate, who applied for admittance into
his school, that he should have already studied as a preliminary step, the
Sciences of Arithmetic, Astronomy, Geometry and Music, held as the four
divisions of Mathematics.*** Again, this explains why the Pythagoreans asserted
that the doctrine of Numbers -- the chief of all in Esotericism -- had been
revealed to man by the celestial deities; that the world had been called forth
out of Chaos by Sound or Harmony, and constructed according to the principles
of musical proportion; that the seven planets which rule the destiny of mortals
have a harmonious motion "and intervals corresponding to musical
diastemes, rendering various sounds, so perfectly consonant, that they produce
the sweetest melody, which is inaudible to us, only by reason of the greatness
of the sound, which our ears are incapable of receiving." (Censorinus.)
In
the Pythagorean Theogony the hierarchies of the heavenly Host and Gods were
numbered and expressed numerically. Pythagoras had studied Esoteric Science in
India; therefore we find his pupils saying "The monad (the manifested one)
is the principle of all things. From the Monad and the indeterminate duad
(Chaos), numbers; from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is this trinity that is meant by the "three steps of Vishnu";
which means: (Vishnu being considered as the Infinite in exotericism) -- that
from the Parabrahm issued Mulaprakriti, Purusha (the Logos), and Prakriti: the
four forms (with itself, the synthesis) of Vach. And in the Kabala -- Ain-Soph,
Shekinah, Adam Kadmon and Sephirah, the four -- or the three emanations being
distinct -- yet ONE.
**
Chaldean Book of Numbers. In the current Kabala the name Jehovah replaces Adam
Kadmon.
***
Justin Martyr tells us that, owing to his ignorance of these four sciences, he
was rejected by the Pythagoreans as a candidate for admission into their
school.
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[[Vol.
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numbers,
Points; from points, Lines; from lines, Superficies; from superficies, Solids;
from these, solid Bodies, whose elements are four -- Fire, Water, Air, Earth;
of all which transmuted (correlated), and totally changed, the world
consists." -- (Diogenes Laertius in Vit. Pythag.)
And
this may also, if it does not unriddle the mystery altogether, at any rate lift
a corner of the veil off those wondrous allegories that have been thrown upon
Vach, the most mysterious of all the Brahmanical goddesses, she who is termed
"the melodious cow who milked forth sustenance and water" (the Earth
with all her mystic powers); and again she "who yields us nourishment and
sustenance" (physical Earth). Isis is also mystic Nature and also Earth;
and her cow's horns identify her with Vach. The latter, after having been
recognised in her highest form as para, becomes at the lower or material end of
creation -- Vaikhari. Hence she is mystic, though physical, Nature, with all
her magic ways and properties.
Again,
as goddess of Speech and of Sound, and a permutation of Aditi -- she is Chaos,
in one sense. At any rate, she is the "Mother of the gods," and it is
from Brahma (Iswara, or the Logos) and Vach, as from Adam Kadmon and Sephira,
that the real manifested theogony has to start. Beyond, all is darkness and
abstract speculation. With the Dhyan Chohans, or the gods, the Seers, the
Prophets and the adepts in general are on firm ground. Whether as Aditi, or the
divine Sophia of the Greek Gnostics, she is the mother of the seven sons: the
"Angels of the Face," of the "Deep," or the "Great
Green One" of the "Book of the Dead." Says the Book of Dzyan
(Knowledge through meditation) --
"The
great mother lay with [[diagram]], and the |, and the [[diagram]], the second |
and the [[diagram]]* in her bosom, ready to bring them forth, the valiant sons of
the [[diagram]] [[diagram]] || (or 4,320,000, the Cycle) whose two elders are
the [[diagram]] and the (Point)."
At
the beginning of every cycle of 4,320,000, the Seven (or, as some nations had
it, eight) great gods, descended to establish the new order of things and give
the impetus to the new cycle. That eighth god was the unifying Circle or LOGOS,
separated and made distinct from its host, in exoteric dogma, just as the three
divine hypostases of the ancient Greeks are now considered in the Churches as
three distinct personae. "The MIGHTY ONES perform their great works, and
leave behind them everlasting monuments to commemorate their visit, every time
they penetrate within our mayavic veil (atmosphere)," says a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
31415, or [[pi]]. The synthesis, or the Host unified in the Logos and the Point
called in Roman Catholicism the "Angel of the Face," and in Hebrew
[[hebrew]] "who is (like unto, or the same) as God" -- the manifested
representation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 435 ANTIQUITY OF THE PYRAMIDS.
Commentary.*
Thus we are taught that the great Pyramids were built under their direct
supervision, "when Dhruva (the then Pole-star) was at his lowest
culmination, and the Krittika (Pleiades) looked over his head (were on the same
meridian but above) to watch the work of the giants." Thus, as the first
Pyramids were built at the beginning of a Sidereal year, under Dhruva (Alpha Polaris),
it must have been over 31,000 years (31,105) ago. Bunsen was right in admitting
for Egypt an antiquity of over 21,000 years, but this concession hardly
exhausts truth and fact in this question. "The stories told by Egyptian
priests and others of time-keeping in Egypt, are now beginning to look less
like lies in the sight of all who have escaped from biblical bondage,"
writes the author of "The Natural Genesis." "Inscriptions have
lately been found at Sakkarah, making mention of two Sothiac cycles . . .
registered at that time, now some 6,000 years ago. Thus when Herodotus was in
Egypt, the Egyptians had -- as now known -- observed at least five different
Sothiac cycles of 1,461 years. The priests informed the Greek inquirer that
time had been reckoned by them for so long that the sun had twice risen where
it then set, and twice set where it then arose. This . . . can only be realized
as a fact in nature by means of two cycles of Precession, or a period of 51,736
years," (vol. ii, p. 318. But see in our Book II., "CHRONOLOGY OF THE
BRAHMINS.")
Mor
Isaac (See Kircher's OEdipus, vol. ii., p. 425) shows the ancient Syrians
defining their world of the "Rulers" and "active gods" in
the same way as the Chaldeans. The lowest world was the SUBLUNARY -- our own --
watched by the "Angels" of the first or lower order; the one that
came next in rank, was Mercury, ruled by the "ARCHANGELS"; then came
Venus, whose gods were the PRINCIPALITIES; the fourth was that of the SUN, the
domain and region of the highest and mightiest gods of our system, the solar
gods of all nations; the fifth was Mars, ruled by the "VIRTUES"; the
sixth -- that of Bel or Jupiter -- was governed by the DOMINIONS; the seventh
-- the world of Saturn -- by the THRONES. These are the worlds of form. Above
come the four higher ones, making seven again, since the three highest are
"unmentionable and unpronounceable." The eighth, composed of 1,122
stars, is the domain of the Cherubs; the ninth, belonging to the walking and
numberless stars on account of their distance, has the seraphs; as to the tenth
-- Kircher, quoting Mor Isaac, says that it is composed "of invisible
stars that could be taken, they said, for clouds -- so massed are they in the
zone that we call Via Straminis, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Appearing at the beginning of Cycles, as also of every sidereal year (of 25,868
years) therefore the Kabeiri or Kabarim received their name in Chaldea, as it
means the measures of Heaven from Kob -- measure of, and Urim -- heavens.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 436 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Milky
Way"; and he hastens to explain that "these are the stars of Lucifer,
engulfed with him in his terrible shipwreck." That which comes after and
beyond the tenth world (our Quaternary, or the Arupa world), the Syrians could
not tell. "All they knew was that it is there that begins the vast and
incomprehensible ocean of the infinite, the abode of the true divinity without
boundary or end."
Champollion
shows the same belief among the Egyptians. Hermes having spoken of the
Father-Mother and Son, whose spirit (collectively the DIVINE FIAT) shapes the
Universe, says:-- "Seven Agents (mediums) were also formed, to contain the
material (or manifested) worlds, within their respective circles and the action
of these agents was named DESTINY." He further enumerates seven and ten
and twelve orders, which would take too long to detail here.
As
the "Rig Vidhana" together with the "Brahmanda Purana" and
all such works, whether describing the magic efficacy of the Rig-Vedic Mantras
or the future Kalpas, are declared by Dr. Weber and others to be modern
compilations "belonging probably only to the time of the Puranas," it
is useless to refer the reader to their mystic explanations; and one may as
well quote simply from the archaic books utterly unknown to the Orientalists.
These works explain that which so puzzles the scholars, namely that the
Saptarshi, the "mind-born sons" of Brahma, are referred to in the
Satapatha Brahmana under one set of names; in the Mahabharata under another
set; and that the Vayu Purana makes even nine instead of seven Rishis, by
adding the names of Bhrigu and Daksha to the list. But the same occurs in every
exoteric Scripture. The secret doctrine gives a long genealogy of Rishis, but
separates them into many classes. Like the Gods of the Egyptians, who were
divided into seven, and even twelve, classes, so are the Indian Rishis in their
Hierarchies. The first three groups are the Divine, the Cosmical and the
Sub-lunary. Then come the Solar Gods of our system, the Planetary, the
Sub-Mundane, and the purely human -- the heroes and the Manoushi.
At
present, however, we are only concerned with the pre-cosmic, divine gods, the
Prajapati or the "Seven Builders." This group is found unmistakably
in every Cosmogony. Owing to the loss of Egyptian archaic documents -- since,
according to M. Maspero, "the materials and historical data on hand to
study the history of the religious evolution in Egypt are neither complete nor
very often intelligible" -- in order to have the statements brought
forward from the Secret Doctrine corroborated partially and indirectly, the
ancient hymns and inscriptions on the tombs must be appealed to. One such, at
any rate, shows that Osiris was, like Brahma-Prajapati, Adam Kadmon, Ormazd,
and so many other Logoi, the chief and synthesis of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 437 COSMIC GODS.
group
of "Creators" or Builders. Before Osiris became the "One"
and the highest god of Egypt he was worshipped at Abydos as the head or leader
of the Heavenly Host of the Builders belonging to the higher of the three
orders. The hymn engraved on the votive stela of a tomb from Abydos (3rd
register) addresses Osiris thus: "Salutations to thee, Osiris, elder son
of Sib; thou the greatest over the six gods issued from the goddess Noo
(primordial Water), thou the great favourite of thy father Ra; father of
fathers, King of Duration, master in the eternity . . . who, as soon as these
issued from thy mother's bosom, gathered all the crowns and attached the Uraeus
(serpent or naja)* on thy head; multiform god, whose name is unknown and who
has many names in towns and provinces. . ." Coming out from the primordial
water crowned with the uraeus, which is the serpent emblem of Cosmic fire, and
himself the seventh over the six primary gods issued from Father-Mother, Nou
and Nout (the sky), who can Osiris be, but the chief Prajapati, the chief
Sephiroth, the chief Amshaspend-Ormazd! That this latter solar and cosmic god
stood, in the beginning of religious evolution, in the same position as the
archangel "whose name was secret," is certain. This Archangel was the
representative on earth of the Hidden Jewish God, Michael, in short: it is his
"Face" that is said to have gone before the Jews like a "Pillar
of Fire." Burnouf says, "The seven Amshaspends, who are most assuredly
our archangels, designate also the personifications of the divine
Virtues." (Comment on the Yacna, p. 174.) And these archangels, therefore,
are as "certainly" the Saptarishi of the Hindus, though it is next to
impossible to class each with its pagan prototype and parallel, since, as in
the case of Osiris, they have all so "many names in towns and
provinces." Some of the most important, however, will be shown in their
order.
One
thing is thus undeniably proven. The more one studies their Hierarchies and
finds out their identity, the more proofs one acquires that there is not one of
the past and present personal gods, known to us from the earliest days of
History, that does not belong to the third stage of Cosmic manifestation. In
every religion we find the concealed deity forming the ground work; then the
ray therefrom, that falls into primordial Cosmic matter (first manifestation);
then the androgyne result, the dual Male and Female abstract Force, personified
(second stage); this separates itself finally, in the third, into seven Forces,
called the creative Powers by all the ancient Religions, and the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This Egyptian word Naja reminds one a good deal of the Indian Naga, the
Serpent-God. Brahma and Siva and Vishnu are all crowned with, and connected
with Nagas -- a sign of their cyclic and cosmic character.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 438 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"Virtues
of God" by the Christians. The later explanation and metaphysical abstract
qualifications have never prevented the Roman and Greek Churches from
worshipping these "Virtues" under the personifications and distinct
names of the seven Archangels. In the Book of Druschim (p. 59, 1st Treatise) in
the Talmud, a distinction between these groups is given which is the correct
Kabalistical explanation. It says:
"There
are three groups (or orders) of Sephiroth. 1st. The Sephiroth called "the
divine attributes" (abstract). 2nd. The physical or sidereal Sephiroth
(personal) -- one group of seven, the other of ten. 3rd. The metaphysical
Sephiroth, or periphrasis of Jehovah, who are the first three Sephiroth
(Kether, Chochma and Binah), the rest of the seven being the (personal) seven
spirits of the Presence" (also of the planets).
The
same division has to be applied to the primary, secondary and tertiary
evolution of gods in every theogony, if one wishes to translate the meaning
esoterically. We must not confuse the purely metaphysical personifications of
the abstract attributes of Deity, with their reflection -- the sidereal gods.
This reflection, however, is in reality the objective expression of the
abstraction: living Entities and the models formed on that divine prototype.
Moreover, the three metaphysical Sephiroth or "the periphrasis of
Jehovah" are not Jehovah; it is the latter himself with the additional
titles of Adonai, Elohim, Sabbaoth, and the numerous names lavished on him, who
is the periphrasis of the Shaddai, [[hebrew]], the Omnipotent. The name is a
circumlocution, indeed, a too abundant figure of Jewish rhetoric, and has
always been denounced by the Occultists. To the Jewish Kabalists, and even the
Christian Alchemists and Rosicrucians, Jehovah was a convenient screen, unified
by the folding of its many flaps, and adopted as a substitute: one name of an
individual Sephiroth being as good as another name, for those who had the
secret. The Tetragrammaton, the Ineffable, the sidereal "Sum Total,"
was invented for no other purpose than to mislead the profane and to symbolize
life and generation.* The real secret and unpronounceable name -- "the
word that is no word" -- has to be sought in the seven names of the first
seven emanations, or the "Sons of the Fire,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says the translator of Avicebron's "Qabbalah" (Mr. Isaac Myer, LL.B.,
of Philadelphia) of this "Sum Total": "The letter of Kether is
[[hebrew]] (Yod), of Binah [[hebrew]](Heh), together YaH, the feminine Name;
the third letter, that of Hokhmah, is [[hebrew]] (Vau), making together,
[[hebrew]] YHV of [[hebrew]] YHVH, the Tetragrammaton, and really the complete
symbols of its efficaciousness. The last [[hebrew]](Heh) of this Ineffable Name
being always applied to the Six Lower and the last, together the Seven
remaining Sephiroth." . . . Thus the Tetragrammaton is holy only in its
abstract synthesis. As a quaternary containing the lower Seven Sephiroth, it is
phallic.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 439 INCREDIBLE, BUT TRUE.
in
the secret Scriptures of all the great nations, and even in the Zohar, the
Kabalistic lore of that smallest of all, the Jewish. This word, composed of
seven letters in each tongue, is found embodied in the architectural remains of
every grand building in the world; from the Cyclopean remains on Easter Island
(part of a continent buried under the seas nearer four million years ago* than
20,000) down to the earliest Egyptian pyramids.
We
shall have to enter more fully upon this subject, and bring practical
illustrations to prove the statements made in the text.
For
the present it is sufficient to show, by a few instances, the truth of what was
asserted at the beginning of this Monograph, namely, that no Cosmogony, the
world over, with the sole exception of the Christian, has ever attributed to
the One Highest cause, the UNIVERSAL Deific Principle, the immediate creation
of our Earth, man, or anything connected with these. This statement holds as
good for the Hebrew or Chaldean Kabala as it does for Genesis, had the latter
been ever thoroughly understood, and -- what is still more important --
correctly translated.** Everywhere there is either a LOGOS -- a "Light
shining
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The statement will, of course, be found preposterous and absurd, and simply
laughed at. But if one believes in the final submersion of Atlantis 850,000
years ago, as taught in "Esoteric Buddhism" (the gradual first
sinking having begun during the Eocene age), one has to accept the statement
for the so-called Lemuria, the continent of the Third Root Race, first nearly
destroyed by combustion, and then submerged. This is what the Commentary says:
"The first earth having been purified by the forty-nine fires, her people,
born of Fire and Water, could not die . . . etc.; the Second Earth (with its
race) disappeared as vapour vanishes in the air . . . the Third Earth had
everything consumed on it after the separation, and went down into the lower
Deep (the Ocean). This was twice eighty-two cyclic years ago." Now a
cyclic year is what we call a sidereal year, and is founded on the precession
of the equinoxes, or 25,868 years each, and this is equal, therefore, in all to
4,242,352 years. More details will be found in the text of Book II. Meanwhile,
this doctrine is embodied in the "Kings of Edom."
**
The same reserve is found in the Talmud and in every national system of
religion whether monotheistic or exoterically polytheistical. From the superb
religious poem by the Kabalist Rabbi Solomon Ben Gabirol in "the Kether
Malchuth," we select a few definitions given in the prayers of Kippur. . .
. "Thou art one, the beginning of all numbers, and the foundation of all
edifices; Thou art One, and in the secret of Thy unity the wisest of men are
lost, because they know it not. Thou art one, and Thy Unity is never
diminished, never extended, and cannot be changed. Thou art one, but not as an
element of numeration; for Thy Unity admits not of multiplication, change or
form. Thou art existent; but the understanding and vision of mortals cannot
attain to thy existence, nor determine for thee the Where, the How, and the
Why. Thou art Existent, but in thyself alone, there being none other that can
exist with thee. Thou art Existent, before all time and without Place. Thou art
Existent, and thy existence is so profound and secret that none can penetrate
and discover thy secrecy. Thou art Living, but within no time that can be fixed
or known; Thou art Living, but not by a spirit or a soul, for Thou art thyself,
THE SOUL OF ALL SOULS," etc., etc. There is [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 440 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in
DARKNESS," truly -- or the Architect of the Worlds is esoterically a
plural number. The Latin Church, paradoxical as ever, while applying the
epithet of Creator to Jehovah alone, adopts a whole Kyriel of names for the
working FORCES of the latter, those names betraying the secret. For if the said
Forces had nought to do with "Creation" so-called, why call them
Elohim (Alhim) in plural; "divine workmen" and Energies
([['Energeia]]), incandescent celestial stones (lapides igniti coelorum), and
especially, "supporters of the World" ([[Kosmokratores]]), governors
or RULERS of the World (rectores mundi), the "Wheels" of the World
(Rotae), Ophanim, Flames and POWERS, "Sons of God" (B'ne Alhim),
"Vigilant COUNSELLORS," etc., etc.
It
was often premised (and as unjustly as usual) that China, nearly as old a
country as India, had no cosmogony. "It was unknown to Confucius, and the
Buddhists extended their Cosmogony without introducing a personal God,"*
it is complained. The Yi-King, "the very essence of ancient thought and
the combined work of the most venerated sages, fails to show a distinct
cosmogony." Nevertheless, there is one, and a very distinct one. Only as
Confucius did not admit of a future life** and the Chinese Buddhists reject the
idea of One Creator, accepting one cause and its numberless effects, they are
misunderstood by the believers in a personal God. The "great Extreme"
as the commencement "of changes" (transmigrations) is the shortest
and perhaps the most suggestive of all Cosmogonies, for those who, like the
Confucianists, love virtue for its own sake, and try to do good unselfishly
without perpetually looking to reward and profit. The "great Extreme"
of Confucius produces "two figures." These "two" produce in
their turn "the four images"; these again "the eight
symbols." It is complained that though the Confucianists see in them
"Heaven, Earth and man in miniature," . . . we can see in them
anything we like. No doubt, and so it is with regard to many symbols,
especially in those of the latest religions. But they who know something of
Occult numerals, see in these "figures" the symbol, however rude, of
a harmonious progressive Evolution of Kosmos and its beings, both the Heavenly
and the Terrestrial. And any one who has studied the numerical evolution in the
primeval cosmogony of Pythagoras (a contemporary of Confucius) can never fail
to find in his Triad, Tetractis and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] a distance between this Kabalistical Deity and
the Biblical Jehovah, the spiteful and revengeful God of Abram, Isaac, and
Jacob, who tempted the former and wrestled with the last. No Vedantin but would
repudiate such a Parabrahm.
*
Rev. Joseph Edkins "On Cosmogony," p. 320. And very wisely they have
acted.
**
If he rejected it, it was on the ground of what he calls the changes -- in
other words, rebirths -- of man, and constant transformations. He denied
immortality to the personality of man -- as we do -- not to MAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 441 THE SAME IDEA IN CONFUCIANISM.
Decade
emerging from the ONE and solitary Monad, the same idea. Confucius is laughed at
by his Christian biographer for "talking of divination" before and
after this passage, and is represented as saying: "The eight symbols
determine good and ill fortune, and these lead to great deeds. There are no
imitable images greater than heaven and earth. There are no changes greater
than the four seasons (meaning North, South, East and West, et seq.). There are
no suspended images brighter than the sun and moon. In preparing things for
use, there is none greater than the sage. In determining good and ill-luck
there is nothing greater than the divining straws and the tortoise."*
Therefore,
the "divining straws" and the "tortoise," the
"symbolic sets of lines," and the great sage who looks at them as
they become one and two, and two become four, and four become eight, and the
other sets "three and six," are laughed to scorn, only because his
wise symbols are misunderstood.
So
the author and his colleagues will scoff no doubt at the Stanzas given in our
text, for they represent precisely the same idea. The old archaic map of
Cosmogony is full of lines in the Confucian style, of concentric circles and
dots. Yet all these represent the most abstract and philosophical conceptions
of the Cosmogony of our Universe. At all events it may answer, perhaps, better
to the requirements and the scientific purposes of our age, than the
cosmogonical essays of St. Augustine and the "Venerable Bede," though
these were published over a millennium later than the Confucian.
Confucius,
one of the greatest sages of the ancient world, believed in ancient magic, and
practised it himself "if we take for granted the statements of
Kin-yu" . . . . and "he praised it to the skies in Yi-kin," we
are told by his reverend critic. Nevertheless, even in his age -- i.e., 600
B.C., Confucius and his school taught the sphericity of the Earth and even the
heliocentric system; while, at about thrice 600 years after the Chinese
philosopher, the Popes of Rome threatened and even burnt "heretics"
for asserting the same. He is laughed at for speaking of the "Sacred
Tortoise." No unprejudiced person can see any great difference between a
tortoise and a lamb as candidates for sacredness, as both are symbols and no
more. The Ox, the Eagle,** the Lion, and occasionally
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
He may be laughed at by the Protestants; but the Roman Catholics have no right
to mock him, without becoming guilty of blasphemy and sacrilege. For it is over
200 years since Confucius was canonized as a Saint in China by the Roman
Catholics, who have thereby obtained many converts among the ignorant
Confucianists.
**
The animals regarded as sacred in the Bible are not few: the goat for one, the
Azaz-el, or God of Victory. As Aben Ezra says: "If thou art capable of
comprehending the mystery of Azazel, thou wilt learn the mystery of His (God's)
name, for it has similar associates in Scriptures. I will tell thee by allusion
one portion of the mystery; [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 442 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Dove, are "the sacred animals" of the Western Bible, the first three
being found grouped round the Evangelists; and the fourth (the human face) is a
Seraph, i.e., a fiery serpent, the Gnostic Agathodaemon probably.* As
explained, the "sacred animals" and the Flames or "Sparks"
within the "Holy Four" refer to the prototypes of all that is found
in the Universe in the Divine Thought, in the ROOT, which is the perfect cube,
or the foundation of the Kosmos collectively and individually. They have all an
occult reference to primordial Cosmic forms and its first concretions, work,
and evolution.
In
the earliest Hindu exoteric cosmogonies, it is not even the Demiurge who
creates. For it is said in one of the Puranas that: "The great Architect
of the World gives the first impulse to the rotatory motion of our planetary
system by stepping in turn over each planet and body." It is this action
"that causes each sphere to turn around itself, and all around the
Sun." After which action, "it is the Brahmandica, the Solar and Lunar
Pitris (the Dhyani-Chohans)" who take charge of their respective spheres
(earths and planets), to the end of the Kalpa." The Creators are the
Rishis; most of whom are credited with the authorship of the mantras or Hymns
of the Rig Veda. They are sometimes seven, sometimes ten, when they become
prajapati, the "Lord of Beings"; then they rebecome the seven and the
fourteen Manus, as the representatives of the seven and fourteen cycles of
Existence ("Days of Brahma"); thus answering to the seven AEons, when
at the end of the first stage of Evolution they are transformed into the seven
stellar Rishis, the Saptarishis; while their human doubles appear as heroes,
Kings and Sages on this earth.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] when thou shalt have thirty three years of age
thou wilt comprehend me." So with the mystery of the tortoise. Rejoicing
over the poetry of Biblical metaphors, associating with the name of Jehovah,
"incandescent stones," "sacred animals," etc., and quoting
from the Bible de Vence (Vol. XIX. p. 318) a French pious writer says:
"Indeed all of them are Elohim like their God; for, these Angels assume,
through a holy usurpation, the very divine name of Jehovah each time they
represent him." (Pneumatologie, Vol. II., p. 294). No one ever doubted
that the NAME must have been assumed, when under the guise of the Infinite, One
Incognizable, the Malachim (messengers) descended to eat and drink with men.
But if the Elohim (and even lower Beings), assuming the god-name, were and are
still worshipped, why should the same Elohim be called devils, when appearing
under the names of other Gods?
*
The choice is curious, and shows how paradoxical were the first Christians in
their selections. For why should they have chosen these symbols of Egyptian
paganism, when the eagle is never mentioned in the New Testament save once,
when Jesus refers to it as a carrion eater? (Matt. xxiv. 28); and in the Old
Testament it is called unclean; that the Lion is made a point of comparison
with Satan, both roaring for men to devour; and the oxen are driven out of the
Temple. On the other hand the Serpent, brought as an exemplar of wisdom to
follow, is now regarded as the symbol of the Devil. The esoteric pearl of
Christ's religion degraded into Christian theology, may indeed be said to have
chosen a strange and unfitting shell to be born in and evolved from.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 443 THE MYSTERY OF BLACKNESS.
The
Esoteric doctrine of the East having thus furnished and struck the key-note -- which
is as scientific as it is philosophical and poetical, as may be seen, under its
allegorical garb -- every nation has followed its lead. It is from the exoteric
religions that we have to dig out the root-idea before we turn to esoteric
truths, lest the latter should be rejected. Furthermore, every symbol -- in
every national religion -- may be read esoterically, and the proof furnished
for its being correctly read by transliterating it into its corresponding
numerals and geometrical forms -- by the extraordinary agreement of all --
however much the glyphs and symbols may vary among themselves. For in the
origin those symbols were all identical. Take, for instance, the opening
sentences in various cosmogonies: in every case it is either a circle, an egg,
or a head. DARKNESS is always associated with this first symbol and surrounds
it, -- as shown in the Hindu, the Egyptian, the Chaldeo-Hebrew and even the
Scandinavian systems -- hence black ravens, black doves, black waters and even
black flames; the seventh tongue of Agni, the fire-god being called
"Kali," "the black," as it was a black flickering flame.
Two black doves flew from Egypt and settling on the oaks of Dodona, gave their
names to the Grecian gods. Noah lets out a black raven after the deluge, which
is a symbol for the Cosmic pralaya, after which began the real creation or
evolution of our earth and humanity. Odin's black ravens fluttered around the
Goddess Saga and "whispered to her of the past and of the future."
What is the real meaning of all those black birds? They are all connected with
the primeval wisdom, which flows out of the pre-cosmic Source of all,
symbolised by the Head, the Circle, the Egg; and they all have an identical
meaning and relate to the primordial Archetypal man (Adam Kadmon) the creative
origin of all things, which is composed of the Host of Cosmic Powers -- the
Creative Dhyan-Chohans, beyond which all is darkness.
Let
us inquire of the wisdom of the Kabala -- even veiled and distorted as it now
is, -- to explain in its numerical language an approximate meaning, at least of
the word "raven." This is its number value as given in the
"Source of Measures."
"The
term Raven is used but once, and taken as eth-h'orebv [[diagram]], = 678, or
113 x 6; while the Dove is mentioned five times. Its value is 71, and 71 x 5 =
355. Six diameters, or the raven, crossing, would divide the circumference of a
circle of 355 into 12 parts or compartments; and 355 subdivided for each unit
by 6, would equal 213-0, or the head ("beginning") in the first verse
of Genesis. This divided or subdivided, after the same fashion, by 2, or the
355 by 12, would give 213-2, or the word B'rash, [[diagram]], or the first word
of Genesis, with its prepositional prefix, signifying the same concreted
general form
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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astronomically,
with the one here intended." Now the secret reading of the first verse of
Genesis being: "In Rash (B'rash) or head, developed gods, the Heavens and
the Earth" -- it is easy to comprehend the esoteric meaning of the raven,
once that the like meaning of the Flood (or Noah's Deluge) is ascertained.
Whatever the many other meanings of this emblematical allegory may be, its chief
meaning is that of a new cycle and a new Round (our Fourth Round.)* The
"Raven," or the Eth-H'Orebv, yields the same numerical value as the
"Head," and returned not to the ark, while the dove returned,
carrying the olive-branch, when Noah, the new man of the new Race (whose
prototype is Vaivasvata Manu), prepared to leave the ark, the womb (or Argha)
of terrestrial nature, is the symbol of the purely spiritual, sexless and
androgyne man of the first three Races, who vanished from earth for ever.
Numerically Jehovah, Adam, Noah, are one in the Kabala: at best, then, it is
Deity descending on to Ararat (later on Sinai), to incarnate in man his image,
through the natural process, henceforth: the mother's womb, whose symbols are
the ark, the mount (Sinai), etc., in Genesis. The Jewish allegory is at once
astronomical, and purely physiological rather than anthropomorphic.
And
here lies the abyss between the two systems (Aryan and Semitic), though built
on the same foundation. As shown by an expounder of the Kabala, "the basic
idea underlying the philosophy of the Hebrews was that God contained all things
within himself and that man was his image; man, including woman (as
Androgynes);" and that "geometry and numbers (and measures applicable
to astronomy) are contained in the terms man and woman; and the apparent
incongruity of such a mode was eliminated by showing the connection of man and
woman with a particular system of numbers and measures and geometry, by the
parturient time-periods, which furnished the connecting link between the terms
and the facts shown, and perfected the mode used." It is argued that, the
primal cause being absolutely incognizable, "the symbol of its first
comprehensible manifestation was the conception of a circle with its diameter
line, so as at once to carry the idea of geometry, phallicism, and
astronomy;" and this was finally applied to the "signification of
simply human generative organs."** Hence the whole cycle of events
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Bryant is right in saying "Druid Bardesin says of Noah that when he came
out of the ark (the birth of a new cycle), after a stay therein of a year and a
day, that 364 + 1 = 365 days, he was congratulated by Neptune upon his birth
from the waters of the Flood, who wished him a happy New Year." The
"Year," or cycle, esoterically, was the new race of men born from
woman after the separation of the sexes, which is the secondary meaning of the
allegory: its primary meaning being the beginning of the Fourth Round, or the
new Creation.
**
Unpubl. MSS. (But see "Source of Measures.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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from
Adam and the Patriarchs down to Noah is made to apply to phallic and
astronomical uses, the one regulating the other, as the lunar periods, for
instance. Hence, too, their genesis begins after their coming out of the Ark,
and the close of the flood -- at the Fourth Race. With the Aryan people it is
different.
Eastern
Esotericism has never degraded the One Infinite Deity, the container of all
things, to such uses; and this is shown by the absence of Brahma from the Rig
Veda and the modest positions occupied therein by Rudra and Vishnu, who became
the powerful and great Gods, the "Infinites" of the exoteric creeds,
ages later. But even they, "Creators" as the three may be, are not
the direct creators and "forefathers of men." The latter are shown
occupying a still lower scale, and are called Prajapatis, the Pitris (our lunar
ancestors), etc., etc. -- never the "One Infinite God." Esoteric
philosophy shows only physical man as created in the image of the Deity: but
the latter is but "the minor gods." It is the HIGHER-SELF, the real
EGO who alone is divine and GOD.
--------------
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[[Vol.
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§
XIII.
THE
SEVEN CREATIONS.
"THERE
was neither day nor night, nor sky nor earth, nor darkness nor light, nor any other
thing save only ONE, unapprehensible by intellect, or THAT which is Brahma and
Pumis (Spirit) and Pradhana (crude matter)" (Veda: "Vishnu Purana
Commentary"); or literally: "One Pradhanika Brahma Spirit: THAT
was." The "Pradhanika Brahma Spirit" is Mulaprakriti and
Parabrahmam.
In
Vishnu Purana, Parasara says to Maitreya, his pupil:-- "I have thus
explained to you, excellent Muni, six creations. . . . the creation of the
Arvaksrotas beings was the seventh, and was that of man." Then he proceeds
to speak of two additional and very mysterious creations, variously interpreted
by the commentators.
Origen,
commenting upon the books written by Celsus, his opponent -- books which were
all destroyed by the prudent Church Fathers -- evidently answers the objections
of his contradictor and reveals his system at the same time. This was evidently
septenary. But his theogony, the genesis of the stars or planets, that of sound
and colour, all found as an answer satire, and no better. Celsus, you see,
"desiring to exhibit his learning," speaks of a ladder of creation
with seven gates, and on the top
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
it the eighth -- ever closed. The mysteries of the Persian Mithras are
explained and "musical reasons, moreover, are added." . . . . And to
these again he strives "to add a second explanation connected also with
musical considerations,"* -- i.e., with the seven notes of the scale, the
Seven Spirits of the Stars, &c., &c.
Valentinus
expatiates upon the power of the great Seven, who were called to bring forth
this universe after Ar(r)hetos, or the Ineffable, whose name is composed of
seven letters, had represented the first hebdomad. This name (Ar(r)hetos) is
one to indicate the Sevenfold nature of the One (the logos). "The goddess
Rhea," says Proclus in Timaeus (p. 121), "is a Monad, Duad, and
Heptad," comprehending in herself all the Titanidae, "who are
seven."
The
Seven Creations are found in almost every Purana. They are all preceded by what
Wilson translates -- "the indiscrete Principle," absolute Spirit
independent of any relation with objects of sense. They are -- (1) Mahattattwa,
the Universal Soul, Infinite Intellect, or Divine Mind; (2) Bhuta or Bhutasarga,
elemental creation, the first differentiation of Universal indiscrete
Substance; (3) Indriya or Aindriyaka, organic evolution. "These three were
the Prakrita creations, the developments of indiscrete nature preceded by
indiscrete principle"; (4) Mukhya, the fundamental creation of perceptible
things, was that of inanimate bodies**; (5) Tairyagyonya, or Tiryaksrotas, was
that of animals; (6) Urdhwasrotas, or that of divinities*** (?); (7)
Arvaksrotas, was that of man. (See Vishnu Purana.)
This
is the order given in the exoteric texts. According to esoteric teaching there
are seven primary, and seven secondary "creations;" the former being
the Forces self-evolving from the one causeless FORCE; the latter, showing the
manifested Universe emanating from the already differentiated divine elements.
Esoterically,
as well as exoterically, all the above enumerated Creations stand for the (7)
periods of Evolution, whether after an "Age" or a "Day" of
Brahma. This is the teaching par excellence of Occult Philosophy, which,
however, never uses the term "creation," nor even that of evolution,
"with regard to primary 'Creation':" but calls all such forces
"the aspects of the Causeless Force." In the Bible
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Origen contra Celsum, b. vi., chap. xxii.
**
The text says: "And the fourth creation is here the primary, for things
immovable are emphatically known as primary." (See Fitzedward Hall's
Corrections.)
***
How can "divinities" have been created after the animals? The
esoteric meaning of the expression "animals" is the germs of all
animal life including man. Man is called a sacrificial animal, and an animal
that is the only one among animal creation who sacrifices to the gods. Moreover,
by the "sacred animals," the 12 signs of the zodiac are often meant
in the sacred texts, as already stated.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
seven periods are dwarfed into the six days of creation and the seventh day of
rest, and the Westerns adhere to the letter. In the Hindu philosophy, when the
active Creator has produced the world of gods, the germs of all the
undifferentiated elements and the rudiments of future senses (the world of
noumena, in short), the Universe remains unaltered for a "Day of
Brahma," a period of 4,320,000,000 years. This is the seventh passive
period or the "Sabbath day" of Eastern philosophy, that follows six
periods of active evolution. In the Satapatha Brahmana "Brahma"
(neuter), the absolute Cause of all Causes, radiates the gods. Having radiated
the gods (through its inherent nature) the work is interrupted. In the 1st Book
of Manu it is said, "At the expiration of each night (pralaya) Brahma,
having been asleep, awakes, and, through the sole energy of the motion, CAUSES
to emanate from itself the spirit, which in its essence is, and yet is
not."
In
the Sepher Jezirah, the Kabalistic Book of Creation, the author has evidently repeated
the words of Manu. In it the Divine Substance is represented as having alone
existed from the eternity, boundless and absolute; and as having emitted from
itself the Spirit. "One is the Spirit of the living God, blessed be his
Name, who liveth for ever! Voice, Spirit, and Word, this is the Holy
Spirit." (Sepher Jezireh, chap. 1, Mishna IX.) And this is the Kabalistic
abstract Trinity, so unceremoniously anthropomorphized by the Fathers. From
this triple ONE emanated the whole Kosmos. First from ONE emanated number TWO,
or Air, the creative element; and then number THREE, Water, proceeded from the
air; Ether or Fire complete the mystic four, the Arba-il. (Ibid.) In the
Eastern doctrine Fire is the first Element -- Ether, synthesizing the whole
(since it contains all of them).
In
the Vishnu Purana, the whole seven periods are given, and the progressive
Evolution of "Spirit-Soul," and of the seven forms of matter (or
principles) are shown. It is impossible to enumerate them in this work. The
reader is asked to peruse one of the Puranas.
"R.
Yehudah began, it is written: 'Elohim said: Let there be a firmament, in the
midst of waters. . . . . At the time that the Holy . . . created the world, He
(they) created seven heavens Above. He created seven earths Below, seven seas,
seven days, seven rivers, seven weeks, seven years, seven times, and 7,000
years that the world has been. . . . . the seventh of all the millennium. So
here are seven earths Below, they are all inhabited except those which are
above, and those . . . . below. And . . . . between each earth, a heaven
(firmament) is spread out between each other. . . . . And there are in them
(these earths) creatures who look different from each other . . . . but if you
object and say that all the children of the world came out from Adam,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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it
is not so. . . . . And the lower earths, where do they come from? They are from
the chain of the earth, and from the heaven below," etc., etc.*
Irenaeus
is our witness (and a very unwilling one, too) that the Gnostics taught the
same system, veiling very carefully the true esoteric meaning. This
"veiling," however, is identical with that of the Vishnu Purana and
others. Thus Irenaeus writes of the Marcosians: "They maintain that first
of all the four elements, fire, water, earth and air, were produced after the
image of the primary tetrad above, and that then if we add their operations,
namely, heat, cold, dryness and moisture, an exact likeness of the ogdoad is
presented." (B. i. ch. xvii.)
Only
this "likeness" and the ogdoad itself is a blind, just as in the
seven creations of the Vishnu Puranas, to which two more are added of which the
eighth, termed Anugraha, "possesses both the qualities of goodness and
darkness," a Sankhyan more than a Puranic idea. For Irenaeus says again
(b. I. xxx. 6) that "they (the Gnostics) had a like eighth creation which
was good and bad, divine and human. They affirm that man was formed on the
eighth day. Sometimes they affirm that he was made on the sixth day, and at
others on the eighth; unless, perchance, they mean that his earthly part was
formed on the sixth day and his fleshly part (?) on the eighth day; these two
being distinguished by them."
They
were so "distinguished," but not as Irenaeus gives it. The Gnostics
had a superior Hebdomad, and an inferior one, in Heaven; and a third
terrestrial Hebdomad, on the plane of matter. IAO, the mystery god and the
Regent of the Moon, as given in Origen's chart, was the chief of these superior
"Seven Heavens,"** hence identical with the chief of the lunar
Pitris, that name being given by them to the lunar Dhyan-Chohans. "They
affirm that these seven heavens are intelligent, and speak of them as being
angels," writes the same Irenaeus; and adds that on this account they
termed Iao Hebdomas, while his mother was called "Ogdoas," because,
as he explains, "she preserved the number of the first begotten and
primary Ogdoad of the Pleroma." (Ibid. b. I, v. 2).
This
"first begotten Ogdoad" was (a) in theogony the second Logos (the
manifested) because he was born of the Seven-fold first Logos, hence he is the
eighth on this manifested plane; and (b) in astrolatry, it was the Sun,
Martanda -- the eighth son of Aditi, whom she rejects while preserving her
Seven Sons, the planets. For the ancients have never regarded the Sun as a
planet, but as a central and fixed Star. This, then, is the second Hebdomad
born of the Seven-rayed one, Agni, the Sun
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Qabbalah, p. 415-16, by T. Myer, Philadelphia.
**
Superior to the Spirits or "Heavens" of the Earth only.
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[[Vol.
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and
what not, only not the seven planets, which are Surya's brothers, not his Sons.
These Astral gods, whose chief with the Gnostics was Ildabaoth* (from Ilda
"child," and Baoth "the egg"), the son of Sophia Achamoth,
the daughter of Sophia (Wisdom), whose region is the Pleroma, were his
(Ildabaoth's) sons. He produces from himself these six stellar spirits: Jove
(Jehovah), Sabaoth, Adonai, Eloi, Osraios, Astaphaios,** and it is they who are
the second, or inferior Hebdomad. As to the third, it is composed of the seven
primeval men, the shadows of the lunar gods, projected by the first Hebdomad.
In this the Gnostics did not, as seen, differ much from the esoteric doctrine
except that they veiled it. As to the charge made by Irenaeus, who was
evidently ignorant of the true tenets of the "Heretics," with regard
to man being created on the sixth day, and man being created on the eighth,
this relates to the mysteries of the inner man. It will become comprehensible
to the reader only after he has read Book II., and understood well the
Anthropogenesis of the Esoteric doctrine.
Ildabaoth
is a copy of Manu. The latter boasts, "Oh, best of twice-born men! Know
that I (Manu) am he, the creator of all this world, whom that male Viraj . . .
spontaneously produced" (I., 33). He first creates the ten lords of Being,
the Prajapatis, who, as verse 36 says . . . "produce seven other
Manus." (The Ordinances of Manu.) Ildabaoth does likewise: "I am
Father and God, and there is no one above me," he exclaims. For which his
mother coolly puts him down by saying, "Do not lie, Ildabaoth, for the
father of all, the first man (Anthropos) is above thee, and so is Anthropos,
the Son of Anthropos" (Irenaeus, b. I, ch. xxx., 6). This is a good proof
that there were three Logoi (besides the Seven born of the First), one of these
being the Solar Logos. And, again, who was that "Anthropos" himself,
so much higher than Ildabaoth? The Gnostic records alone can solve this riddle.
In Pistis Sophia the four-vowelled name IEOV is in each case accompanied by the
epithet of "the Primal, or First man." This shows again that the
gnosis was but an echo of our archaic doctrine. The names answering to
Parabrahm, to Brahm, and Manu (the first thinking man) are composed of
one-vowelled, three-vowelled and seven-vowelled sounds. Marcus, whose
philosophy was certainly more Pythagorean than anything else, speaks of a
revelation to him of the seven heavens sounding each one vowel as they
pronounced the seven names of the seven (angelic) hierarchies.
When
spirit has permeated every minutest atom of the seven principles of Kosmos,
then the secondary creation, after the above-mentioned period of rest, begins.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 183.
**
See also King's Gnostics. Other sects regarded Jehovah as Ildabaoth himself
King identifies him with Saturn.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"The
creators (Elohim) outline in the second 'hour' the shape of man," says
Rabbi Simeon (The Nuctameron of the Hebrews). "There are twelve hours in
the day," says the Mishna, "and it is during these that creation is
accomplished." The "twelve hours of the day" are again the
dwarfed copy, the faint, yet faithful, echo of primitive Wisdom. They are like
the 12,000 divine years of the gods, a cyclic blind. Every "Day of
Brahma" has 14 Manus, which the Hebrew Kabalists, following, however, in this
the Chaldeans, have disguised into 12 "Hours."* The Nuctameron of
Apollonius of Tyana is the same thing. "The Dodecahedron lies concealed in
the perfect Cube," say the Kabalists. The mystic meaning of this is, that
the twelve great transformations of Spirit into matter (the 12,000 divine
years) take place during the four great ages, or the first Mahayuga. Beginning
with the metaphysical and the supra-human, it ends in the physical and purely
human natures of Kosmos and man. Eastern philosophy can give the number of
mortal years that run along the line of spiritual and physical evolutions of
the seen and the unseen, if Western science fails to do so.
Primary
Creation is called the Creation of Light (Spirit); and the Secondary -- that of
Darkness (matter).** Both are found in Genesis, chap. i., v. 2, and at the
beginning of chapter ii. The first is the emanation of self-born gods (Elohim);
the second of physical nature.
This
is why it is said in the Zohar:-- "Oh, companions, companions, man as
emanation was both man and woman; as well on the side of the FATHER as on the
side of the MOTHER. And this is the sense of the words:-- And Elohim spoke:
'Let there be Light and it was Light!' . . . And this is the 'two-fold
man'" Light, moreover, on our plane, is darkness in the higher spheres.
"Man
and woman on the side of the FATHER" (Spirit) refers to Primary Creation;
and on the side of the Mother (matter) to the secondary. The two-fold man is Adam
Kadmon, the male and female abstract prototype and the differentiated Elohim.
Man proceeds from the Dhyan Chohan, and is a "Fallen Angel," a god in
exile, as will be shown.
In
India these creations were described as follows:--
(I.)
Mahat-tattwa creation -- so-called because it was the primordial self-evolution
of that which had to become Mahat -- the "divine MIND, conscious and
intelligent"; esoterically, "the spirit of the Universal soul."
. . . "Worthiest of ascetics, through its potency (the potency of that
cause); every produced cause comes by its proper nature." (Vishnu Purana.)
"Seeing that the potencies of all beings are under-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Elsewhere, however, the identity is revealed. See supra, the quotation from
Ibn-Gabirol and his 7 heavens, 7 earths, etc.
**
This must not be confused with precosmic "DARKNESS," the Divine ALL.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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stood
only through the knowledge of That (Brahma), which is beyond reasoning,
creation, and the like, such potencies are referable to Brahma." THAT,
then, precedes the manifestation. "The first was Mahat," says Linga
Purana; for the ONE (the That) is neither first nor last, but ALL.
Exoterically, however, this manifestation is the work of the "Supreme
One" (a natural effect, rather, of an Eternal Cause); or, as the
Commentator says, it might have been understood to mean that Brahma was then
created (?), being identified with Mahat, active intelligence or the operating
will of the Supreme. Esoteric philosophy renders it "the operating
LAW."
It
is on the right comprehension of this tenet in the Brahmanas and Puranas that
hangs, we believe, the apple of discord between the three Vedantin Sects: the
Advaita, Dwaita, and the Visishtadvaitas. The first arguing rightly that
Parabrahman, having no relation, as the absolute all, to the manifested world
-- the Infinite having no connection with the finite -- can neither will nor
create; that, therefore, Brahma, Mahat, Iswara, or whatever name the creative
power may be known by, creative gods and all, are simply an illusive aspect of
Parabrahmam in the conception of the conceivers; while the other sects identify
the impersonal Cause with the Creator, or Iswara.
Mahat
(or Maha-Buddhi) is, with the Vaishnavas, however, divine mind in active
operation, or, as Anaxagoras has it, "an ordering and disposing mind,
which was the cause of all things," -- [[Nous o diakosmonte kai panton
aitios]].
Wilson
saw at a glance the suggestive connection between Mahat and the Phoenician Mot,
or Mut, who was female with the Egyptians -- the Goddess Mout, the
"Mother" -- "which, like Mahat," he says, "was the
first product of the mixture (?) of Spirit and matter, and the first rudiment
of Creation": "Ex connexione autem ejus spiritus prodidit Mot . . . .
. From whose seed were created all living things" -- repeats Brucker (I.,
240) -- giving it a still more materialistic and anthropomorphic colouring.
Nevertheless,
the esoteric sense of the doctrine is seen through every exoteric sentence on
the very face of the old Sanscrit texts that treat of primordial Creation.
"The Supreme Soul, the all permeant (Sarvaga) Substance of the World,
having entered (been drawn) into matter (prakriti) and Spirit (purusha),
agitated the mutable and the immutable principles the season of Creation
(manvantara) having arrived."* . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The nous of the Greeks, which is (spiritual or divine) mind, or mens,
"Mahat," operates upon matter in the same way; it "enters
into" and agitates it:
"Spiritus
intus alit, totamque infusa per artus,
Mens
agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."
In
the Phoenician Cosmogony, "Spirit mixing with its own principles gives
rise to [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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Esoteric
doctrine teaches that the Dhyan Chohans are the collective aggregate of divine
Intelligence or primordial mind, and that the first Manus -- the seven
"mind-born" Spiritual Intelligences -- are identical with the former.
Hence the "Kwan-shi-yin" -- "the golden Dragon in whom are the
seven," of Stanza III. -- is the primordial Logos, or Brahma, the first
manifested creative Power; and the Dhyani-Energies are the Manus, or
Manu-Swayambhuva collectively. The direct connection, moreover, between the
"Manus" and "Mahat" is easy to see. Manu is from the root
man, "to think"; and thinking proceeds from the mind. It is, in
Cosmogony, the pre-nebular period.
(II.)
"The second Creation," "Bhuta," was of the rudimental
principles (Tanmatras), thence termed the elemental creation (Bhuta-sarga).* It
is the period of the first breath of the differentiation of the pre-Cosmic
Elements or matter. Bhutadi means literally "the origin of the
Elements," and precedes Bhuta-sarga -- the "creation" or
differentiation of those Elements in primordial "Akasa" (Chaos or
Vacuity).** In the "Vishnu Purana" it is said to proceed along, and
belong to, the triple aspect of Ahankara, translated Egotism, but meaning
rather that untranslateable term the "I-AM-NESS," that which first
issues from "Mahat," or divine mind; the first shadowy outline of
Self-hood, for "pure" Ahankara becomes "passionate" and
finally "rudimental"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] creation" also; (Brucker, I., 240); the
Orphic triad shows an identical doctrine: for there Phanes (or Eros), Chaos,
containing crude undifferentiated Cosmic matter, and Chronos (time), are the
three co-operating principles, emanating from the Unknowable and concealed
point, which produce the work of "Creation." And they are the Hindu
Purusha (phanes), Pradhana (chaos), and Kala (Chronos) or time. The good
Professor Wilson does not like the idea, as no Christian clergyman, however
liberal, would. He remarks that "as presently explained,. the mixture (of
the Supreme Spirit or Soul) is not mechanical; it is an influence or effect
exerted upon intermediate agents which produce effects." The sentence in
Vishnu Purana: "As fragrance affects the mind from its proximity merely,
and not from any immediate operation upon mind itself, so the Supreme
influenced the elements of creation," the reverend and erudite Sanscritist
correctly explains . . . : "As perfumes do not delight the mind by actual
contact, but by the impression they make upon the sense of smelling, which
communicates it to the mind," adding: "The entrance of the Supreme
into spirit, as well as matter, is less intelligible than the view elsewhere
taken of it, as the infusion of spirit, identified with the supreme, into
Prakriti or matter alone." He prefers the verse in Padma Purana: "He
who is called the male (spirit) of Prakriti . . . that same divine Vishnu
entered into Prakriti." This "view" is certainly more akin to
the plastic character of certain verses in the Bible concerning the Patriarchs,
such as Lot (Gen. xix., 34-38) and even Adam (iv., v. 1), and others of a still
more anthropomorphic nature. But it is just that which led Humanity to
Phallicism, Christian religion being honeycombed with it, from the first
chapter of Genesis down to the Revelation.
*
All these sentences are quoted from "Vishnu Purana," Book I., ch. v.
**
Vishnu is both Bhutesa, "Lord of the Elements, and all things," and
Viswarupa, "Universal Substance or Soul."
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[[Vol.
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(initial);
it is "the origin of conscious as of all unconscious being," though
the Esoteric school rejects the idea of anything being "unconscious"
-- save on this (our) plane of illusion and ignorance. At this stage of the
Second Creation, the second hierarchy of the Manus appear, the Dhyan Chohans or
Devas, who are the origin of Form (rupa): the Chitrasikhandina (bright-crested)
or the Riksha -- those Rishis who have become the informing souls of the seven
stars (of the Great Bear).* In astronomical and Cosmogonical language this
Creation relates to the first stage of Cosmic-life, the Fire-Mist Period after
its Chaotic stage,** when atoms issue from Laya.
(III.)
The third (the Indriya) was the modified form of Ahankara, the conception of
"I," (from "Aham," "I") termed the organic
Creation, or creation of the senses (Aindriyaka). "These three were the
Prakrita creation, the (discrete) developments of indiscrete nature preceded by
the indiscrete principle." "Preceded by," ought to be replaced
here with "beginning by," Buddhi; for the latter is neither a
discrete nor an indiscrete quantity, but partakes of the nature of both, in man
as in Kosmos: a unit -- a human MONAD on the plane of illusion -- when once
freed from the three forms of Ahankara and liberated from its terrestrial
manas, Buddhi becomes truly a continued quantity, both in duration and
extension, because eternal and immortal. Earlier it is stated, that the third
Creation "abounding with the quality of goodness, is termed
Urdhvasrotas"; and a page or two further the Urdhvasrotas creation is
referred to as "the sixth creation . . . that of the divinities" (p.
75). This shows plainly that earlier as well as later manvantaras have been
purposely confused, to prevent the pro-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See concerning their post-types, the Treatise written by Trithemius (Agrippa's
master, 16th cent.). "Concerning the seven secondaries, or Spiritual
Intelligences, who, after God, actuate the Universe;" giving out, besides
secret cycles and several prophecies, certain facts and beliefs about the
Genii, or the Elohim, which preside over and guide the septenary stages of the
World's Course.
**
From the first, the Orientalists have found themselves beset by great
difficulties with regard to any possible order in the Puranic Creations. Brahma
is very often confused with Brahm, by Wilson, for which he is criticised by his
successors. The "Original Sanscrit Texts" are preferred by Mr.
Fitzedward Hall for the translation of Vishnu Purana and texts, to those used
by Wilson. "Had Professor Wilson enjoyed the advantages which are now at
the command of the student of Indian philosophy, unquestionably he would have
expressed himself differently," as said by the editor of his works. This
reminds one of the answer given by one of Thomas Taylor's admirers to those
scholars who criticised his translations of Plato. "Thomas Taylor may have
had less knowledge of the Greek than his critics have, but he understood Plato
far better than they do," he said. Our present Orientalists disfigure the
mystic sense of the Sanskrit texts far more than Wilson ever did, though the
latter is undeniably guilty of very gross errors.
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fane
from perceiving the truth. This is called "incongruity" and
"contradictions" by the Orientalists.*
This
"creation" of the immortals, the "Deva-Sarga," is the last
of the first series, and has a universal reference; namely, to Evolutions in
general, not specifically to our Manvantara; but the latter begins with the
same over and over again, showing that it refers to several distinct Kalpas.
For it is said "at the close of the past (Padma) Kalpa the divine Brahma
awoke from his night of sleep and beheld the universe void." Then Brahma
is shown going once more over the "seven creations" in the secondary
stage of evolution, repeating the first three on the objective plane.
(IV.)
The Mukhya, the Primary as it begins the series of four. Neither the word
"inanimate" bodies nor yet immovable things, as translated by Wilson,
gives a correct idea of the Sanskrit terms used. Esoteric philosophy is not the
only one to reject the idea of any atom being inorganic, for it is found also
in orthodox Hinduism. Moreover, Wilson himself says (in his collected Works,
vol. iii., p. 381): "All the Hindu systems consider vegetable bodies as
endowed with life . . . " Charachara, or the synonymous sthavara and
jangama, is, therefore, inaccurately rendered by "animate and
inanimate," "sentient beings," and "unconscious," or
"conscious and unconscious beings," etc., etc. "Locomotive and
fixed" would be better, since trees are considered to possess souls."
Mukhya is the "creation" or organic evolution of the vegetable
kingdom. In this secondary Period, the three degrees of Elemental or Rudimental
Kingdoms are evolved in this world, corresponding inversely in order to the
three Prakritic creations during the Primary period of Brahma's activity. As in
that period, in the words of "Vishnu Purana": "The first
creation was that of Mahat (Intellect), the second, of Tanmatras (rudimental
principles), and the third, that of the senses (Aindriyaka)"; in this one,
the order of the Elemental Forces stands thus: (1) The nascent centres of Force
(intellectual and physical); (2) the rudimental principles -- nerve force, so
to say; and (3) nascent apperception, which is the Mahat of the lower kingdoms,
especially developed in the third order of Elementals; these are succeeded by
the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The three Creations beginning with Intelligence are elemental, but the
six creations which proceed from the series of which Intellect is the first are
the work of Brahma" (Vayu-Purana). Here "creations" mean
everywhere stages of Evolution. Mahat, "Intellect" or mind (which corresponds
with Manas, the former being on the Cosmic, and the latter on the human plane)
stands here, too, lower than Buddhi or Supra-divine Intelligence. Therefore,
when we read in Linga Purana that "the first Creation was that of Mahat,
Intellect being the first in manifestation," we must refer that
(specified) creation to the first evolution of our system or even our Earth,
none of the preceding ones being discussed in the Puranas, but only
occasionally hinted at.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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objective
kingdom of minerals, in which latter that apperception is entirely latent, to
re-develop only in the plants). The mukhya "Creation," then, is the
middle point between the three lower and the three higher kingdoms, which
represent the seven esoteric kingdoms of Kosmos, as of Earth.
(V.)
The Tiryaksrotas (or Tairyagyonya) creation,* that of the "(sacred)
animals," corresponding only on Earth, to the dumb animal creation. That
which is meant by "animals," in primary Creation, is the germ of
awakening consciousness or of apperception, that which is faintly traceable in
some sensitive plants on Earth and more distinctly in the protistic monera.**
On our globe, during the first round, animal "creation" precedes that
of man, while the former (or mammal) evolves from the latter in our fourth
round -- on the physical plane: in Round I. the animal atoms are drawn into a
cohesion of human physical form; while in Round IV. the reverse occurs
according to magnetic conditions developed during life. And this is
metempsychosis (See "Mineral Monad" in "Five Years of
Theosophy," p. 276). This fifth stage of evolution, called exoterically
"Creation," may be viewed in both the Primary and Secondary periods,
one as the Spiritual and Cosmic, the other as the material and terrestrial. It
is Archibiosis, or life-origination -- "origination," so far, of
course, as the manifestation of life on all the seven planes is concerned. It
is at this period of Evolution that the absolutely eternal universal motion, or
vibration, that which is called in Esoteric language "the GREAT
BREATH," differentiates in the primordial, first manifested ATOM. More and
more, as chemical and physical sciences progress, does this occult axiom find
its corroboration in the world of knowledge: the scientific hypothesis, that
even the simplest elements of matter are identical in nature and differ from
each other only owing to the variety of the distributions of atoms in the
molecule or speck of substance, or by the modes of its atomic vibration, gains
every day more ground.
Thus,
as the differentiation of the primordial germ of life has to precede the
evolution of the Dhyan Chohan of the third group or hierarchy of Being in
Primary Creation, before those "gods" can become rupa (embodied in
their first ethereal form), so animal creation has to precede,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Professor Wilson translates it, as though animals were higher on the scale of
"creation" than divinities, or angels, although the truth about the
devas is very plainly stated further on. This "creation," says the
text, is both primary (Prakrita) and secondary (Vaikrita). It is the latter, as
regards the origin of the gods from Brahma (the personal anthropomorphic
creator of our material universe); it is the former (primary) as affecting
Rudra, who is the immediate production of the first principle. Rudra is not
alone a title of Siva, but embraces agents of creation, angels and men, as will
be shown further on.
**
Neither plant nor animal, but an existence between the two.
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[[Vol.
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for
that same reason, divine MAN on earth. And this is why we find in the Puranas:
"The fifth, the Tairyagyonya creation, was that of animals, and --
(VI).
The Urdhvasrotas creation, or that of divinities (Vishnu Purana Book I. chap.
i.). But these (divinities) are simply the prototypes of the First Race, the fathers
of their "mind-born" progeny with the soft bones.* It is these who
became the Evolvers of the "Sweat-born" -- an expression explained in
Book II. Finally, the sixth "Creation" is followed, and
"Creation in general, closed by --
(VII.)
The evolution of the "Arvaksrotas beings, which was the seventh, and was
that of man" (Vishnu Purana, Book I.).
The
"eighth creation" mentioned is no Creation at all; it is a blind
again, for it refers to a purely mental process: the cognition of the
"ninth" creation, which, in its turn, is an effect, manifesting in
the secondary of that which was a "Creation" in the Primary
(Prakrita) Creation.** The Eighth, then, called Anugraha (the Pratyayasarga or
the intellectual creation of the Sankhyas, explained in Karika, v. 46, p. 146),
is "that creation of which we have a perception" -- in its esoteric
aspect -- and "to which we give intellectual assent (Anugraha) in
contradistinction to organic creation." It is the correct perception of
our relations to the whole range of "gods" and especially of those we
bear to the Kumaras -- the so-called "Ninth Creation" -- which is in
reality an aspect of or reflection of the sixth in our manvantara (the
Vaivasvata). "There is a ninth, the Kumara Creation, which is both primary
and secondary," says Vishnu Purana, the oldest of such texts.*** "The
Kumaras," explains an esoteric text,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Created beings" -- explains Vishnu Purana -- "although they are
destroyed (in their individual forms) at the periods of dissolution, yet being
affected by the good or evil acts of former existences, are never exempted from
their consequences. And when Brahma produces the world anew, they are the
progeny of his will . . ." "Collecting his mind into itself (Yoga
willing), Brahma creates the four orders of beings, termed gods, demons,
progenitors, and MEN" . . . "progenitors" meaning the prototypes
and Evolvers of the first Root Race of men. The progenitors are the Pitris, and
are of seven classes. They are said in exoteric mythology to be born of
Brahma's side, like Eve from the rib of Adam.
**
"These notions," remarks Dr. Wilson, "the birth of Rudra and the
saints, seem to have been borrowed from the Saivas, and to have been awkwardly
engrafted upon the Vaishnava system." The esoteric meaning ought to have
been consulted before venturing such a hypothesis.
***
Parasara, the Vedic Rishi, who received the Vishnu Purana from Pulastya and
taught it to Maitreya, is placed by the Orientalists at various epochs. As
correctly observed, in the Hindu Class. Dict:-- "Speculations as to his
era differ widely from 575 B.C. to 1391 B.C., and cannot be trusted."
Quite so; but no less, however, than any other date as assigned by the
Sanskritists, so famous in this department of arbitrary fancy.
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[[Vol.
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"are
the Dhyanis, derived immediately from the supreme Principle, who reappear in
the Vaivasvata Manu period, for the progress of mankind."* The commentator
of the Vishnu Purana corroborates it, by remarking that "these sages live
as long as Brahma; and they are only created by him in the first Kalpa,
although their generation is very commonly and inconsistently introduced in the
Varaha, or Padma Kalpa" (the secondary). Thus, the Kumaras are,
exoterically, "the creation of Rudra or Nilalohita, a form of Siva, by
Brahma, and of certain other mind-born sons of Brahma. But, in the esoteric
teaching, they are the progenitors of the true spiritual SELF in the physical
man -- the higher Prajapati, while the Pitris, or lower Prajapati, are no more
than the fathers of the model, or type of his physical form, made "in
their image." Four (and occasionally five) are mentioned freely in the
exoteric texts, three Kumaras being secret.** (Compare what is said of
"The Fallen Angels" in Book II.).
The
Exoteric four are: Sanat-Kumara, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana; and the
esoteric three are: Sana, Kapila, and Sanat-sujata. Special attention is once
more drawn to this class of Dhyan Chohans, for herein lies the mystery of
generation and heredity hinted at in Book I. (See the four Orders of Angelic
Beings; Comment on Stanza VII.). Book II. explains their position in the divine
Hierarchy. Meanwhile, let us see what the exoteric texts say about them.
They
do not say much; nothing to him who fails to read between the lines. "We
must have recourse, here, to other Puranas for the elucidation of this
term," remarks Wilson, who does not suspect for one moment that he is in
the presence of the "Angels of Darkness," the mythical "great
enemy" of his Church. Therefore, he contrives to elucidate no more than
that these (divinities) DECLINING TO CREATE PROGENY*** (and thus rebelling
against Brahma), remained, as the name
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
They may indeed mark a "special" or extra creation, since it is they
who, by incarnating themselves within the senseless human shells of the two
first Root-races, and a great portion of the Third Root-race -- create, so to
speak, a new race: that of thinking, self-conscious and divine men.
**
"The four Kumaras (are) the mind-born Sons of Brahma. Some specify
seven" (H. Class. Dict.). All these seven Vaidhatra, the patronymic of the
Kumaras, "the Maker's Sons," are mentioned and described in Iswara
Krishna's "Sankhya Karika" with the Commentary of Gaudapadacharya
(Sankaracharya's Paraguru) attached to it. It discusses the nature of the
Kumaras, though it refrains from mentioning by name all the seven Kumaras, but
calls them instead "the seven sons of Brahma," which they are, as
they are created by Brahma in Rudra. The list of names it gives us is: Sanaka,
Sanandana, Sanatana, Kapila, Ribhu, and Panchasikha. But these are again all
aliases.
***
So untrustworthy are some translations of the Orientalists that in the French
Translation of Hari-Vamsa, it is said "The seven Prajapati, Rudra, Skanda
(his son) [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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of
the first implies, ever boys, Kumaras: that is, ever pure and innocent, whence
their creation is also called the "Kumara." (Book I. chap. v., Vishnu
Purana.) The Puranas, however, may afford a little more light. "Being ever
as he was born, he is here called a youth; and hence his name is well known as
Sanat-Kumara" (Linga purana, prior section LXX. 174.) In the Saiva Purana,
the Kumaras are always described as Yogins. The Kurma Purana, after enumerating
them, says: "These five, O Brahmans, were Yogins, who acquired entire
exemption from passion." They are five, because two of the Kumaras fell.
Of
all the seven great divisions of Dhyan-Chohans, or Devas, there is none with
which humanity is more concerned than with the Kumaras. Imprudent are the
Christian Theologians who have degraded them into fallen Angels, and now call
them "Satan" and Demons; as among these heavenly denizens who refuse
to create, the Archangel Michael -- the greatest patron Saint of Western and
Eastern Churches, under his double name of St. Michael and his supposed copy on
earth, St. George conquering the DRAGON -- has to be allowed one of the most
prominent places. (See Book II., "The Sacred Dragons and their
Slayers.")
The
Kumaras, the "mind-born Sons" of Brahma-Rudra (or Siva)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] and Sanat-Kumara proceeded to create
beings." Whereas, as Wilson shows, the original is: "These seven . .
. created progeny; and so did Rudra, but Skanda and Sanat Kumara, restraining
their power, abstained from creation." The "four orders of
beings" are referred to sometimes as "Ambhamsi," which Wilson
renders: "literally Waters," and believes it "a mystic
term." It is one, no doubt; but he evidently failed to catch the real
esoteric meaning. "Waters" and "water" stand as the symbol
for Akasa, the "primordial Ocean of Space," on which Narayana, the
self-born Spirit, moves: reclining on that which is its progeny (See Manu).
"Water is the body of Nara; thus we have heard the name of water
explained. Since Brahma rests on the water, therefore he is termed
Narayana" (Linga, Vayu, and Markandeya Puranas) ". . . Pure, Purusha
created the Waters pure . . ." at the same time Water is the third
principle in material Kosmos, and the third in the realm of the Spiritual:
Spirit of Fire, Flame, Akasa, Ether, Water, Air, Earth, are the cosmic, sidereal,
psychic, spiritual and mystic principles, pre-eminently occult, in every plane
of being. "Gods, Demons, Pitris and men," are the four orders of
beings to whom the term Ambhamsi is applied (in the Vedas it is a synonym of
gods): because they are all the product of WATERS (mystically), of the Akasic
Ocean, and of the Third Principle in nature. Pitris and men on earth are the
transformations (rebirths) of gods and demons (Spirits) on a higher plane.
Water is, in another sense, the feminine principle. Venus Aphrodite is the
personified Sea, and the mother of the god of love, the generator of all the
gods as much as the Christian Virgin Mary is Mare (the sea), the mother of the
Western God of Love, Mercy and Charity. If the student of Esoteric philosophy
thinks deeply over the subject he is sure to find out all the suggestiveness of
the term Ambhamsi, in its manifold relations to the Virgin in Heaven, to the
Celestial Virgin of the Alchemists, and even to the "Waters of Grace"
of the modern Baptist.
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[[Vol.
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the
howling and terrific destroyer of human passions and physical senses, which are
ever in the way of the development of the higher spiritual perceptions and the
growth of the inner eternal man -- mystically,* are the progeny of Siva, the
Mahayogi, the great patron of all the Yogis and mystics of India. They
themselves, being the "Virgin-Ascetics," refuse to create the
material being MAN. Well may they be suspected of a direct connection with the
Christian Archangel Michael, the "Virgin Combatant" of the Dragon
Apophis, whose victim is every soul united too loosely to its immortal Spirit,
the Angel who, as shown by the Gnostics, refused to create just as the Kumaras
did. (See Book II., "The Mystic Dragons and their Slayers.") . . .
Does not that patron-Angel of the Jews preside over Saturn (Siva or Rudra), and
the Sabbath, the day of Saturn? Is he not shown of the same essence with his
father (Saturn), and called the "Son of Time," Kronos, or Kala
(time), a form of Brahma (Vishnu and Siva)?" And is not "Old
Time" of the Greeks, with its scythe and sand-glass, identical with the
"Ancient of Days" of the Kabalists, the latter "Ancient"
being one with the Hindu "Ancient of Days," Brahma (in his triune
form), whose name is also "Sanat," the Ancient? Every Kumara bears
the prefix of Sanat and Sana; and Sanaischara is Saturn, the planet (Sani and
Sarra), the King Saturn whose Secretary in Egypt was Thot-Hermes the first.
They are thus identified both with the planet and the god (Siva), who are, in
their turn, shown the prototypes of Saturn, who is the same as Bel, Baal, Siva,
and Jehovah Sabbaoth, The angel of whose face is MIKAEL ([[diagram]] "who
is as God"). He is the patron, and guardian Angel of the Jews, as Daniel
tells us (v. 21); and, before the Kumaras were degraded, by those who were
ignorant of their very name, into demons and fallen angels, the Greek Ophites,
the occultly inclined predecessors and precursors of the Roman Catholic Church
after its secession and separation from the primitive Greek Church, had
identified Michael with their Ophiomorphos, the rebellious and opposing spirit.
This means nothing more than the reverse aspect (symbolically) of Ophis --
divine Wisdom or Christos. In the Talmud, Mikael (Michael) is "Prince of
Water" and the chief of the seven Spirits, for the same reason that his
prototype (among many others) Sanat-Sujata,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Siva-Rudra is the Destroyer, as Vishnu is the preserver; and both are the
regenerators of spiritual as well as of physical nature. To live as a plant,
the seed must die. To live as a conscious entity in the Eternity, the passions
and senses of man must first DIE before his body does. "To live is to die
and to die is to live," has been too little understood in the West. Siva,
the destroyer, is the creator and the Saviour of Spiritual man, as he is the
good gardener of nature. He weeds out the plants, human and cosmic, and kills
the passions of the physical, to call to life the perceptions of the spiritual,
man.
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[[Vol.
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--
the chief of the Kumaras -- is called Ambhamsi, "Waters," --
according to the commentary on Vishnu Purana. Why? Because the
"Waters" is another name of the "Great Deep," the
primordial Waters of space or Chaos, and also means "Mother," Amba,
meaning Aditi and Akasa, the Celestial Virgin-Mother of the visible universe.
Furthermore, the "Waters of the flood" are also called "the
GREAT DRAGON," or Ophis, Ophio-Morphos.
The
Rudras will be noticed in their Septenary character of "Fire-Spirits"
in the "Symbolism" attached to the Stanzas in Book II. There we shall
also consider the Cross (3 + 4) under its primeval and later forms, and shall
use for purposes of comparison the Pythagorean numbers side by side with Hebrew
Metrology. The immense importance of the number seven will thus become evident,
as the root number of nature. We shall examine it from the standpoints of the
Vedas and the Chaldean Scriptures, as it existed in Egypt thousands of years
B.C., and as treated in the Gnostic records; we shall show how its importance
as a basic number has gained recognition in physical Science; and we shall
endeavour to prove that the importance attached to the number seven throughout
all antiquity was due to no fanciful imaginings of uneducated priests, but to a
profound knowledge of natural law.
--------------
§
XIV.
THE
FOUR ELEMENTS.
METAPHYSICALLY
and esoterically there is but One ELEMENT in nature, and at the root of it is
the Deity; and the so-called seven elements, of which five have already
manifested and asserted their existence, are the garment, the veil, of that
deity; direct from the essence whereof comes MAN, whether physically,
psychically, mentally or spiritually considered. Four elements only are
generally spoken of in later antiquity, five admitted only in philosophy. For
the body of ether is not fully manifested yet, and its noumenon is still
"the Omnipotent Father -- AEther, the synthesis of the rest." But
what are these "ELEMENTS" whose compound bodies have now been
discovered by Chemistry and Physics to contain numberless sub-elements, even
the sixty or seventy of which no longer embrace the whole number suspected.
(Vide Addenda, §§ XI. and XII., quotations from Mr. Crookes' Lectures.) Let us
follow their evolution from the historical beginnings, at any rate.
The
four Elements were fully characterized by Plato when he said that they were
that "which composes and decomposes the compound bodies."
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[[Vol.
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Hence
Cosmolatry was never, even in its worst aspect, the fetishism which adores or
worships the passive external form and matter of any object, but looked ever to
the noumenon therein. Fire, Air, Water, Earth, were but the visible garb, the
symbols of the informing, invisible Souls or Spirits -- the Cosmic gods to whom
worship was offered by the ignorant, and simple, respectful recognition by the
wiser. In their turn the phenomenal subdivisions of the noumenal Elements were
informed by the Elementals, so called, the "Nature Spirits" of lower
grades.
In
the Theogony of Mochus, we find Ether first, and then the air; the two
principles from which Ulom the intelligible ([[noetos]]) God (the visible
universe of matter) is born.*
In
the Orphic hymns, the Eros-Phanes evolves from the Spiritual Egg, which the
AEthereal winds impregnate, Wind being "the Spirit of God," who is
said to move in AEther, "brooding over the chaos" -- the Divine
"Idea." In the Hindu Katakopanisad, Purusha, the Divine Spirit,
already stands before the original matter, from whose union springs the great
Soul of the World, "Maha = Atma, Brahm, the Spirit of Life;"** these
latter appellations being again identical with the Universal Soul, or Anima
Mundi, the Astral Light of the Theurgists and Kabalists, being its last and
lowest division."
The
[[stoicheia]], (Elements) of Plato and Aristotle, were thus the incorporeal
principles attached to the four great divisions of our Cosmic World, and it is
with justice that Creuzer defines those primitive beliefs . . . as a species of
magism, a psychic paganism, and a deification of potencies; a spiritualization
which placed the believers in a close community with these potencies,"
(Book IX, p. 850). So close, indeed, that the hierarchies of those potencies or
Forces have been classified on a graduated scale of seven from the ponderable
to the imponderable. They are Septenary, -- not as an artificial aid to
facilitate their comprehension -- but in their real Cosmic gradation, from
their chemical (or physical) to their purely spiritual composition. Gods --
with the ignorant masses -- gods independent and supreme; daemons with the
fanatics, who, intellectual as they often may be, are unable to understand the
Spirit of the philosophical sentence, in pluribus unum. With the hermetic
philosopher they are FORCES relatively "blind," or
"intelligent," according to which of the principles in them he deals
with. It required long millenniums before they found themselves, in our
cultured age, finally degraded into simple chemical elements.
At
any rate, good Christians, and especially the Biblical Protestants,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Movers: "Phoinizer," 282.
**
Weber: "Akad. Vorles," 213, 214, etc.
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[[Vol.
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ought
to show more reverence for the four Elements, if they would show any for Moses.
For the Bible manifests the consideration and mystic significance in which they
were held by the Hebrew Lawgiver, on every page of the Pentateuch. The tent
which contained the Holy of Holies " was a Cosmic Symbol, sacred, in one
of its meanings, to the Elements, the four cardinal points, and ETHER. Josephus
shows it built in white, the colour of Ether. And this explains also why, in
the Egyptian and the Hebrew temples -- according to Clemens Alexandrinus -- a
gigantic curtain, supported by five pillars, separated the sanctum sanctorum
(now represented by the altar in Christian churches) wherein the priests alone
were permitted to enter, from the part accessible to the profane. By its four
colours the curtain symbolized the four principal Elements, and signified the
knowledge of the divine that the five senses of men can enable man to acquire
with the help of the four Elements. (See Stromata I., v. § 6).
In
Cory's Ancient Fragments, one of the "Chaldean Oracles" expresses
ideas about the elements and Ether in language singularly like that of the
Unseen Universe, written by two eminent scientists of our day.
It
states that "from ether have come all things, and to it all will return;
that the images of all things are indelibly impressed upon it; and that it is
the store-house of the germs or of the remains of all visible forms, and even
ideas. It appears as if this case strangely corroborates our assertion that
whatever discoveries may be made in our days will be found to have been
anticipated by many thousand years by our 'simple-minded ancestors.' " --
(Isis Unveiled.)
Whence
came the four elements and the malachim of the Hebrews? They have been made to
merge, by a theological sleight-of-hand on the part of the Rabbins and the
later Fathers of the Church into Jehovah, but their origin is identical with
that of the Cosmic gods of all other nations. Their symbols, whether born on
the shores of the Oxus, on the burning sands of Upper Egypt, or in the wild
forests, weird and glacial, which cover the slopes and peaks of the sacred
snowy mountains of Thessaly, or again, in the pampas of America, their symbols,
we repeat, when traced to their source, are ever one and the same. Whether
Egyptian or Pelasgian, Aryan or Semitic, the genius loci, the local god,
embraced in its unity all nature; but not especially the four elements any more
than one of their creations, such as trees, rivers, mounts or stars. The genius
loci -- a very late after-thought of the last sub-races of the Fifth Root-race,
when the primitive and grandiose meaning had become nearly lost -- was ever the
representative in his accumulated titles of all his colleagues. It was the god
of fire, symbolised by thunder, as Jove or Agni; the god of water, symbolised
by the fluvial bull or some sacred river or fountain, as Varuna, Neptune, etc.;
the god of air, manifesting in the hurricane and tempest, as Vayu and Indra;
and the god or spirit
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of
the earth, who appeared in earthquakes, like Pluto, Yama, and so many others.
These
were the Cosmic gods, ever synthesizing all in one, as found in every cosmogony
or mythology. Thus, the Greeks had their Dodonean Jupiter, who included in
himself the four elements and the four cardinal points, and who was recognized,
therefore, in old Rome under the pantheistic title of Jupiter Mundus; and who
now, in modern Rome, has become the Deus Mundus, the one mundane god, who is
made to swallow all others in the latest theology -- by the arbitrary decision
of his special ministers.
As
gods of Fire, Air, Water, they were celestial gods; as gods of the lower
region, they were infernal deities: the latter adjective applying simply to the
Earth. They were "Spirits of the Earth" under their respective names
of Yama, Pluto, Osiris, the "Lord of the lower kingdom, etc., etc.,"
and their tellurial character proves it sufficiently.* The ancients knew of no
worse abode after death than the Kamaloka, the limbus on this Earth. If it is
argued that the Dodonean Jupiter was identified with Aidoneus, the king of the
subterranean world, and Dis, or the Roman Pluto and the Dionysius Chthonios,
the subterranean, wherein, according to Creuzer (I, vi., ch. 1), oracles were
rendered, then it will become the pleasure of the Occultists to prove that both
Aidoneus and Dionysius are the bases of Adonai, or "Jurbo Adonai," as
Jehovah is called in Codex Nazaraeus. "Thou shalt not worship the Sun, who
is named Adonai, whose name is also Kadush and El-El" (Cod. Naz., I, 47;
see also Psalm lxxxix., 18), and also "Lord Bacchus." Baal-Adonis of
the Sods or Mysteries of the pre-Babylonian Jews became the Adonai by the
Massorah, the later-vowelled Jehovah. Hence the Roman Catholics are right. All
these Jupiters are of the same family; but Jehovah has to be included therein
to make it complete. Jupiter-Aerios or Pan, the Jupiter Ammon, and the
Jupiter-Bel-Moloch, are all correlations and one with Yurbo-Adonai, because
they are all one cosmic nature. It is that nature and power which create the specific
terrestrial symbol, and the physical and material fabric of the latter, which
proves the Energy manifesting through it as extrinsic.
For
primitive religion was something better than simple pre-occupation about physical
phenomena, as remarked by Schilling; and principles, more elevated than we
modern Sadducees know of, "were hidden under the transparent veil of such
merely natural divinities as thunder,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Gehenna of the Bible was a valley near Jerusalem, where the monotheistic
Jews immolated their children to Moloch, if the prophet Jeremiah is to be
believed on his word. The Scandinavian Hel or Hela was a frigid region -- again
Kamaloka -- and the Egyptian Amenti a place of purification. (See Isis
Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 11.)
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[[Vol.
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the
winds, and rain." The ancients knew and could distinguish the corporeal
from the spiritual elements, in the forces of nature.
The
four-fold Jupiter, as the four-faced Brahma -- the aerial, the fulgurant, the
terrestrial, and the marine god -- the lord and master of the four elements,
may stand as a representative for the great Cosmic gods of every nation. While
passing power over the fire to Hephaistos-Vulcan, over the sea, to
Poseidon-Neptune, and over the Earth, to Pluto-Aidoneus -- the AERIAL Jove was
all these; for AETHER, from the first, had pre-eminence over, and was the
synthesis of, all the elements.
Tradition
points to a grotto, a vast cave in the deserts of Central Asia, whereinto light
pours through its four seemingly natural apertures or clefts placed crossways
at the four cardinal points of the place. From noon till an hour before sunset
that light streams in, of four different colours, as averred -- red, blue,
orange-gold, and white -- owing to some either natural or artificially prepared
conditions of vegetation and soil. The light converges in the centre around a
pillar of white marble with a globe upon it, which represents our earth. It is
named the "grotto of Zaratushta."
When
included under the arts and sciences of the fourth race, the Atlanteans, the
phenomenal manifestation of the four elements, justly attributed by the
believers in Cosmic gods to the intelligent interference of the latter, assumed
a scientific character. The magic of the ancient priests consisted, in those
days, in addressing their gods in their own language. "The speech of the
men of the earth cannot reach the Lords. Each must be addressed in the language
of his respective element" -- is a sentence which will be shown pregnant
with meaning. "The Book of Rules" cited adds as an explanation of the
nature of that Element-language: "It is composed of sounds, not words; of
sounds, numbers and figures. He who knows how to blend the three, will call
forth the response of the superintending Power" (the regent-god of the
specific element needed).
Thus
this "language" is that of incantations or of MANTRAS, as they are
called in India, sound being the most potent and effectual magic agent, and the
first of the keys which opens the door of communication between Mortals and the
Immortals. He who believes in the words and teachings of St. Paul, has no right
to pick out from the latter those sentences only that he chooses to accept, to
the rejection of others; and St. Paul teaches most undeniably the existence of
cosmic gods and their presence among us. Paganism preached a dual and simultaneous
evolution: "creation" -- "spiritualem ac mundanum," as the
Roman Church has it -- ages before the advent of that Roman Church. Exoteric
phraseology has changed little with respect to divine hierarchies since the
most palmy days of Paganism, or "Idolatry." Names alone have changed,
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[[Vol.
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along
with claims which have now become false pretences. For when Plato put in the
mouth of the Highest Principle -- "Father AEther" or Jupiter -- these
words, for instance: "The gods of the gods of whom I am the maker (opifex)
as I am the father of all their works (operumque parens)"; he knew the
spirit of this sentence as fully, we suspect, as St. Paul did, when saying:
"For though there be that are called gods, whether in heaven or in earth,
as there be gods many and lords many," . . . . etc. (1 Cor. viii. 5.)*
Both knew the sense and the meaning of what they put forward in such guarded
terms.
Says
Sir W. Grove, F.R.S., speaking of the correlation of forces, "The ancients
when they witnessed a natural phenomenon, removed from ordinary analogies, and
unexplained by any mechanical action known to them, referred it to a soul, a
spiritual or preternatural power. . . . Air and gases were also at first deemed
spiritual, but subsequently they became invested with a more material
character; and the same words [[pneuma]], spirit, etc., were used to signify
the soul or a gas; the very word gas, from geist, a ghost or spirit, affords us
an instance of the gradual transmutation of a spiritual into a physical
conception . . . . . ." (P. 89.) This, the great man of science (in his
preface to the fifth edition of "Correlation of Physical Forces")
considers as the only concern of exact science, which has no business to meddle
with the CAUSES. "Cause and effect," he explains, "are
therefore, in their abstract relation to these forces, words solely of
convenience. We are totally unacquainted with the ultimate generating power of
each and all of them, and probably shall ever remain so; we can only ascertain
the norma of their actions; we must humbly refer their causation to one
omnipresent influence, and content ourselves with studying their effects and
developing, by experiment, their mutual relations" (p. xiv.).
This
policy once accepted, and the system virtually admitted in the above-quoted
words, namely, the spirituality of the "ultimate generating power,"
it would be more than illogical to refuse to recognise this quality which is
inherent in the material elements, or rather, in their com-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We cannot be taken to task by the Protestants for interpreting the verse from the
Corinthians as we do; for, if the translation in the English Bible is made
ambiguous, it is not so in the original texts, and the Roman Catholic Church
accepts the words of the Apostle in their true sense. For a proof see the
Commentaries on St. Paul's Epistles, by St. John Chrysostom "directly
inspired by the Apostle," and "who wrote under his dictation,"
as we are assured by the Marquis de Mirville, whose works are approved by Rome.
And St. Chrysostom says, commenting on that special verse, "And, though
there are (in fact) they who are called gods . . . . -- for it seems, there are
really several gods -- withal, and for all that, the God-principle and the
Superior God ceasing to remain essentially one and indivisible." . . .
Thus spoke the old Initiates also, knowing that the worship of minor gods could
never affect the "God Principle" (See de Mirville, "Des
Esprits," vol. ii., 322).
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[[Vol.
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pounds
-- as present in the fire, air, water or earth. The ancients knew these powers
so well, that, while concealing their true nature under various allegories, for
the benefit (or to the detriment) of the uneducated rabble, they never departed
from the multiple object in view, while inverting them. They contrived to throw
a thick veil over the nucleus of truth concealed by the symbol, but they ever
tried to preserve the latter as a record for future generations, sufficiently
transparent to allow their wise men to discern that truth behind the fabulous
form of the glyph or allegory. They are accused of superstition and credulity,
those ancient sages; and this by those very nations, which, learned in all the
modern arts and sciences, cultured and wise in their generation, accept to this
day as their one living and infinite God, the anthropomorphic
"Jehovah" of the Jews.
What
were some of the alleged "superstitions"? Hesiod believed, for
instance, that "the winds were the sons of the giant Typhoeus," who
were chained and unchained at will by AEolus, and the polytheistic Greeks
accepted it along with Hesiod. Why should not they, since the monotheistic Jews
had the same beliefs, with other names for their dramatis personae, and since
Christians believe in the same to this day? The Hesiodic AEolus, Boreas, etc.,
etc., were named Kadim, Tzaphon, Daren, and Ruach Hajan by the "chosen
people" of Israel. What is, then, the fundamental difference? While the
Hellenes were taught that AEolus tied and untied the winds, the Jews believed
as fervently that their Lord God, "with smoke coming out of his nostrils
and fire out of his mouth, rode upon a cherub and did fly; and was seen upon
the wings of the wind" (II. Sam., xxii. 9 and 11). The expressions of the
two nations are either both figures of speech, or both superstitions. We think
they are neither; but only arise from a keen sense of oneness with nature, and
a perception of the mysterious and the intelligent behind every natural
phenomenon, which the moderns no longer possess. Nor was it
"superstitious" in the Greek pagans to listen to the oracle of
Delphi, when, at the approach of the fleet of Xerxes, that oracle advised them
to "sacrifice to the Winds," if the same has to be regarded as Divine
Worship in the Israelites, who sacrificed as often to the wind and fire --
especially to the latter element. Do they not say that their "God is a
consuming fire" (Deut. iv., 24), who appeared generally as Fire and
"encompassed by fire"? and did not Elijah seek for him (the Lord) in
the "great strong wind, and in the earthquake"? Do not the Christians
repeat the same after them? Do not they, moreover, sacrifice to this day, to
the same "God of Wind and Water?" They do; because special prayers
for rain, dry weather, trade-winds and the calming of storms on the seas exist
to this hour in the prayer-books of the three Christian churches; and the
several hundred sects of the Protestant religion
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offer
them to their God upon every threat of calamity? The fact that they are no more
answered by Jehovah, than they were, probably, by Jupiter Pluvius, does not
alter the fact of these prayers being addressed to the Power or Powers supposed
to rule over the Elements, or of these Powers being identical in Paganism and
Christianity; or have we to believe that such prayers are crass idolatry and
absurd "superstition" only when addressed by a Pagan to his idol, and
that the same superstition is suddenly transformed into praiseworthy piety and
religion whenever the name of the celestial addressee is changed? But the tree
is known by its fruit. And the fruit of the Christian tree being no better than
that of the tree of Paganism, why should the former command more reverence than
the latter.
Thus,
when we are told by the Chevalier Drach, a converted Jew, and the Marquis de
Mirville, a Roman Catholic fanatic of the French aristocracy, that in Hebrew
lightning is a synonym of fury, and is always handled by an evil Spirit; that
Jupiter Fulgur or Fulgurans is also called by the Christians oelicius, and
denounced as the soul of lightning, its daemon*; we have either to apply the
same explanation and definitions to the "Lord God of Israel," under
the same circumstances, or renounce our right of abusing the gods and creeds of
other nations.
The
foregoing statements emanating as they do from two ardent and learned Roman
Catholics, are, to say the least, dangerous, in the presence of the Bible and
its prophets. Indeed, if Jupiter, the "chief Daemon of the Pagan
Greeks," hurled his deadly thunder-bolts and lightnings at those who
excited his wrath, so did the Lord God of Abraham and Jacob. We find in I.
Samuel, that "the Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered
his voice, and he sent out arrows (thunder bolts) and scattered them (Saul's
armies) with lightning, and discomforted them." (Chap. xxii. 14, 15.)
The
Athenians are accused of having sacrificed to Boreas; and this
"Demon" is charged with having submerged and wrecked 400 ships of the
Persian fleet on the rocks of Mount Pelion, and of having become so furious
"that all the Magi of Xerxes could hardly counteract it by offering
contra-sacrifices to Tethys" [Herodotus "Polym." cxc]. Very
fortunately, no authenticated instance is on the records of Christian wars
showing a like catastrophe on the same scale happening to one Christian fleet
owing to the "prayers" of its enemy -- another Christian nation. But
this is from no fault of theirs, for each prays as ardently to Jehovah for the
destruction of the other, as the Athenians prayed to Boreas. Both resorted to a
neat little piece of black magic con amore. Such abstinence from divine
interference being hardly due to lack of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Cosmolatry, p. 415.
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[[Vol.
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prayers,
sent to a common Almighty God for mutual destruction, where, then, shall we
draw the line between Pagan and Christian? And who can doubt that all
Protestant England would rejoice and offer thanks to the Lord, if, during some
future war, 400 ships of the hostile fleet were to be wrecked owing to such
holy prayers. What is, then, the difference, we ask again, between a Jupiter, a
Boreas, and a Jehovah? No more than this: The crime of one's own next-of-kin --
say of one's "father" -- is always excused and often exalted, whereas
the crime of our neighbour's parent is ever gladly punished by hanging. Yet the
crime is the same.
So
far the "blessings of Christianity" do not seem to have made any
appreciable advance on the morals of the converted Pagans.
The
above is not a defence of Pagan gods, nor is it an attack on the Christian
deity, nor does it mean belief in either. The writer is quite impartial, and
rejects the testimony in favour of either, neither praying to, believing in,
nor dreading any such "personal" and anthropomorphic God. The
parallels are brought forward simply as one more curious exhibition of the
illogical and blind fanaticism of the civilized theologian. For, so far, there
is not a very great difference between the two beliefs, and there is none in
their respective effects upon morality, or spiritual nature. The "light of
Christ" shines upon as hideous features of the animal-man now, as the
"light of Lucifer" did in days of old.
"Those
unfortunate heathens in their superstition regard even the Elements as
something that has comprehension! . . . . They still have faith in their idol
Vayu -- the god or, rather, Demon of the Wind and Air . . . they firmly believe
in the efficacy of their prayers, and in the powers of their Brahmins over the
winds and storms. . . . ." (The Missionary Lavoisier, of Cochin, in the
Journal des Colonies.) In reply to this, we may quote from Luke viii., 24:
"And he (Jesus) arose and rebuked the Wind and the raging of the Water,
and they ceased and there was a calm." And here is another quotation from
a prayer book: . . . "Oh, Virgin of the Sea, blessed Mother and Lady of
the Waters, stay thy waves . . ." etc., etc. (prayer of the Neapolitan and
Provencal sailors, copied textually from that of the Phoenician mariners to their
Virgingoddess Astarte.) The logical and irrepressible conclusion arising from
the parallels brought forward, and the denunciation of the Missionary is this:
The commands of the Brahmins to their element-gods not remaining
"ineffectual," the power of the Brahmins is thus placed on a par with
that of Jesus. Moreover, Astarte is shown not a whit weaker in potency than the
"Virgin of the Sea" of Christian sailors. It is not enough to give a
dog a bad name, and then hang him; the dog has to be proven guilty. Boreas and
Astarte may be devils in theological
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fancy,
but, as just remarked, the tree has to be judged by its fruit. And once the
Christians are shown as immoral and wicked as the pagans ever were, what
benefit has humanity derived from its change of gods and idols?
That,
however, which God and the Christian Saints are justified in doing, becomes a
crime, if successful, in simple mortals. Sorcery and incantations are regarded
as fables now; yet from the day of the Institutes of Justinian down to the laws
against witchcraft of England and America -- obsolete but not repealed to this
day -- such incantations, even when only suspected, were punished as criminal.
Why punish a chimera? And still we read of Constantine, the Emperor, sentencing
to death the philosopher Sopatrus for unchaining the winds, and thus preventing
ships loaded with grain from arriving in time to put an end to famine. Pausanias,
when affirming that he saw with his own eyes "men who by simple prayers
and incantations" stopped a strong hail-storm, is derided. This does not
prevent modern Christian writers from advising prayer during storm and danger,
and believing in its efficacy. Hoppo and Stadlein two magicians and sorcerers
-- were sentenced to death for throwing charms on fruit and transferring a
harvest by magic arts from one field to another, hardly a century ago, if we
can believe Sprenger, the famous writer, who vouches for it: "Qui fruges
excantassent segetem pellicentes incantando."
Let
us close by reminding the reader that, without the smallest shadow of
superstition, one may believe in the dual nature of every object on Earth -- in
the spiritual and the material, the visible and the invisible nature, and that
science virtually proves this, while denying its own demonstration. For if, as
Sir William Grove has it, the electricity we handle is but the result of
ordinary matter affected by something invisible, the "ultimate generating
power" of every Force, the "one omnipresent influence," then it
only becomes natural that one should believe as the ancients did; namely, that
every Element is dual in its nature. "ETHEREAL fire is the emanation of the
KABIR proper; the aerial is but the union (correlation) of the former with
terrestrial fire, and its guidance and application on our earthly plane belongs
to a Kabir of a lesser dignity" -- an Elemental, perhaps, as an Occultist
would call it; and the same may be said of every Cosmic Element.
No
one will deny that the human being is possessed of various forces: magnetic,
sympathetic, antipathetic, nervous, dynamical, occult, mechanical, mental --
every kind of force; and that the physical forces are all biological in their essence,
seeing that they intermingle with, and often merge into, those forces that we
have named intellectual and moral -- the first being the vehicles, so to say,
the upadhi, of the second. No one, who does not deny soul in man, would
hesitate in
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saying
that their presence and commingling are the very essence of our being; that
they constitute the Ego in man, in fact. These potencies have their
physiological, physical, mechanical, as well as their nervous, ecstatic,
clairaudient, and clairvoyant phenomena, which are now regarded and recognised
as perfectly natural, even by science. Why should man be the only exception in
nature, and why cannot even the ELEMENTS have their vehicles, their
"Vahans" in what we call the PHYSICAL FORCES? And why, above all,
should such beliefs be called "superstition" along with the religions
of old?
--------------
§
XV.
ON
KWAN-SHI-YIN AND KWAN-YIN.
LIKE
Avalokiteshwara, Kwan-shi-yin has passed through several transformations, but
it is an error to say of him that he is a modern invention of the Northern
Buddhists, for under another appellation he has been known from the earliest
times. The Secret Doctrine teaches that "He who is the first to appear at
Renovation will be the last to come before Re-absorption (pralaya)." Thus
the logoi of all nations, from the Vedic Visvakarma of the Mysteries down to
the Saviour of the present civilised nations, are the "Word" who was
"in the beginning" (or the reawakening of the energising powers of
Nature) with the One ABSOLUTE. Born of Fire and Water, before these became
distinct elements, IT was the "Maker" (fashioner or modeller) of all
things; "without him was not anything made that was made"; "in
whom was life, and the life was the light of men"; and who finally may be
called, as he ever has been, the Alpha and the Omega of manifested Nature.
"The great Dragon of Wisdom is born of Fire and Water, and into Fire and
Water will all be re-absorbed with him" (Fa-Hwa-King). As this Bodhisatva
is said "to assume any form he pleases" from the beginning of a
Manvantara to its end, though his special birthday (memorial day) is celebrated
according to the Kin-kwang-ming-King ("Luminous Sutra of Golden
Light") in the second month on the nineteenth day, and that of
"Maitreya Buddha" in the first month on the first day, yet the two
are one. He will appear as Maitreya Buddha, the last of the Avatars and
Buddhas, in the seventh Race. This belief and expectation are universal
throughout the East. Only it is not in the Kali yug, our present terrifically
materialistic age of Darkness, the "Black Age," that a new Saviour of
Humanity can ever appear. The Kali yug is
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"l'Age
d'Or" (!) only in the mystic writings of some French pseudo-Occultists.
(See "La Mission des Juifs.")
Hence
the ritual in the exoteric worship of this deity was founded on magic. The
Mantras are all taken from special books kept secret by the priests, and each
is said to work a magical effect; as the reciter or reader produces, by simply
chanting them, a secret causation which results in immediate effects. Kwan-Shi-Yin
is Avalokiteshwara, and both are forms of the seventh Universal Principle;
while in its highest metaphysical character this deity is the synthetic
aggregation of all the planetary Spirits, Dhyani Chohans. He is the
"Self-manifested;" in short, the "Son of the Father."
Crowned with seven dragons, above his statue there appears the inscription
Pu-Tsi-K'iun-ling, "the universal Saviour of all living beings."
Of
course the name given in the archaic volume of the Stanzas is quite different,
but Kwan-Yin is a perfect equivalent. In a temple of Pu'to, the sacred island
of the Buddhists in China, Kwan-Shi-Yin is represented floating on a black
aquatic bird (Kala-Hansa), and pouring on the heads of mortals the elixir of
life, which, as it flows, is transformed into one of the chief Dhyani-Buddhas
-- the Regent of a star called the "Star of Salvation." In his third
transformation Kwan-Yin is the informing spirit or genius of Water. In China
the Dalai-Lama is believed to be an incarnation of Kwan-Shi-Yin, who in his
third terrestrial appearance was a Bodhisattva, while the Teshu Lama is an
incarnation of Amitabha Buddha, or Gautama.
It
may be remarked en passant that a writer must indeed have a diseased
imagination to discover phallic worship everywhere, as do the authors of
"China Revealed" (McClatchey) and "Phallicism." The first
discovers "the old phallic gods, represented under two evident symbols --
the Khan or Yang, which is the membrum virile, and the Kwan or Yin, the pudendum
muliebre." (See "Phallicism," p. 273.) Such a rendering seems
the more strange as Kwan-Shi-Yin (Avalokiteswara) and Kwan-Yin, besides being
now the patron deities of the Buddhist ascetics, the Yogis of Thibet, are the
gods of chastity, and are, in their esoteric meaning, not even that which is
implied in the rendering of Mr. Rhys Davids' "Buddhism," (p. 202):
"The name Avalokiteshwara . . . means 'the Lord who looks down from on
high.' "Nor is Kwan-Shi-Yin "the Spirit of the Buddhas present in the
Church," but, literally interpreted, it means "the Lord that is
seen," and in one sense, "the divine SELF perceived by Self"
(the human) -- the Atman or seventh principle merged in the Universal,
perceived by, or the object of perception to, Buddhi, the sixth principle or
divine Soul in man. In a still higher sense, Avalokiteshwara = Kwan-Shi-Yin,
referred to as the seventh Universal principle, is the Logos
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perceived
by the Universal Buddhi -- or Soul, as the synthetic aggregate of the
Dhyani-Buddhas: and is not the "Spirit of Buddha present in the
Church," but the omnipresent universal Spirit manifested in the temple of
Kosmos or Nature. This Orientalistic etymology of Kwan and Yin is on a par with
that of "Yogini," which, we are told by Mr. Hargrave Jennings,
"is a Sanskrit word, in the dialects pronounced Yogi or Zogee (!), and is
equivalent to Sena, and exactly the same as Duti or Duti-Ca' -- i.e., a sacred
prostitute of the temple, worshipped as Yoni or Sakti" (p. 60). "The
books of morality," in India, "direct a faithful wife to shun the
society of Yogini or females who have been adored as Sakti . . . amongst the
votaries of a most licentious description." Nothing should surprise us
after this. And it is, therefore, with hardly a smile that we find another
preposterous absurdity quoted about "Budh," as being a name
"which signifies not only the sun as the source of generation but also the
male organ (Round Towers of Ireland; quoted by Mr. Hargrave Jennings in
"Phallicism," p. 264). Max Muller, in his "False
Analogies," says that "the most celebrated Chinese scholar of his
time, Abel Remusat," maintains "that the three syllables I Hi Wei (in
the fourteenth chapter of the Tao-te-king) were meant for Je-ho-vah (Science of
Religion, p. 332); and again, Father Amyot, who "feels certain that the
three persons of the Trinity could be recognised" in the same work. And if
Abel Remusat, why not Hargrave Jennings? Every scholar will recognise the
absurdity of ever seeing in Budh, "the enlightened" and "the
awakened," a "phallic symbol."
Kwan-shi-yin,
then, is "the Son identical with his Father" mystically, or the Logos
-- the word. He is called the "Dragon of Wisdom" in Stanza III., as all
the Logoi of all the ancient religious systems are connected with, and
symbolised by, serpents. In old Egypt, the God Nahbkoon, "he who unites
the doubles," (astral light re-uniting by its dual physiological and
spiritual potency the divine human to its purely divine Monad, the prototype
"in heaven" or Nature) was represented as a serpent on human legs,
either with or without arms. It was the emblem of the resurrection of Nature,
as also of Christ with the Ophites, and of Jehovah as the brazen serpent healing
those who looked at him; the serpent being an emblem of Christ with the
Templars also, (see the Templar degree in Masonry). The symbol of Knouph (Khoum
also), or the soul of the world, says Champollion (Pantheon, text 3), "is
represented among other forms under that of a huge serpent on human legs; this
reptile, being the emblem of the good genius and the veritable Agathodaemon, is
sometimes bearded." The sacred animal is thus identical with the serpent
of the Ophites, and is figured on a great number of engraved stones, called
Gnostic or Basilidean gems. This serpent appears with various heads (human and
animal), but its gems
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 473 SNOBS, OR DRAGONS?
are
always found inscribed with the name [[CHNOUBIS]] (Chnoubis). This symbol is
identical with one which, according to Jamblichus and Champollion, was called
"the first of the celestial gods"; the god Hermes, or Mercury with
the Greeks, to which god Hermes Trismegistos attributes the invention of, and
the first initiation of men into, magic; and Mercury is Budh, Wisdom,
Enlightenment, or "Re-awakening" into the divine Science.
To
close, Kwan-Shi-Yin and Kwan-Yin are the two aspects (male and female) of the
same principle in Kosmos, Nature and Man, of divine wisdom and intelligence.
They are the "Christos-Sophia" of the mystic Gnostics -- the Logos
and its Sakti. In their longing for the expression of some mysteries never to
be wholly comprehended by the profane, the Ancients, knowing that nothing could
be preserved in human memory without some outward symbol, have chosen the (to
us) often ridiculous images of the Kwan-Yins to remind man of his origin and
inner nature. To the impartial, however, the Madonnas in crinolines and the
Christs in white kid gloves must appear far more absurd than the Kwan-Shi-Yin
and Kwan-Yin in their dragon garb. The subjective can hardly be expressed by
the objective. Therefore, since the symbolic formula attempts to characterise
that which is above scientific reasoning, and as often far beyond our
intellects, it must needs go beyond that intellect in some shape or other, or
else it will fade out from human remembrance.
---------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page 474]]
[[blank]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page 475]]
BOOK
I. -- PART III.
Burnley
ADDENDA.
SCIENCE
AND THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
CONTRASTED.
"The
knowledge of this nether world --
Say,
friend, what is it, false or true?
The
false, what mortal cares to know?
The
true, what mortal ever knew?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page 476]]
CONTENTS.
--------------
PAGE
I.
REASONS FOR THESE ADDENDA ... 477
II.MODERN
PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF ... 482
III.
"AN LUMEN SIT CORPUS, NEC NON" ... 483
IV.
IS GRAVITATION A LAW? ... 490
V.
THE THEORIES OF ROTATION IN SCIENCE ... 500
VI.
THE MASKS OF SCIENCE ... 506
VII.
AN ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE ... 523
VIII.
LIFE, FORCE, OR GRAVITY? ... 529
IX.
THE SOLAR THEORY ... 540
X.
THE COMING FORCE ... 554
XI.
ON THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS ... 566
XII.
ANCIENT THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS ... 579
XIII.
THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY ... 588
XIV.
FORCES -- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES? ... 601
XV.
GODS, MONADS, AND ATOMS ... 610
XVI.
CYCLIC EVOLUTION AND KARMA ... 634
XVII.
THE ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY ... 647
XVIII.
SUMMARY OF THE MUTUAL POSITION ... 668
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 477 MUTUAL POSITION DEFINED.
ADDENDA
TO BOOK I.
--------------
I.
REASONS
FOR THESE ADDENDA.
MANY
of the doctrines contained in the foregoing Seven Stanzas and Commentaries
having been studied and critically examined by some Western Theosophists,
certain of the occult teachings have been found wanting from the ordinary
stand-point of modern scientific knowledge. They seemed to encounter
insuperable difficulties in the way of their acceptance, and to require
reconsideration in view of scientific criticism. Some friends have already been
tempted to regret the necessity of so often calling in question the assertions
of modern Science. It appeared to them -- and I here repeat only their
arguments -- that "to run counter to the teachings of its most eminent
exponents, was to court a premature discomfiture in the eyes of the Western
World."
It
is, therefore, desirable to define once and for all the position which the
writer, who does not agree in this with her friends, intends to maintain. So
far as Science remains what in the words of Prof. Huxley it is, viz.,
"organized common sense"; so far as its inferences are drawn from
accurate premises -- its generalizations resting on a purely inductive basis --
every Theosophist and Occultist welcomes respectfully and with due admiration
its contributions to the domain of cosmological law. There can be no possible
conflict between the teachings of occult and so-called exact Science, where the
conclusions of the latter are grounded on a substratum of unassailable fact. It
is only when its more ardent exponents, over-stepping the limits of observed
phenomena in order to penetrate into the arcana of Being, attempt to wrench the
formation of Kosmos and its living Forces from Spirit, and attribute all to
blind matter, that the Occultists claim the right to dispute and call in
question their theories. Science cannot, owing to the very nature of things,
unveil the mystery of the universe around us. Science can, it is true, collect,
classify, and generalize upon phenomena; but the occultist, arguing from
admitted metaphysical data, declares that the daring explorer, who would probe
the inmost secrets of Nature, must transcend the narrow limitations of sense,
and transfer his consciousness into the region of noumena and the sphere of
primal causes. To effect this, he must develop faculties which are absolutely
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 478 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
dormant
-- save in a few rare and exceptional cases -- in the constitution of the
off-shoots of our present Fifth Root-race in Europe and America. He can in no
other conceivable manner collect the facts on which to base his speculations.
Is this not apparent on the principles of Inductive Logic and Metaphysics
alike?
On
the other hand, whatever the writer may do, she will never be able to satisfy
both Truth and Science. To offer the reader a systematic and uninterrupted
version of the Archaic Stanzas is impossible. A gap of 43 verses or Slokas has
to be left between the 7th (already given) and the 51st, which is the subject
of Book II., though the latter are made to run from 1 et seq. for easier
reading and reference. The appearance of man on Earth alone occupies as many
stanzas, which describe minutely his primal evolution from the human Dhyan Chohans;
the state of the globe at that time, etc., etc. A great number of names
referring to chemical substances and other compounds, which have now ceased to
combine together, and are therefore unknown to the later offshoots of our Fifth
Race, occupy a considerable space. As they are simply untranslateable, and
would remain in every case inexplicable, they are omitted, along with those
which cannot be made public. Nevertheless, even the little that is given will
irritate any follower and defender of dogmatic materialistic Science who
happens to read this.
Before
proceeding to other Stanzas, it is proposed, therefore, to defend those already
given. They are not in perfect accord or harmony with modern Science -- this we
all know. Had they been, however, as much in agreement with the views of modern
knowledge as a lecture by Sir W. Thomson, they would have been rejected all the
same. For they teach belief in conscious Powers and Spiritual Entities; in
terrestrial, semi-intelligent, and highly intellectual Forces on other planes*;
and in Beings that dwell around us in spheres imperceptible, whether through
telescope or microscope. Hence the necessity of examining the beliefs of
materialistic Science: of comparing its views about the "Elements"
with the opinions of the ancients, and of analysing the physical Forces as they
exist in modern perception before the Occultists admit themselves to be in the
wrong. We shall touch upon the constitution of the Sun and planets, and the
occult characteristics of what are called Devas and Genii, and are now termed
by Science, Force, or "modes of motion," and see whether esoteric
belief is defensible or not (Vide infra, "Gods, Monads, and Atoms)".
Notwithstanding the efforts made to the contrary, an unprejudiced mind will
discover
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Their intellection, of course, being of quite a different nature to any we can
conceive of on Earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 479 DUAL NATURE OF THE SUN.
under
Newton's "agent, material or immaterial" (of his third letter to
Bentley), the agent which causes gravity, and, in his personal working God, one
finds just as much of the metaphysical devas and genii, as in Kepler's angelus
rector conducting each planet, and the species immateriata by which the
celestial bodies were carried along in their courses, according to that
astronomer.
We
shall have, in Book II., to openly approach dangerous subjects. We must bravely
face Science and declare, in the teeth of materialistic learning, of Idealism,
Hylo-Idealism, Positivism and all-denying modern Psychology, that the true
Occultist believes in "Lords of Light;" that he believes in a Sun,
which, far from being simply "a lamp of day" moving in accordance
with physical law, and far from being merely one of those Suns, which according
to Richter -- ". . . . are Sun-flowers of a higher light" -- is, like
milliards of other Suns, the dwelling or the vehicle of a god, and a host of
gods.
In
this question, of course, it is the Occultists who will be worsted. They will
be considered on the prima facie aspect of the dispute to be ignoramuses, and
labelled with more than one of the usual epithets given to those whom the
superficially judging public, itself ignorant of the great underlying truths in
nature, accuses of believing in mediaeval superstitions. Let it be so.
Submitting beforehand to every criticism in order to go on with their task,
they only claim the privilege of showing that the physicists are as much at
loggerheads among themselves in their speculations, as the latter are with the
teachings of Occultism.
The
Sun is matter, and the Sun is Spirit. Our ancestors -- the "heathen,"
-- along with their modern successors, the Parsis -- were, and are, wise enough
in their generation to see in it the symbol of Divinity, and at the same time
to sense within, concealed by the physical Symbol, the bright God of Spiritual
and terrestrial Light. Such belief is now regarded as a superstition only by
rank materialism, which denies Deity, Spirit, Soul, and admits no intelligence
outside the mind of man. But if too much of wrong superstition bred by
"Churchianity" -- as Lawrence Oliphant calls it -- "renders a
man a fool," too much scepticism makes him mad. We prefer the charge of
folly in believing too much, to that of a madness which denies everything, as
do Materialism and Idealism. Hence, the Occultists are fully prepared to
receive their dues from Materialism, and to meet the adverse criticism which
will be poured on this work, not for writing it, but for believing in that
which it contains.
Therefore
the discoveries, hypotheses, and unavoidable objections which will be brought
forward by the scientific critics must be anticipated and disposed of. It has
also to be shown how far the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 480 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
occult
teachings depart from real science, and whether the ancient or the modern
theories are the most logically and philosophically correct. The unity and
mutual relations of all parts of Kosmos were known to the ancients, before they
became evident to modern astronomers and philosophers. And if even the external
and visible portions of the Universe and their mutual relations cannot be
explained in any other terms than those used by the adherents of the mechanical
theory of the Universe in physical science, it follows that no materialist, who
denies that the Soul of Kosmos (which appertains to metaphysical philosophy)
exists, has the right to trespass upon that metaphysical domain. That physical
science is trying to, and actually does, encroach upon it, is only one more
proof that "might is right," and no more.
Another
good reason for these Addenda is this. Since only a certain portion of the
Secret teachings can be given out in the present age, if they were published
without any explanations or commentary, the doctrines would never be understood
even by theosophists. Therefore they must be contrasted with the speculations
of modern science. Archaic axioms must be placed side by side with modern
hypotheses and comparison left to the sagacious reader.
On
the question of the "Seven Governors," as Hermes calls the
"Seven Builders," the Spirits which guide the operations of nature,
the animated atoms of which are the shadows, in their world, of their Primaries
in the astral realms -- this work will, of course, besides the men of Science,
have every materialist against it. But this opposition can, at most, be only
temporary. People have laughed at everything and scouted every unpopular idea
at first, and then ended by accepting it. Materialism and scepticism are evils
that must remain in the world as long as man has not quitted his present gross
form to don the one he had during the first and second races of this Round.
Unless scepticism and our present natural ignorance are equilibrated by
intuition and a natural spirituality, every being afflicted with such feelings
will see in himself no better than a bundle of flesh, bones, and muscles, with
an empty garret inside him which serves the purpose of storing his sensations
and feelings. Sir Humphry Davy was a great scientist, as deeply versed in
physics as any theorist of our day, yet he loathed materialism. "I heard
with disgust," he says, "in the dissecting-rooms, the plan of the
physiologist, of the gradual secretion of matter, and its becoming endued with
irritability, ripening into sensibility, and acquiring such organs as were
necessary, by its own inherent forces, and at last rising into intellectual
existence." Nevertheless, physiologists are not the most to be blamed for
speaking of that only which they can see and estimate on the evidence of their
physical senses. Astronomers
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 481 THE SONS OF LIGHT.
and
physicists are, we consider, far more illogical in their materialistic views
than even physiologists, and this has to be proved. Milton's --
.
. . . . . . . . . . . "Light
Ethereal,
first of things, quintessence pure,"
has
become with the materialists only --
.
. . . . . Prime cheerer, light,
Of
all material beings, first and best.
For
the occultists it is both Spirit and Matter. Behind the "mode of
motion," now regarded as "the property of matter" and nothing
more, they perceive the radiant noumenon. It is the "Spirit of
Light," the first born of the Eternal pure Element, whose energy (or
emanation) is stored in the Sun, the great Life-Giver of the physical world, as
the hidden Concealed Spiritual Sun is the Light- and Life-Giver of the
Spiritual and Psychic Realms. Bacon was one of the first to strike the key-note
of materialism, not only by his inductive method (renovated from ill-digested
Aristotle), but by the general tenor of his writings. He inverts the order of
mental Evolution when saying that "the first Creation of God was the light
of the sense; the last was the light of the reason; and his Sabbath work ever
since is the illumination of the Spirit." It is just the reverse. The
light of Spirit is the eternal Sabbath of the mystic or occultist, and he pays
little attention to that of mere sense. That which is meant by the allegorical
sentence, "Fiat Lux" is,-- when esoterically rendered -- "Let
there be the 'Sons of Light,' " or the noumena of all phenomena. Thus the
Roman Catholics rightly interpret the passage as referring to Angels, and
wrongly as meaning Powers created by an anthropomorphic God, whom they
personify in the ever thundering and punishing Jehovah.
These
beings are the "Sons of Light," because they emanate from, and are
self-generated in, that infinite Ocean of Light, whose one pole is pure Spirit
lost in the absoluteness of Non-Being, and the other, the matter in which it
condenses, crystallizing into a more and more gross type as it descends into
manifestation. Therefore matter, though it is, in one sense, but the illusive
dregs of that Light whose limbs are the Creative Forces, yet has in it the full
presence of the Soul thereof, of that Principle, which none -- not even the
"Sons of Light," evolved from its ABSOLUTE DARKNESS -- will ever
know. The idea is as beautifully, as it is truthfully, expressed by Milton, who
hails the holy Light, which is the --
".
. . . . Offspring of Heaven, first-born,
And
of th' Eternal co-eternal beam;
.
. . . . Since God is light,
And
never but in unapproached Light
Dwelt
from Eternity,. dwelt then in thee
Bright
effluence, of bright essence increate."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 482 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
II.
MODERN
PHYSICISTS ARE PLAYING AT BLIND MAN'S BUFF.
AND
now Occultism puts to Science the question: "Is light a body, or is it
not?" Whatever the answer of the latter, the former is prepared to show
that, to this day, the most eminent physicists know neither one way nor the
other. To know what is light, and whether it is an actual substance or a mere
undulation of the "ethereal medium," Science has first to learn what
are in reality Matter, Atom, Ether, Force. Now, the truth is, that it knows
nothing of any of these, and admits it. It has not even agreed what to believe
in, as dozens of hypotheses emanating from various and very eminent Scientists
on the same subject, are antagonistic to each other and often
self-contradictory. Thus their learned speculations may, with a stretch of
good-will, be accepted as "working hypotheses" in a secondary sense,
as Stallo puts it. But being radically inconsistent with each other, they must
finally end by mutually destroying themselves. As declared by the author of
"Concepts of Modern Physics":--
"It
must not be forgotten that the several departments of Science are simply
arbitrary divisions of labour. In these several departments the same physical object
may be considered under different aspects. The physicist may study its
molecular relations, while the chemist determines its atomic constitution. But
when they both deal with the same element or agent, it cannot have one set of
properties in physics, and another set contradictory of them, in chemistry. If
the physicist and chemist alike assume the existence of ultimate atoms
absolutely invariable in bulk and weight, the atom cannot be a cube or oblate
spheroid for physical, and a sphere for chemical purposes. A group of constant
atoms cannot be an aggregate of extended and absolutely inert and impenetrable
masses in a crucible or retort, and a system of mere centres of force as part
of a magnet or of a Clamond battery. The universal Ether cannot be soft and
mobile to please the chemist, and rigid-elastic to satisfy the physicist; it
cannot be continuous at the command of Sir William Thomson and discontinuous on
the suggestion of Cauchy or Fresnel."*
The
eminent physicist, G. A. Hirn, may likewise be quoted saying the same in the
43rd Volume of the Memoires de l'Academie Royale de Belgique, which we
translate from the French, as cited: "When one sees the assurance with
which are to-day affirmed doctrines which attribute the collectivity, the universality
of the phenomena to the motions alone of the atom, one has a right to expect to
find likewise unanimity on the qualities described to this unique being, the
foundation of all that exists. Now, from the first examination of the
particular systems proposed, one feels the strangest deception; one perceives
that the atom of the chemist, the atom of the physicist, that of the
metaphysician, and that of the mathematician . . . . have absolutely nothing in
common but the name! The inevitable result is the existing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Concepts of Modern Physics," p. xi-xii., Introd. to the 2nd Edit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 483 NO AGREEMENT AMONG SCIENTISTS.
subdivision
of our sciences, each of which, in its own little pigeon-hole, constructs an
atom which satisfies the requirements of the phenomena it studies, without
troubling itself in the least about the requirements proper to the phenomena of
the neighbouring pigeon-hole. The metaphysician banishes the principles of
attraction and repulsion as dreams; the mathematician, who analyses the laws of
elasticity and those of the propagation of light, admits them implicitly,
without even naming them. . . . The chemist cannot explain the grouping of the
atoms, in his often complicated molecules, without attributing to his atoms
specific distinguishing qualities; for the physicist and the metaphysician,
partisans of the modern doctrines, the atom is, on the contrary, always and
everywhere the same. What am I saying? THERE IS NO AGREEMENT EVEN IN ONE AND
THE SAME SCIENCE AS TO THE PROPERTIES OF THE ATOM. Each constructs an atom to
suit his own fancy, in order to explain some special phenomenon with which he is
particularly concerned."*
The
above is the photographically correct image of modern Science and physics. The
"pre-requisite of that incessant play of the 'scientific imagination,'
" which is so often found in Professor Tyndall's eloquent discourses, is
vivid indeed, as shown by Stallo, and for contradictory variety leaves far
behind it any "phantasies" of occultism. However it may be, if
physical theories are confessedly "mere formal, explanatory, didactic
devices," and if "atomism is only a symbolical graphic
system,"** then the occultist can hardly be regarded as assuming too much,
when he places alongside of these devices and "symbolical systems" of
modern Science, the symbols and devices of Archaic teachings.
--------------
III.
"AN
LUMEN SIT CORPUS, NEC NON?"
MOST
decidedly Light is not a body, we are told. Physical Sciences say Light is a
Force, a vibration, the undulation of ether. It is the property or quality of
matter, or even an affection thereof -- never a body!
Just
so. For this discovery, the knowledge -- whatever it may be worth -- that light
or caloric is not a motion of material particles, Science is chiefly indebted,
if not solely, to Sir W. Grove. It was he who was the first in a lecture at the
London Institution, in 1842, to show that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Recherches experimentales sur la relation qui existe entre la resistance
de Pair et sa temperature," p. 68.
**
From the criticism of "Concepts of Modern Physics" in Nature. See Stallo's
work, p. xvi. of Introduction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 484 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"light,
heat, etc., etc.* are affections of matter itself, and not a distinct ethereal,
'imponderable,' fluid, (a state of matter now) permeating it." (See
"Correlation of the Physical Forces," Preface). Yet, perhaps, for
some physicists -- as for Oersted, a very eminent Scientist -- FORCE and FORCES
were tacitly "Spirit (and hence Spirits) in Nature." What several
rather mystical Scientists taught was that light, heat, magnetism, electricity
and gravity, etc., were not the final causes of the visible phenomena,
including planetary motion, but themselves the Secondary effects of other
Causes, for which Science in our day cares very little, but in which Occultism
believes, for the Occultists have exhibited proofs of the validity of their
claims in every age. And in what age were there no Occultists and no ADEPTS?
Sir
Isaac Newton held to the Pythagorean corpuscular theory, and was also inclined
to admit its consequences; which made the Count de Maistre hope, at one time,
that Newton would ultimately lead Science back to the recognition of the fact
that Forces and the Celestial bodies were propelled and guided by Intelligences
(Soirees, vol. ii.). But de Maistre counted without his host. The innermost
thoughts and ideas of Newton were perverted, and of his great mathematical
learning only the mere physical husk was turned to account. Had poor Sir Isaac
foreseen to what use his successors and followers would apply his "
gravity,"** that pious and religious man would surely have quietly eaten
his apple, and never breathed a word about any mechanical ideas connected with
its fall.
Great
contempt is shown for metaphysics generally and for onto-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Robert Ward, discussing the questions of Heat and Light in the November
Journal of Science, 1881, shows us how utterly ignorant is Science about one of
the commonest facts of nature -- the heat of the sun. He says:-- "The
question of the temperature of the sun has been the subject of investigation
with many scientists: Newton, one of the first investigators of this problem,
tried to determine it, and after him all the scientists who have been occupied
with calorimetry have followed his example. All have believed themselves
successful, and have formulated their results with great confidence. The
following, in the chronological order of the publication of the results, are
the temperatures (in centigrade degrees) found by each of them: Newton,
1,699,300 deg.; Pouillet, 1,461 deg.; Tollner, 102,200 deg.; Secchi, 5,344,840
deg.; Ericsson, 2,726,700 deg.; Fizeau, 7,500 deg.; Waterston, 9,000,000 deg.;
Spoeren, 27,000 deg.; Deville, 9,500 deg.; Soret, 5,801,846 deg.; Vicaire,
1,500 deg.; Rosetti, 20,000 deg. The difference is as 1,400 deg. against
9,000,000 deg., or no less than 8,998,600 deg.!! There probably does not exist
in science a more astonishing contradiction than that revealed in these
figures. And yet without doubt if an Occultist were to give out an estimate,
each of these gentlemen would vehemently protest in the name of 'EXACT' Science
at the rejection of his special result." (From the Theosophist.)
**
According to one atheistic idealist -- Dr. Lewins -- "When Sir Isaac, in
1687 . . . . showed mass and atom acted upon . . . . by innate activity . . . .
he effectually disposed of Spirit, Anima, or Divinity, as supererogatory."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 485 THE METAPHYSICS OF PHYSICAL SCIENCE.
logical
metaphysics especially. But we see, whenever the Occultists are bold enough to
raise their diminished heads, that materialistic, physical science is
honey-combed with metaphysics;* that its most fundamental principles, while
inseparably wedded to transcendentalism, are nevertheless, in order to show
modern science divorced from such "dreams," tortured and often
ignored in the maze of contradictory theories and hypotheses. A very good
corroboration of this charge lies in the fact that Science finds itself
absolutely compelled to accept the "hypothetical" Ether and to try to
explain it on the materialistic grounds of atomo-mechanical laws. This attempt
has led directly to the most fatal discrepancies and radical inconsistencies
between the assumed nature of Ether and its physical actions. A second proof is
found in the many contradictory statements about the atom -- the most
metaphysical object in creation.
Now,
what does the modern science of physics know of AEther, the first concept of
which belongs undeniably to ancient philosophers, the Greeks having borrowed it
from the Aryans, and the origin of modern AEther being found in, and disfigured
from, AKASA? This disfigurement
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Stallo's above-cited work, "Concepts of Modern Physics," a volume
which has called forth the liveliest protests and criticisms, is recommended to
anyone inclined to doubt this statement. "The professed antagonism of
Science to metaphysics," he writes, "has led the majority of
scientific specialists to assume that the methods and results of empirical
research are wholly independent of the control of the laws of thought. They
either silently ignore, or openly repudiate, the simplest canons of logic,
including the laws of non-contradiction and . . . resent with the utmost
vehemence, every application of the rule of consistency to their hypotheses and
theories . . . . and they regard an examination (of these) . . . . in the light
of these laws as an impertinent intrusion of 'a priori principles and methods'
into the domains of empirical science. Persons of this cast of mind find no
difficulty in holding that atoms are absolutely inert, and at the same time
asserting that these atoms are perfectly elastic; or in maintaining that the
physical universe, in its last analysis, resolves itself into 'dead' matter and
motion, and yet denying that all physical energy is in reality kinetic; or in
proclaiming that all phenomenal differences in the objective world are
ultimately due to the various motions of absolutely simple material units, and,
nevertheless, repudiating the proposition that these units are equal" . .
. . (p. xix.) "The blindness of eminent physicists to some of the most
obvious consequences of their own theories is marvellous . . . . When Prof.
Tait, in conjunction with Prof. Stewart, announces that 'matter is simply
passive' (The Unseen Universe, sec. 104), and then, in connection with Sir W.
Thomson, declares that 'matter has an innate power of resisting external
influences' (Treat. on Nat. Phil., Vol. I., sec. 216), it is hardly impertinent
to inquire how these statements are to be reconciled. When Prof. Du Bois
Reymond . . . . insists upon the necessity of reducing all the processes of
nature to motions of a substantial, indifferent substratum, wholly destitute of
quality ('Ueber die Grenzen des Naturerkennens,' p. 5), having declared shortly
before in the same lecture that 'resolution of all changes in the material
world into motions of atoms caused by their constant central forces would be
the completion of natural science,' we are in a perplexity from which we have
to be relieved." (Pref. xliii.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 486 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
is
claimed to be a modification and refinement of the idea of Lucretius. Let us then
examine the modern concept from several scientific volumes containing the
admissions of the physicists themselves.
The
existence of Ether is accepted by physical astronomy, in ordinary physics, and
in chemistry. Astronomers, who first began by regarding it as a fluid of
extreme tenuity and mobility, offering no sensible resistance to the motions of
celestial bodies, never gave a thought to its continuity or discontinuity.
"Its main function in modern astronomy has been to serve as a basis for hydrodynamical
theories of gravitation. In physics this fluid appeared for some time in
several roles in connection with the 'imponderables'" -- so cruelly put to
death by Sir W. Grove. Some physicists have even identified the ether of space
with those "imponderables." Then came their Kinetic theories; and
from the date of the dynamical theory of heat, it was chosen in optics as a
substratum for luminous undulations. Then, in order to explain the dispersion
and polarization of light, physicists had to resort once more to their
"scientific imagination" and forthwith endowed the Ether with (a)
atomic or molecular structure, and (b) with an enormous elasticity, "so
that its resistance to deformation far exceeded that of the most rigid elastic
bodies" (Stallo). This necessitated the theory of the essential
discontinuity of matter, hence of Ether. After having accepted this
discontinuity, in order to account for dispersion and polarization, theoretical
impossibilities were discovered with regard to such dispersions. Cauchy's
"scientific imagination" saw in atoms "material points without
extension," and he proposed, in order to obviate the most formidable
obstacles to the undulatory theory (namely, some well-known mechanical theorems
which stood in the way), to assume that the ethereal medium of propagation,
instead of being continuous, should consist of particles separated by sensible
distances. Fresnel rendered the same service to the phenomena of polarization.
E. B. Hunt upset the theories of both (Silliman's Journal, vol. viii., p. 364
et seq.) There are now men of Science who proclaim them "materially
fallacious," while others -- the "atomo-mechanicalists" -- cling
to to them with desperate tenacity. The supposition of an atomic or molecular
constitution of ether is upset, moreover, by thermodynamics, for Clerk Maxwell
showed that such a medium would be simply gas.* The hypothesis of "finite
intervals" is thus proven of no avail as a supplement to the undulatory
theory. Besides, eclipses fail to reveal any such variation of colour as
supposed by Cauchy (on the assumption that the chromatic rays are propagated
with different velocities).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Clerk Maxwell's "Treatise on Electricity of Magnetism" and compare
with Cauchy's "Memoire sur la Dispersion de la lumiere."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Astronomy
has pointed out more than one phenomenon absolutely at variance with this
doctrine.
Thus,
while in one department of physics the atomo-molecular constitution of the
ether is accepted in order to account for one set of special phenomena, in
another department such a constitution is found quite subversive of a number of
well-ascertained facts, Hirn's charges being thus justified (vide supra).
Chemistry deemed it impossible to concede enormous elasticity to the ether
without depriving it of other properties, upon the assumption of which the
construction of its modern theories depended. This ended in a final
transformation of ether. The exigencies of the atomo-mechanical theory have led
distinguished mathematicians and physicists to attempt to substitute for the
traditional atoms of matter, peculiar forms of vortical motion in a
"universal homogeneous, incompressible, and continuous material
medium," or AEther. (See Stallo.)
The
present writer, claiming no great scientific education, but only a tolerable
acquaintance with modern theories, and a better one with Occult Sciences, picks
up weapons against the detractors of the esoteric teaching in the very arsenal
of modern Science. The glaring contradictions, the mutually-destructive
hypotheses of world-renowned Scientists, their mutual accusations,
denunciations and disputes, show plainly that, whether accepted or not, the
Occult theories have as much right to a hearing as any of the so-called learned
and academical hypotheses. Thus whether the followers of the Royal Society
choose to accept ether as a continuous or a discontinuous fluid matters little,
and is indifferent to the present purpose. It simply points to one certainty:
Official Science knows nothing to this day of the constitution of ether. Let
Science call it matter, if it likes; only neither as akasa nor as the one sacred
AEther of the Greeks, is it to be found in any of the states of matter known to
modern physics. It is MATTER on quite another plane of perception and being,
and it can neither be analyzed by scientific apparatus, appreciated, nor even
conceived by "scientific imagination," unless the possessors thereof
study the Occult Sciences. That which follows proves this statement.
It
is clearly demonstrated by Stallo as regards the crucial problems of modern
physics (as was done by De Quatrefages and several others in those of
anthropology, biology, etc., etc.) that, in their efforts to support their
individual hypotheses and systems, the majority of the eminent and learned
materialists very often utter the greatest fallacies. Let us take the following
case. Most of them reject actio in distans (one of the fundamental principles
in the question of AEther or Akasa in Occultism), while, as Stallo justly
observes, there is no physical action,
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[[Vol.
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"which,
on close examination, does not resolve itself into actio in distans"; and
he proves it.
Now,
metaphysical arguments, according to Professor Lodge (Nature, vol. xxvii., p.
304), are "unconscious appeals to experience." And he adds that if
such an experience is not conceivable, then it does not exist, etc. In his own
words:-- ". . . If a highly-developed mind or set of minds, find a
doctrine about some comparatively simple and fundamental matter absolutely unthinkable,
it is an evidence . . . that the unthinkable state of things has no existence,
etc."
And
thereupon, toward the end of his lecture, Professor Lodge indicates that the
explanation of cohesion, as well as of gravity, "is to be looked for in
the vortex-atom theory of Sir William Thomson" (Stallo).
It
is needless to stop to inquire whether it is to this vortex-theory, also, that
we have to look for the dropping down on earth of the first life-germ by a passing
meteor or comet (Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis). But Mr. Lodge might be reminded
of the wise criticism on his lecture in the same "Concepts of Modern
Physics." Noticing the above-quoted declaration by the London Professor,
the author asks "whether . . . the elements of the vortex-theory are
familiar, or even possible, facts of experience? For, if they are not, clearly
that theory is obnoxious to the same criticism which is said to invalidate the
assumption of ACTIO IN DISTANS" (p. xxiv). And then the able critic shows
clearly what the Ether is not, nor can ever be, notwithstanding all scientific
claims to the contrary. And thus he opens widely, if unconsciously, the
entrance door to our occult teachings. For, as he says:--
"The
medium in which the vortex-movements arise is, according to Professor Lodge's
own express statement (NATURE, vol. xxvii., p. 305), 'a perfectly homogeneous,
incompressible, continuous body, incapable of being resolved into simple
elements or atoms: it is, in fact, continuous, not molecular.' And after making
this statement Professor Lodge adds: 'There is no other body of which we can
say this, and hence the Properties of the aether must be somewhat DIFFERENT
from those of ordinary matter.' It appears, then, that the whole vortex-atom
theory, which is offered to us as a substitute for the 'metaphysical theory' of
actio in distans, rests upon the hypothesis of the existence of a material
medium which is utterly unknown to experience, and which has properties
somewhat different* from those of ordinary matter. Hence this theory, instead
of being, as is claimed, a reduction of an unfamiliar fact of experience to a
familiar fact, is,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Somewhat different!" exclaims Stallo. "The real import of this
'somewhat' is, that the medium in question is not, in any intelligible sense,
material at all, having none of the properties of matter." All the
properties of matter depend upon differences and changes, and the "hypothetical"
aether here defined is not only destitute of differences, but incapable of
difference and change -- (in the physical sense let us add). This proves that
if aether is "matter" it is so only as something visible, tangible
and existing, for spiritual senses alone; that it is a Being indeed -- but not
of our plane: Pater AEther, or Akasa.
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[[Vol.
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on
the contrary, a reduction of a fact which is perfectly familiar, to a fact
which is not only unfamiliar, but wholly unknown, unobserved and unobservable.
Furthermore, the alleged vortical motion of, or rather in, the assumed ethereal
medium is . . . impossible, because "motion in a perfectly homogeneous,
incompressible, and therefore continuous fluid, is not sensible motion." .
. . . It is manifest, therefore, that wherever the vortex-atom theory may lead
us, it certainly does not lead us anywhere in the region of physics, or in the
domain of verae causae.* And I may add that, inasmuch as the hypothetical
undifferentiated** and undifferentiable medium is clearly an involuntary
re-ification of the old ontological concept pure being, the theory under
discussion has all the attributes of an inapprehensible metaphysical
phantom."
A
"phantom" indeed, which can be made apprehensible only by Occultism.
From such scientific metaphysics to Occultism there is hardly one step. Those
physicists who hold the view that the atomic constitution of matter is
consistent with its penetrability, need not go far out of their way to be able
to account for the greatest phenomena of Occultism, now so derided by physical
scientists and materialists. Cauchy's "material points without
extension" are Leibnitz's monads, and at the same time the materials out
of which the "Gods" and other invisible powers clothe themselves in
bodies (vide infra, "Gods, Monads and Atoms"). The disintegration and
reintegration of "material" particles without extension as a chief
factor in phenomenal manifestations ought to suggest themselves very easily as
a clear possibility, at any rate to those few scientific minds which accept M.
Cauchy's views. For, disposing of that property of matter which they call
impenetrability by simply regarding the atoms as "material points exerting
on each other attractions and repulsions which vary with the distances that
separate them" -- the French theorist explains that: "From this it
follows that, if it pleased the author of nature*** simply to modify the laws
according to which the atoms attract or repel each other, we might instantly
see the hardest bodies penetrating each other, the smallest particles of matter
occupying immense spaces, or the largest masses reducing themselves to the
smallest volumes, the entire universe concentrating itself, as it were, in a
single point." (Sept lecons de physique Generale, p. 38 et seq., ed.
Moigno.)
And
that "point," invisible on our plane of perception and matter, is
quite visible to the eye of the adept who can follow and see it present on
other planes.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Verae causae for physical science are mayavic or illusionary causes to the
Occultist, and vice versa.
**
Very much "differentiated," on the contrary, since the day it left
its laya condition.
***
For the Occultists who say that the author of nature is nature itself,
something indistinct and inseparable from the Deity, it follows that those who
are conversant with the occult laws of nature, and know how to change and provoke
new conditions in ether, may -- not modify the laws, but work and do the same
in accordance with those immutable laws.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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IV.
IS
GRAVITATION A LAW?
THE
corpuscular theory has been unceremoniously put aside; but gravitation -- the
principle that all bodies attract each other with a force proportional directly
to their masses, and inversely to the squares of the distances between them --
survives to this day and reigns, supreme as ever, in the alleged ethereal waves
of Space. As a hypothesis, it had been threatened with death for its inadequacy
to embrace all the facts presented to it; as a physical law, it is the King of
the late and once all-potent "Imponderables." "It is little
short of blasphemy . . . . an insult to Newton's grand memory to doubt it, . .
. ." is the exclamation of an American reviewer of "Isis
Unveiled." Well; what is finally that invisible and intangible God in whom
we should believe on blind faith? Astronomers who see in gravitation an
easy-going solution for many things, and an universal force which allows them
to calculate thereby planetary motions, care little about the Cause of
Attraction. They call Gravity a law, a cause in itself. We call the forces
acting under that name effects, and very secondary effects, too. One day it
will be found that the scientific hypothesis does not answer after all; and
then it will follow the corpuscular theory of light and be consigned to rest
for many scientific aeons in the archives of all exploded speculations. Has not
Newton himself expressed grave doubts about the Nature of Force and the
corporeality of the "Agents," as they were then called? So has
Cuvier, another scientific light shining in the night of research. He warns his
readers, in the Revolution du Globe, about the doubtful nature of the so-called
Forces, saying that "it is not so sure whether those agents were not
Spiritual Powers after all (des agents spirituels). At the outset of his
"Principia," Sir Isaac Newton took the greatest care to impress upon
his school that he did not use the word "attraction" with regard to
the mutual action of bodies in a physical sense. To him it was, he said, a purely
mathematical conception involving no consideration of real and primary physical
causes. In one of the passages of his "Principia" (Defin. 8, B. I.
Prop. 69, "Scholium"), he tells us plainly that, physically
considered, attractions are rather impulses. In section XI. (Introduction) he
expresses the opinion that "there is some subtle spirit by the force and
action of which all movements of matter are determined" (see Mod. Mater.,
by Rev. W. F. Wilkinson); and in his third Letter to Bentley he says: "It
is inconceivable that inanimate brute matter should, without the mediation of
something else which is not material, operate upon and affect other matter,
without mutual contact, as it must do if gravi-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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tation,
in the sense of Epicurus, be essential and inherent in it. . . . That gravity
should be innate, inherent and essential to matter, so that one body may act
upon another at a distance, through a vacuum, without the mediation of anything
else by and through which their action may be conveyed from one to another, is
to me so great an absurdity that I believe no man, who has in philosophical
matters a competent faculty of thinking, can ever fall into it. Gravity must be
caused by an agent acting constantly according to certain laws; but whether
this agent be material or immaterial I have left to the consideration of my
readers."
At
this, even Newton's contemporaries got frightened -- at the apparent return of
occult causes into the domain of physics. Leibnitz called his principle of
attraction "an incorporeal and inexplicable power." The supposition
of an attractive faculty and a perfect void was characterized by Bernoulli as
"revolting," the principle of actio in distans finding thus no more
favour then than it does now. Euler, on the other hand, thought the action of
gravity was due to either a Spirit or some subtle medium. And yet Newton knew
of, if he did not accept, the Ether of the Ancients. He regarded the intermediate
space between the sidereal bodies as vacuum. Therefore he believed in
"subtle spirit" and Spirits as we do, guiding the so-called
attraction. The above-quoted words of the great man have produced poor results.
The "absurdity" has now become a dogma in the case of pure
materialism, which repeats, "No matter without force, no force without
matter; matter and force are inseparable, eternal and indestructible (true);
there can be no independent force, since all force is an inherent and necessary
property of matter (false); consequently, there is no immaterial creative
power." Oh, poor Sir Isaac!
If,
leaving aside all the other eminent men of Science who shared in the same
opinion as Euler and Leibnitz, the Occultists claim as their authorities and
supporters only Sir Isaac Newton and Cuvier, as above cited, they need fear
little from modern Science, and may loudly and proudly proclaim their beliefs.
But, the hesitation and doubts of the two before cited authorities, and of many
others, too, whom we could name, did not in the least prevent scientific
speculation from wool-gathering on the fields of brute matter just as before.
First it was matter and an imponderable fluid distinct from it; then came the
imponderable fluid so much criticised by Grove; and AEther, which was at first
discontinuous and then became continuous; after which came the
"mechanical" Forces. These have now settled in life as "modes of
motion" and the aether has become more mysterious and problematical than
ever. More than one man of Science objects to such crude materialistic views.
But then since the days of Plato, who repeatedly asks his readers not to
confuse incorporeal Elements with
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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their
PRINCIPLES -- transcendental or spiritual Elements; from those of the great
Alchemists, who, like Paracelsus, made a great difference between phenomenon
and its cause, or the Noumenon; and Grove, who, though he sees "no reason
to divest universally diffused matter of the functions common to all
matter," yet uses the term Forces where his critics, "who do not
attach to the word any idea of a specific action," say Force -- from those
days to this nothing has proved competent to stem the tide of brutal
materialism. Gravitation is the sole cause, the acting God, and matter is its
prophet, said the men of science only a few years ago.
They
have changed their views several times since then. But do the men of Science
understand the innermost thought of Newton, one of the most spiritual-minded
and religious men of his day, any better now than they did then? It is
certainly to be doubted. Newton is credited with having given the death-blow to
the Elemental Vortices of Descartes (the idea of Anaxagoras, resurrected,
by-the-bye), though the last modern "vortical atoms" of Sir W.
Thomson do not, in truth, differ much from the former. Nevertheless, when his
disciple Forbes wrote in the Preface to the chief work of his Master a sentence
declaring that "attraction was the cause of the System," Newton was
the first to solemnly protest. That which in the mind of the great
mathematician assumed the shadowy, but firmly rooted image of God, as the
noumenon of all,* was called more philosophically by the ancient (and modern)
philosophers and Occultists -- "Gods," or the creative fashioning
Powers. The modes of expression may have been different, and the ideas more or
less philosophically enunciated by all sacred and profane Antiquity; but the
fundamental thought was the same.** For Pythagoras the Forces were Spiritual
Entities, Gods inde-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Attraction," Le Couturier, a materialist, writes, "has now
become for the public that which it was for Newton himself -- a simple word, an
idea" (Panorama des Mondes), since its cause is unknown. Herschell
virtually says the same, when remarking, that whenever studying the motion of
the heavenly bodies, and the phenomena of attraction, he feels penetrated at
every moment with the idea of "the existence of causes that act for us
under a veil, disguising their direct action." (Musee des Sciences,
August, 1856.)
**
If we are taken to task for believing in operating "Gods" and
"Spirits" while rejecting a personal God, we answer to the Theists
and Monotheists: "Admit that your Jehovah is one of the Elohim, and we are
ready to recognise him. Make of him, as you do, the Infinite, the ONE and the
Eternal God, and we will never accept him in this character." Of tribal
Gods there were many; the One Universal Deity is a principle, an abstract
Root-Idea which has nought to do with the unclean work of finite Form. We do
not worship the Gods, we only honour Them, as beings superior to ourselves. In
this we obey the Mosaic injunction, while Christians disobey their Bible --
Missionaries foremost of all. "Thou shalt not revile the gods," says
one of them -- (Jehovah) -- in Exodus xxii. 28); but at the same time in verse
20 it is commanded, "He that sacrificeth to any God, save unto the Lord,
he shall be utterly destroyed." Now in the [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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pendent
of planets and Matter as we see and know them on Earth, who are the rulers of
the Sidereal Heaven. Plato represented the planets as moved by an intrinsic
Rector, one with his dwelling, like "A boatman in his boat." As for
Aristotle, he called those rulers "immaterial substances;"* though as
one who had never been initiated, he rejected the gods as Entities (See
Vossius, Vol. II., p. 528). But this did not prevent him from recognising the
fact that the stars and planets "were not inanimate masses but acting and
living bodies indeed. . . . . . ." As if "sidereal spirits were the
divine portion of their phenomena, [[ta theoitera pon phaneron]]" (De
Caelo. I. 9).
If
we look for corroboration in more modern and Scientific times, we find Tycho
Brahe recognising in the stars a triple force, divine, spiritual and vital.
Kepler, putting together the Pythagorean sentence, "The Sun, guardian of
Jupiter," and the verses of David, "He placed his throne in the
Sun," and "The Lord is the Sun," etc., said that he understood
perfectly how the Pythagoreans could believe that all the globes disseminated
through Space were rational Intelligences, facultates ratiocinativae,
circulating around the Sun, "in which resides a pure Spirit of fire; the
source of the general harmony" (De Motibus planetarum harmonicis, p. 248).
When
an Occultist speaks of Fohat -- the energising and guiding intelligence in the
Universal Electric or Vital Fluid, -- he is laughed at. Withal, as now shown,
neither the nature of electricity, nor of Life nor even of Light, are to this
day understood. The Occultist sees in the manifestation of every force in
Nature, the action of the quality, or the special characteristic of its
noumenon; which noumenon is a distinct and intelligent Individuality on the
other side of the manifested mechanical Universe. Now the Occultist does not
deny -- on the contrary he will support the claim -- that light, heat,
electricity and so on are affections (not properties or qualities) of matter.
To put it more clearly: matter is the condition -- the necessary basis or
vehicle, a sine qua non -- for the manifestation of these forces, or agents, on
this plane.
But
in order to gain the point the Occultists have to examine the credentials of
the law of gravity, first of all, of "Gravitation, the King
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] original texts it is not "god" but
Elohim, -- and we challenge contradiction -- and Jehovah is one of the Elohim,
as proved by his own words in Genesis iii. 22, when "the Lord God said:
Behold the Man has become as one of us," etc. Hence both those who worship
and sacrifice to the Elohim, the angels, and to Jehovah, those who revile the
gods of their fellow-men, are far greater transgressors than the Occultists or
any Theosophist. Meanwhile many of the latter prefer believing in some one
"Lord" or other, and are quite welcome to do as they like.
*
To liken the "immateriate species to wooden iron," and laugh at
Spiller referring to them as "incorporeal matter" does not solve the
mystery (See "Concepts of Modern Physics," p. 165 et infra).
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[[Vol.
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and
Ruler of Matter," under every form. To do so effectually, the hypothesis
in its earliest appearance has to be recalled to mind. To begin with, is it
Newton who was the first to discover it? The Athenaeum of Jan. 26, 1867, has
some curious information upon this subject. It says that "positive
evidence can be adduced that Newton derived all his knowledge of gravitation
and its laws from Boehme, with whom gravitation or ATTRACTION is the first
property of Nature." . . . For with him "his (Boehme's) system, shows
us the inside of things, while modern physical science is content with looking
at the outside." Then again, "the science of electricity, which was
not yet in existence when he (Boehme) wrote, is there anticipated (in his
writings); and not only does Boehme describe all the now known phenomena of
that force, but he even gives us the origin, generation, and birth of
electricity, itself, etc."
Thus
Newton, whose profound mind read easily between the lines, and fathomed the
spiritual thought of the great Seer in its mystic rendering, owes his great
discovery to Jacob Boehme, the nursling of the genii (Nirmanakayas) who watched
over and guided him, of whom the author of the article in question so truly
remarks, that "every new scientific discovery goes to prove his profound
and intuitive insight into the most secret workings of nature." And having
discovered gravity, Newton, in order to render possible the action of
attraction in space, had, so to speak, to annihilate every physical obstacle
capable of impeding its free action; ether among others, though he had more
than a presentiment of its existence. Advocating the corpuscular theory, he
made an absolute vacuum between the heavenly bodies. . . . Whatever may have
been his suspicions and inner convictions about Ether; however many friends he
may have unbosomed himself to -- as in the case of his correspondence with
Bentley -- his teachings never showed that he had any such belief. If he was
"persuaded that the power of attraction could not be exerted by matter
across a vacuum,"* how is it that so late as 1860, French astronomers (Le
Couturier, for instance), combated "the disastrous results of the theory
of vacuum established by the great man?"** Professor Winchell writes,
"These passages (letter to Bentley) show what were his views respecting
the nature of the interplanetary medium of communication. Though declaring that
the heavens 'are void of sensible matter,' he elsewhere excepted 'perhaps
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
World-Life. Prof. Winchell, LL.D (pp. 49 and 50).
**
"Il n'est plus possible aujourd'hui, de soutenir comme Newton, que les
corps celestes se mouvent au milieu du VIDE immense des espaces. . . . Parmi
les consequences de la theorie du vide etablie par ce grand homme, il ne reste
plus debout que le mot 'attraction,' et nous verrons le jour ou ce dernier mot
disparaitra du vocabulaire scientifique." ("Panorama des
mondes," pp. 47 and 53.)
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[[Vol.
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some
very thin vapours, streams, and effluvia, arising from the atmospheres of the
earth, planets, and comets, and from such an exceedingly rare ethereal medium
as we have elsewhere described." (Newton, Optics, III., query 28, 1704;
quoted in "World-Life.")
This
only shows that even such great men as Newton have not always the courage of
their opinions. Dr. T. S. Hunt "called attention to some long-neglected
passages in Newton's works, from which it appears that a belief in such
universal, intercosmical medium gradually took root in his mind." (Ibid.)
But such attention was never called to the said passages before Nov. 28, 1881,
when Dr. Hunt read his "Celestial Chemistry, from the time of
Newton." "Till then the idea was universal, even among the men of
Science, that Newton had, while advocating the corpuscular theory, preached a
void," as Le Couturier says. The passages had been "long
neglected," no doubt because they contradicted and clashed with the
preconceived pet theories of the day, till finally the undulatory theory
imperiously required the presence of an "ethereal medium" to explain
it. This is the whole secret.
Anyhow,
it is from that theory of Newton's of a universal void -- taught, if not
believed in by himself, -- that dates the immense scorn now shown by modern for
ancient physics. The old sages had maintained that "Nature abhorred
vacuum," and the greatest mathematicians of the world (read of the Western
races) had discovered the antiquated "fallacy" and exposed it. And
now modern science vindicates, however ungracefully, archaic knowledge, having,
moreover, to vindicate Newton's character and powers of observation at this
late hour, after having neglected for one century and a half to pay any attention
to such very important passages -- perchance, because it was wiser not to
attract any notice to them. Better late than never.
And
now Father AEther is re-welcomed with open arms; and wedded to gravitation;
linked to it for weal or woe, until the day when it, or both, shall be replaced
by something else. Three hundred years ago it was plenum everywhere, then it
became one dismal vacuity; later still the sidereal ocean-beds, dried up by
science, rolled onward once more their ethereal waves. Recede ut procedes must
become the motto of exact Science -- "exact," chiefly, in finding
itself inexact every leap-year.
But
we will not quarrel with the great men. They had to go back to the earliest
"Gods of Pythagoras and old Kanada" for the very backbone and marrow
of their correlations and "newest" discoveries, and this may well
afford good hope to the Occultists, for their minor gods. For we believe in Le
Couturier's prophecy about gravitation. We know the day is approaching when an
absolute reform will be demanded in the present modes of Science by the
scientists themselves -- as was done by Sir W. Grove, F.R.S. Till that day
there is nothing to be done. For if gravitation
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[[Vol.
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were
dethroned to-morrow, the day after the Scientists would discover some other new
mode of mechanical motion.* Rough and up-hill is the path of true Science, and
its days are full of vexation of Spirit. But in the face of its "thousand"
contradictory hypotheses to explain physical phenomena, there never was yet a
better one than that of "motion" -- however paradoxically interpreted
by materialism. As may be found on the first pages of Book I., Occultists have
nothing surely against motion** the GREAT BREATH of Mr. Herbert Spencer's
"UNKNOWN." But, believing that everything on Earth is the shadow of
something in space -- they believe in smaller "Breaths," which,
living, intelligent and independent of all but Law, blow in every direction
during Manvantaric periods. These Science will reject. But whatever replaces
attraction, alias gravitation, the result will be the same. Science will be as
far from the solution of its difficulties as it is now, unless it comes to some
compromise with Occultism and even with Alchemy -- which supposition will be
regarded as an impertinence, but remains a fact, nevertheless. As Faye says:
"Il manque quelque chose aux geologues pour faire la geologie de la Lune,
c'est d'etre astronomes. A la verite il manque aussi quelquechose aux
astronomes pour aborder avec fruit cette etude, c'est d'etre geologues."
But he might have added, with still more pointedness, "Ce qui manque a
tous les deux, c'est l'intuition du mystique."
Let
us remember Sir William Grove's wise "concluding remarks," on the
ultimate structure of matter, or the minutiae of molecular actions, which, he
thought, man will never know.
"Much
harm has already been done by attempting hypothetically to dissect matter and
to discuss the shapes, sizes, and numbers of atoms, and their atmospheres of
heat, ether, or electricity. . . . . Whether the regarding electricity, light,
magnetism, etc., as simply motions of ordinary matter, be or be not admissible,
certain it is that all past theories have resolved, and all existing theories
do resolve, the action of these forces into motion. Whether it be that, on
account of our familiarity with motion, we refer other affections to it, as to
a language which is most easily construed, and most capable of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
When read in a fair and unprejudiced spirit, Sir Isaac Newton's works are an
ever ready witness to show how he must have hesitated between gravitation and
attraction, impulse and some other unknown cause to explain the regular course
of the planetary motion. But see Treatise on Colour (Vol. III., question 31.)
We are told by Herschell that Newton left with his successors the duty of
drawing all the scientific conclusions from his discovery. How modern Science
abused the privilege of building its newest theories upon the law of
gravitation, may be realised when one remembers how profoundly religious was
that great man.
**
The materialistic notion that because, in physics real or sensible motion is impossible
in pure space or vacuum, therefore, the eternal MOTION of and in Cosmos
(regarded as infinite Space) is a fiction -- only shows once more that such
words as "pure space," "pure Being," "the
Absolute," etc., of Eastern metaphysics have never been understood in the
West.
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explaining
them, or whether it be that it is in reality the only mode in which our minds as
contra-distinguished from our senses, are able to conceive material agencies,
certain it is that since the period at which the mystic notions of spiritual or
preternatural powers were applied to account for physical phenomena, all
hypotheses framed to explain them have resolved them into MOTION."
And
then the learned gentleman states a purely occult tenet:--
"The
term perpetual motion, which I have not infrequently used in these pages, is
itself equivocal. If the doctrines here advanced be well founded, all motion
is, in one sense, perpetual. In masses, whose motion is stopped by mutual
concussion, heat or motion of the particles is generated; and thus the motion
continues, so that if we could venture to extend such thoughts to the universe,
we should assume the same amount of motion affecting the same amount of matter
for ever."*
Thus,
supposing attraction or gravitation should be given up in favour of the Sun
being a huge magnet -- which is a theory already accepted by some physicists --
a magnet that acts on the planets as attraction is now supposed to do, whereto,
or how much farther would it lead the astronomers from where they are now? Not
an inch farther. Kepler came to this "curious hypothesis" nearly 300
years ago. He had not discovered the theory of attraction and repulsion in
Kosmos, for it was known from the days of Empedocles, the two opposite forces
being called by him "hate" and "love" -- which comes to the
same thing. But Kepler gave a pretty fair description of cosmic magnetism. That
such magnetism exists in nature, is as certain as that gravitation does not;
not at any rate, in the way in which it is taught by Science, which never took
into consideration the different modes in which the dual Force -- that
Occultism calls attraction and repulsion -- may act within our solar system,
the earth's atmosphere, and beyond in the Kosmos.** This was proven by Newton
himself; for there are many phenomena in our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Correl. Phys. Forces," p. 173. This is precisely what Occultism
maintains, and on the same principle that "where force is made to oppose
force, and produce static equilibrium, the balance of pre-existing equilibrium
is affected, and fresh motion is started equivalent to that which is withdrawn
into a state of abeyance." This process finds intervals in the pralaya,
but is eternal and ceaseless as the "Breath," even when the
manifested Kosmos rests.
**
"Trans-solar space," writes the great Humboldt, "does not
hitherto show any phenomenon analogous to our solar system. It is a peculiarity
of our System, that matter should have condensed within it in nebulous rings,
the nuclei of which condense into earths and moons. I say again, heretofore,
nothing of the kind has ever been observed beyond our planetary system."
(See Revue Germanique of the 31st Dec. 1860, art. "Lettres et
conversations d'Alexandre Humboldt.") True, that since 1860 the nebular
theory has sprung up, and being better known, a few identical phenomena were
supposed to be observed beyond the solar system. Yet the great man is quite
right; and no earths or moons can be found -- except in appearance -- beyond,
or of the same order of matter as found in our system. Such is the Occult
teaching.
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Solar
system, which he confessed his inability to explain by the law of gravitation.
"Such were the uniformity in the directions of planetary movements, the
nearly circular forms of the orbits, and their remarkable conformity to one
plane" (Prof. Winchell). And if there is one single exception, then the
law of gravitation has no right to be referred to as an universal law.
"These adjustments," we are told, "Newton, in his general
Scholium, pronounces to be 'the work of an intelligent and all-powerful Being.'
" Intelligent that "Being" may be; as to
"all-powerful" there would be every reason to doubt the claim. A poor
"God" he, who would work upon minor details and leave the most
important to secondary forces! The poverty of the argument and logic in this
case, is surpassed only by that of Laplace, who, seeking very correctly to
substitute motion for Newton's "all-powerful Being," and ignorant of
the true nature of that eternal motion, saw in it a blind physical law.
"Might not those arrangements be an effect of the laws of motion?" he
asks, forgetting, as all our modern Scientists do, that this law and this
motion are a vicious circle, so long as the nature of both remains unexplained.
His famous answer to Napoleon: "Dieu est devenu une hypothese
inutile," would be correctly stated only by one who adhered to the
philosophy of the Vedantins. It becomes a pure fallacy, if we exclude the
interference of operating, intelligent, powerful (never
"all-powerful") Beings, who are called "gods."
But
we would ask the critics of the mediaeval astronomers why should Kepler be
denounced as most unscientific, for offering just the same solution as Newton
did -- only showing himself more sincere, more consistent and even more
logical. Where may be the difference between Newton's "all-powerful
Being" and Kepler's Rectores, his sidereal and Cosmic Forces, or Angels?
Kepler is again criticised for his "curious hypothesis which made use of a
vortical movement within the solar system;" for his theories in general,
for his favouring Empedocles' idea of attraction and repulsion, and "Solar
magnetism" in particular. Yet several modern men of Science, as will be
shown -- Hunt (if Metcalfe is to be excluded), Dr. Richardson, etc. -- favour
the idea very seriously. He is half excused, however, on the plea that "to
the time of Kepler no interaction between masses of matter had been distinctly
recognized which was generically different from magnetism" (World-Life).
Is it distinctly recognised now? Does Prof. Winchell claim for Science any
serious knowledge whatever of the natures of either electricity or magnetism --
except that both seem to be the effects of some result arising from an
undetermined cause.
The
ideas of Kepler, weeded from their theological tendencies, are purely occult.
He saw that:
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[[Vol.
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(I.)
The Sun is a great Magnet.* This is what some eminent modern scientists and
also the Occultists believe in.
(II.)
The Solar substance is immaterial.** (See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. I.
pp. 270 to 271.)
(III.)
He provided, for the constant motion and restoration of the Sun's energy and planetary
motion, the perpetual care of a spirit, or spirits. The whole of Antiquity
believed in this idea. The Occultists do not use the word Spirit, but say
Creative Forces, which they endow with intelligence. But we may call them
spirits also.
This
theory is tabooed a great deal more on account of the "Spirit" that
is given room in it, than of anything else. Herschell, the elder, believed in
it likewise, and so do several modern scientists also. Nevertheless Professor
Winchell declares that "a hypothesis more fanciful, and less in accord
with the requirements of physical principles, has not been offered in ancient
or modern times." (World-Life, p. 554.)
The
same was said, once upon a time, of the universal Ether, and now it is not only
accepted perforce but advocated as the only possible theory to explain away
certain mysteries.
Grove's
ideas, when he first enunciated them in London about 1840, were called as
unscientific as the above; nevertheless, his views on the correlation of forces
are now universally accepted. It would, very likely, require one more
conversant with science than is the writer, to combat with any success some of
the now prevailing ideas about gravitation and other similar
"solutions" of Cosmic Mysteries. But, let us recall a few objections
that came from recognized men of Science; from astronomers and physicists of
eminence, who rejected the theory of rotation, as well as that of gravitation.
Thus one reads in the French Encyclopaedia that "Science agrees, in the
face of all its representatives, that it is impossible to explain the physical
origin of the rotatory motion of the solar system."
If
the question is asked, "what causes rotation?" we are answered:
"It is the centrifugal Force." "And this force, what is it that
produces it?" "The force of rotation," is the grave answer.
(Godefroy, Cosmogonie de la Revelation.***) It will be well, perhaps, to
examine both these theories as being directly or indirectly connected.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
But see Astronomie du Moyen Age, by Delambre.
**
In the sense, of course, of matter existing in states unknown to Science.
***
We shall be taken to task for contradiction. It will be said that while we deny
God, we admit Souls and operative Spirits, and quote from Roman Catholic
bigoted writers in support of our argument. To this we reply: "We deny the
anthropomorphic god of the Monotheists, but never the Divine Principle in
nature. We combat Protestants and Roman Catholics on a number of dogmatic theological
beliefs of human and sectarian origin. We agree with them in their belief in
Spirits and intelligent operative powers, though we do not worship
"Angels" as the Roman Latinists do."
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[[Vol.
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V.
THE
THEORIES OF ROTATION IN SCIENCE.
CONSIDERING
that "final cause is pronounced a chimera, and the first Great Cause is
remanded to the Sphere of the Unknown," as a reverend gentleman justly
complains, the number of hypotheses put forward, a nebula in itself, is most
remarkable. The profane student is perplexed, and does not know in which of the
theories of exact science he has to believe. Here we have hypotheses enough for
every taste and power of brain. They are all extracted from a number of
scientific volumes.
CURRENT
HYPOTHESES EXPLAINING THE ORIGIN OF ROTATION.
Rotation
has originated either --
(a)
By the collision of nebular masses wandering aimlessly in space; or by
attraction, "in cases where no actual impact takes place."
(b)
"By the tangential action of currents of nebulous matter (in the case of
an amorphous nebula) descending from higher to lower levels,* or simply by the
action of the central gravity of the mass."**
"It
is a fundamental principle in physics that no rotation could be generated in
such a mass by the action of its own parts. As well attempt to change the
course of a steamer by pulling at the deck railing," remarks to this Prof.
Winchell in "World-Life."
HYPOTHESES
OF THE ORIGIN OF THE SEVEN PLANETS AND COMETS.
(a)
We owe the birth of the Planets (1) to an explosion of the Sun -- a parturition
of its central mass;*** or (2) to some kind of disruption of the nebular rings.
(b)
"The Comets are strangers to our planetary system" (La Place).
"The Comets are undeniably generated in our Solar system" (Faye).
(c)
The "fixed stars are motionless" says one authority. . . . "All
the stars are actually in motion" answers another authority. . .
"Undoubtedly every star is in motion" (Wolf).
(d)
"For over 350,000,000 years, the slow and majestic movement of the Sun
around its axis has never for a moment ceased" (Panorama des Mondes, Le
Couturier.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The terms "high" and "low" being only relative to the
position of the observer in Space, any use of those terms tending to convey the
impression that they stand for abstract realities, is necessarily fallacious.
**
Jacob Ennis, "The Origin of the Stars," p. 221 et seq.
***
If such is the case, how does Science explain the comparatively small size of
the planets nearest the Sun? The theory of meteoric aggregation is only a step
farther from truth than the nebular conception, and has not even the quality of
the latter -- its metaphysical element.
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[[Vol.
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(e)
And "the Sun having Alcyone in the Pleiades for the centre of its orbit, consumes
180,000,000 of years in completing its revolution" (Maedler). And also,
(f)
That, "the Sun has existed no more than 15,000,000 of years, and will emit
heat for no longer than 10,000,000 years more" (Sir W. Thomson's lecture
on "the latent dynamical theory regarding the probable origin, total
amount of heat, and duration of the Sun," 1887).
A
few years ago this eminent Scientist was telling the world that the time
required for the earth to cool from incipient incrustation to its present
state, could not exceed 80,000,000 years*; (Thomson and Tait, Natural
Philosophy.) If the encrusted age of the world is only 40 millions, or the half
of the duration once allowed, and the Sun's age only 15 millions, have we to
understand that the earth was at one time independent of the Sun?
Since
the ages of the Sun, planets, and the Earth, as stated in the many scientific
hypotheses of the astronomers and physicists, are given elsewhere (infra), we
have said enough to show the disagreement between the ministers of modern
Science. Whether we accept the fifteen million years of Sir W. Thomson or the
thousand millions of Mr. Huxley, for the rotational evolution of our solar
system, it will always come to this; by accepting self-generated rotation for
the heavenly bodies composed of inert matter and yet moved by their own
internal motion, for millions of years, this teaching of Science amounts to --
(a)
An evident denial of that fundamental physical law, which states that "a
body in motion tends constantly to inertia, (i.e., to continue in the same
state of motion or rest), unless it is stimulated into further action by a
superior active force."
(b.)
To an original impulse, which culminates in an unalterable motion, within a
resisting ether that NEWTON had declared incompatible with that motion.
(c.)
Universal gravity, which, we are taught, always tends to a centre in
rectilinear descent -- alone the cause of the revolution of the whole solar
system, which is performing an eternal double gyration, each body around its axis
and orbit. Another occasional version is:--
(d.)
A magnet in the Sun; or, the said revolution due to a magnetic force, which
acts, just as gravitation does, in a straight line -- varying inversely as the
square of the distance. (Coulomb's Law.)
(e.)
The whole acting under invariable and changeless laws, which are, nevertheless,
often shown variable, as during some well-known freaks
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And even on these figures Bischof disagrees with Thomson, and calculates that
350 million years would be required for the earth to cool from a temperature of
20,000 degrees to 200 degrees centigrade. This is, also, the opinion of
Helmholtz.
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[[Vol.
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of
planets and other bodies, as also when the Comets approach to or recede from
the Sun.
(f.)
A MOTOR FORCE always proportionate to the mass it is acting upon; but
independent of the specific nature of that mass, to which it is proportionate;
which amounts to saying, as Le Couturier does, that, "without that Force
independent from and of quite another nature than the said mass, the latter,
were it as huge as Saturn, or as tiny as Ceres, would always fall with the same
rapidity" (Musee des Sciences, 15 August, 1857). A mass, furthermore,
which derives its weight from the body on which it weighs.
Thus
neither Laplace's perceptions of a solar atmospheric fluid, which would extend beyond
the orbits of the planets, nor Le Couturier's electricity, nor Foucault's heat
(Panorama des Mondes, p. 55), nor this, nor the other, can ever help any of the
numerous hypotheses about the origin and permanency of rotation to escape from
this squirrel's wheel, any more than the theory of gravity itself. This mystery
is the Procrustean bed of physical Science. If matter is, as now taught,
passive, the simplest movement cannot be said to be an essential property of
matter -- if the latter is simply an inert mass. How, then, can such a
complicated movement, compound and multiple, harmonious and equilibrated,
lasting in the eternities for millions and millions of years, be attributed
simply to its own inherent Force, unless the latter is an intelligence? A
physical will is something new -- a conception that the ancients would have
never entertained, indeed!*
"We
talk of the weight of the heavenly bodies," says an astronomer; "but
since it is recognised that weight decreases in proportion to the distance from
the centre, it becomes evident that, at a certain distance, that weight must be
forcibly reduced to Zero? Were there any attraction there would be equilibrium
. . . . And since the modern school recognizes neither a beneath nor an above
in universal space, it is not clear what should cause the Earth to fall, were
there even no gravitation, nor attraction." (Cosmographie.)
Methinks
the Count de Maistre was right in solving the question in his own theological
way. He cuts the Gordian knot by saying:-- "The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For over a century all distinction between body and force is made away with.
"Force is but the property of a body in motion," say the physicists;
and "life -- the property of our animal organs -- is but the result of
their molecular arrangement," answer the physiologists. "In the bosom
of that aggregate which is named planet," teaches Littre, "are
developed all the forces immanent to matter . . . i.e., that matter possesses
in itself and through itself the forces that are proper to it . . . and which
are primary, not secondary. Such forces are the property of weight, the
property of electricity, of terrestrial magnetism, the property of life. . . .
Every planet can develop life . . . as earth, for instance, which had not
always mankind on it, and now bears (produit) men" . . . (Revue des Deux
Mondes, July 15, 1860.)
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[[Vol.
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planets
rotate because they are made to rotate . . . . . and the modern physical system
of the universe is a physical impossibility." (Soirees.) For did not
Herschell say the same thing when he remarked that there is a will needed to
impart a circular motion, and another will to restrain it? (Discours, 165.)
This shows and explains how a retarded planet is cunning enough to calculate so
well its time as to hit off its arrival at the fixed minute. For, if Science
sometimes succeeds with its great ingenuity in explaining some of such
stoppages, retrograde motions, angles outside the orbits, &c., &c., by
appearances resulting from the inequality of their progress and ours in the
course of our mutual and respective orbits, we still know that there are others,
and "very real and considerable deviations," according to Herschell,
"which cannot be explained except by the mutual and irregular action of
those planets and by the perturbing influence of the Sun."
We
understand, however, that there are, besides those little and accidental
perturbations, continuous perturbations called "secular" -- because
of the extreme slowness with which the irregularity increases and affects the
relations of the elliptic movement -- and that these perturbations can be
corrected. From Newton, who found that this world needed repairing very often,
down to Reynaud, all say the same. In his Ciel et Terre (p. 28), the latter
speaks of --
".
. . . . The orbits described by the planets as being very far from immutable;
on the contrary, subject to a perpetual mutation in their position and
form," -- all prove gravitation and the peripatetic laws to be as
negligent as they are quick to repair their mistakes. The charge as it stands
seems to be that "they (the orbits) are alternately widening and narrowing,
their great axis lengthens and diminishes, or oscillates at the same time from
right to left around the Sun, the plane itself, in which they are situated,
raising and lowering itself periodically while pivoting around itself with a
kind of tremor. . . ."
To
this, De Mirville, who believes in intelligent "workmen" ruling
invisibly the solar system -- as we do -- observes very wittily* . . . . .
"Voila certes, a voyage which has little in it of mechanical rigour; at
the utmost, one could compare it to a steamer, pulled to and fro and tossed on
the waves, retarded or accelerated, all and each of which impediments might put
off its arrival indefinitely, were there not the intelligences of a pilot and
engineers to catch up the time lost, and to repair the damages. . . . ."
The
law of gravity, however, seems to be becoming an obsolete law in starry heaven.
At any rate those long-haired sidereal radicals, called comets, appear to be
very poor respecters of the majesty of that law,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Deuxieme memoire, "Manifestations Historiques," p. 272.
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[[Vol.
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and
to beard it quite impudently. Nevertheless, and though presenting in nearly
every respect "phenomena not yet fully understood," comets and
meteors are credited by the believers in modern Science with obeying the same
laws and consisting of the same matter, "as the Suns, stars and
nebulae," and even "the earth and its inhabitants." (Laing's
"Modern Science and Modern Thought.")
This
is what one might call taking things on trust, aye, even to blind faith. But
exact Science is not to be questioned, and he who rejects the hypotheses
imagined by her students -- gravitation, for instance -- would be regarded as
an ignorant fool for it; yet we are told by the just cited author a queer
legend from the scientific annals. "The comet of 1811 had a tail 120 millions
of miles in length and 25 millions of miles in diameter at the widest part,
while the diameter of the nucleus was about 127,000 miles, more than ten times
that of the earth." He tells us, "in order that bodies of this
magnitude, passing near the earth, should not affect its motion or change the
length of the year by even a single second, their actual substance must be
inconceivably rare. . . ." It must be so indeed, yet:--
".
. . . . The extreme tenuity of a comet's mass is also proved by the phenomenon
of the tail, which, as the comet approaches the sun, is thrown out sometimes to
a length of 90 millions of miles in a few hours. And what is remarkable, THIS
TAIL IS THROWN OUT AGAINST THE FORCE OF GRAVITY by some repulsive force,
probably electrical, so that it always points away from the Sun (!!!) And yet,
thin as the matter of comets must be, IT OBEYS THE COMMON LAW OF GRAVITY (!?),
and whether the comet revolves in an orbit within that of the outer planets, or
shoots off into the abysses of Space, and returns only after hundreds of years,
its path is, at each instant, regulated by the same force as that which causes
an apple to fall to the ground." (Ibid, p. 17.)
Science
is like Caesar's wife, and must not be suspected -- this is evident. But it can
be respectfully criticised, nevertheless. At all events, it may be reminded
that "the apple" is a dangerous fruit. For the second time in the
history of mankind, it may become the cause of the FALL -- this time, of
"exact" Science. A comet whose tail defies the law of gravity right
in the Sun's face can hardly be credited with obeying that law.
In
a series of scientific works on Astronomy and the nebular theory, written
between 1865 and 1866, the present writer, a poor tyro in Science, has counted
in a few hours, no less than thirty-nine contradictory hypotheses offered as
explanations for the self-generated, primitive rotatory motion of the heavenly
bodies. The writer is no astronomer, no mathematician, no scientist; but was
obliged to examine these errors in defence of Occultism, in general, and what
is still more
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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important,
in order to support the occult teachings concerning astronomy and Cosmology.
Occultists were threatened with terrible penalties for questioning scientific
truths. But now they feel braver -- Science is less secure in its
"impregnable" position than they were led to expect, and many of its
strongholds are built on very shifting sands.
Thus,
even this poor and unscientific examination of it was useful, and it was
certainly very instructive. We have learned a good many things, in fact, having
studied with particular care especially those astronomical data that would be
the most likely to clash with our heterodox and "superstitious"
beliefs.
So,
for instance, we have found there, concerning gravitation, the axial and
orbital motions, that synchronous movement having been once overcome, in the
early stage -- it was enough to originate a rotatory motion till the end of
Manvantara. We have also come to know in all the aforesaid combinations of
possibilities with regard to incipient rotation -- most complicated in every
case, -- some of the causes to which it may have been due, as well as some
others to which it ought and should have been due, but, in some way or other,
was not. Among other things, we were informed that incipient rotation may be
provoked with equal ease in a mass in igneous fusion, and in one that is
characterised by glacial opacity ("Heaven and Earth"). That
gravitation is a law which nothing can overcome, but which, nevertheless, is
overcome in and out of season by the most ordinary celestial or terrestrial
bodies -- the tails of impudent comets, for instance. That we owe the universe
to the holy creative Trinity, called Inert Matter, Senseless Force and Blind
Chance. Of the real essence and nature of any of these three, Science knows
nothing, but this is a trifling detail. Ergo, we are told that, when a mass of
cosmic or nebular matter -- whose nature is unknown (entirely so), and which
may be in a state of fusion (Laplace), or dark and cold (Thomson), for
"this intervention of heat is itself a pure hypothesis" (Faye) --
decides to exhibit its mechanical energy under the form of rotation, it acts in
this wise. It (the mass) either bursts into spontaneous conflagration, or it
remains inert, tenebrous, and frigid, both states being equally capable of
sending it, without any adequate cause, spinning through space for millions of
years. Its movements may be retrograde and they may be direct, about a hundred
various reasons being offered for both motions, in about as many hypotheses.
Anyhow, joining the maze of stars, whose origin belongs to the same miraculous
and spontaneous order -- for "the nebular theory does not profess to
discover the origin of things, but only a stadium in material history"
(Winchell: World-Life) -- those millions of suns, planets, and satellites,
composed of inert matter, will whirl on in most impressive and majestic
symmetry around the firmament, moved
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and
guided only, their inertia notwithstanding, "by their own internal
motion."
Shall
we wonder after this if learned mystics, pious Roman Catholics, and even such
learned astronomers as were Chaubard and Godefroy,* have preferred the Kabala
and the ancient systems to the modern dreary and contradictory exposition of
the Universe? The Zohar makes a distinction, at any rate, between "the
hajaschar ("the light Forces"), the hachoser ("Reflected
Lights"), and the simple phenomenal exteriority of their spiritual
types." (See Kabala Denudata, II, 67.)
The
question of "gravity" may now be dismissed, and other hypotheses
examined. That physical Science knows nothing of "Forces" is clear.
We may close the argument, however, by calling to our help one more man of
Science -- Professor Jaumes, Member of the Academy of Medicine at Montpellier.
Says this learned man, speaking of Forces:--
"A
cause is that which is essentially acting in the genealogy of phenomena, in
every production as in every modification. I said that activity (or Force) was invisible.
. . . To suppose it corporeal and residing in the properties of matter would be
a gratuitous hypothesis. . . To reduce all the causes to God. . . . would
amount to embarrassing oneself with a hypothesis hostile to many verities. But
to speak of a plurality of forces proceeding from the Deity and possessing
inherent powers of their own, is not unreasonable. . . . and I am disposed to
admit phenomena produced by intermediate agents called Forces or Secondary
Agents. The distinction of Forces is the principle of the division of Sciences;
so many real and separate forces, so many mother-Sciences. . . . No: Forces are
not suppositions and abstractions, but realities, and the only acting realities
whose attributes can be determined with the help of direct observation and
induction." ("Sur la distinction des Forces," published in the
Memoires de l'Academie des Sciences de Montpellier, Vol. II., fasc. I., 1854.)
--------------
VI.
THE
MASKS OF SCIENCE.
PHYSICS
OR METAPHYSICS?
IF
there is anything on earth like progress, Science will some day have to give
up, nolens volens, such monstrous ideas as her physical, self-guiding laws --
void of soul and Spirit, -- and then turn to the occult teachings.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
L'Univers explique par la Revelation, and Cosmogonie de la Revelation. But see
De Mirville's Deuxieme Memoire. The author, a terrible enemy of Occultism, was
yet one who wrote great truths.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 507 ACADEMICAL MISNOMERS.
It
has done so already, however altered are the title-page and revised editions of
the Scientific Catechism. It is now over half a century since, in comparing
modern with ancient thought, it has been found that, however different our
philosophy may appear from that of our ancestors, it is, nevertheless, composed
only of additions and subtractions taken from the old philosophy and
transmitted drop by drop through the filter of antecedents.
This
fact was well known to Faraday, and other eminent men of Science. Atoms, Ether,
evolution itself -- all comes to modern Science from ancient notions, all is
based on the conceptions of the archaic nations. "Conceptions" for
the profane, under the shape of allegories; plain truths taught during the
Initiations to the elect, which truths have been partially divulged through
Greek writers and have descended to us. This does not mean that Occultism has
ever had the same views on matter, atoms and ether as found in the exotericism
of the classical Greek writers. Yet, if we believe Mr. Tyndall, even Faraday
was an Aristotelean, and an Agnostic more than a materialist. In his
"Faraday, as a Discoverer" (p. 123) the author shows the great
physicist using "old reflections of Aristotle" which are
"concisely found in some of his works." Faraday, Boscovitch, and all
others, however, who see, in the atoms and molecules, "centres of
force," and in the corresponding element force, an ENTITY BY ITSELF, are
far nearer the truth, perchance, than those, who, denouncing them, denounce at
the same time the "old corpuscular Pythagorean theory" (one, by the
way, which has never passed to posterity as the great philosopher really taught
it), on the ground of its "delusion that the conceptual elements of matter
can be grasped as separate and real entities."
The
chief and most fatal mistake and fallacy made by Science, in the view of the
Occultists, lies in the idea of the possibility of such a thing as inorganic,
or dead matter, in nature. Is anything dead or inorganic capable of
transformation or change? Occultism asks. And is there anything under the sun
which remains immutable or changeless?
This
fallacy is nowhere better illustrated than in the scientific work of a German
savant, Professor Philip Spiller (Der Weltaether als Kosmische Kraft). In this
cosmological treatise, the author attempts to prove that "no material
constituent of a body, no atom, is in itself originally endowed with force, but
that every such atom is absolutely dead,* and without any power to act at a
distance" (p. 4).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Something dead implies that it had been at some time living. When, at what period
of cosmogony? Occultism says that in all cases when matter appears inert, it is
the most active. A wooden or a stone block is motionless and impenetrable to
all intents and purposes. Nevertheless, and de facto, its particles are in
ceaseless eternal vibration which is so rapid that to the physical eye the body
seems absolutely devoid of motion; [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 508 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
This
statement, however, does not prevent Spiller from enunciating an occult
doctrine and principle. He asserts the independent substantiality of force, and
shows it as an "incorporeal stuff" (unkoerperlicher stoff) or
substance. Now substance is not matter in metaphysics, and for argument's sake
it may be granted that it is a wrong expression to use. But this is due to the
poverty of European languages, and especially to that of scientific terms. Then
this "stuff" is identified and connected by Spiller with the aether.
Expressed in occult language it might be said with more correctness that this
"force-substance" is the ever-active phenomenal positive aether --
prakriti; while the omnipresent all pervading ether is the noumenon of the
former, the substratum of all, or Akasa. Nevertheless, Stallo falls foul of
Spiller, as he does of the materialists. He is accused of "utter disregard
of the fundamental correlation of force and matter" (of neither of which
Science knows anything certain). For this "hypostasized half-concept"
is, in the view of all other physicists, not only imponderable, but destitute
of cohesive, chemical, thermal, electric, and magnetic forces -- of all of
which forces -- according to occultism -- aether is the source and cause.
Therefore
Spiller, with all his mistakes, exhibits more intuition than any other modern
Scientist, with the exception of Dr. Richardson, perhaps, the theorist on the
"nerve force," or Nervous Ether, also on "Sun Force and Earth
Force."* For AETHER, in Esotericism, is the very quintessence of all
possible energy, and it is certainly to this universal agent (composed of many
agents) that all the manifestations of energy in the material, psychic and
spiritual worlds are due.
What
are Electricity and Light, in fact? How can Science know that one is a fluid
and the other a "mode of motion"? Why is it not made clear why a
difference should be made between them, since both are considered
force-correlations. Electricity is a fluid, we are told, immaterial and
non-molecular (though Helmholtz thinks otherwise), and the proof of it is that
we can bottle it up, accumulate and store it away. Then, it must be simply
matter, and no peculiar "fluid." Nor is it only "a mode of
motion," for motion could hardly be stored in a Leyden jar. As for light,
it is a still more extraordinary "mode of motion;" since,
"marvellous as it may appear, light (also) can actually be stored up for
use," as demonstrated by Professor Grove nearly half a century ago.
"Take
an engraving which has been kept for some days in the dark, expose it to full
sunshine -- that is, insulate it for 15 minutes; lay it on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] and the spacial distance between those particles
in their vibratory motion is -- considered from another plane of being and
perception -- as great as that which separates snow flakes or drops of rain.
But to physical science this will be an absurdity.
*
See "Popular Science Review," Vol. V., pp. 329-34.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 509 THE FIXING OF LIGHT.
sensitive
paper in a dark place, and at the end of 24 hours it will have left an
impression of itself on the sensitive paper, the whites coming out as blacks. .
. . There seems to be no limit for the reproduction of engravings, etc., etc. .
. . ."
What
is it that remains fixed, nailed, so to say, on the paper? It is a Force
certainly, that fixed the thing, but what is that thing, the residue of which
remains on the paper?
Our
learned men will get out of this through some scientific technicality; but what
is it that is intercepted, so as to imprison a certain quantity of it on glass,
paper, or wood? Is it "Motion" or is it "Force"? Or shall we
be told that what remains behind is the effect only of the force or Motion?
Then what is this Force? Force or energy is a quality; but every quality must
belong to a something, or a somebody. In Physics, Force is defined as
"that which changes or tends to change any physical relation between
bodies, whether mechanical, thermal, chemical, electrical, magnetic, etc."
But it is not that "Force" or that "Motion" which remains
behind on the paper, when the Force or Motion has ceased to act; and yet
something, which our physical senses cannot perceive, has been left there to
become a cause in its turn and produce effects. What is it? It is not matter,
as defined by Science -- i.e., matter in any of its known states. An Alchemist
would say it was a spiritual secretion -- and would be laughed at. But yet,
when the physicist said that Electricity, stored up, was a fluid, or that light
fixed on paper is still Sunlight -- this is Science.* In the opinion of an
experienced Occultist, one who has verified the whole series of Nidanas, of
causes and effects that finally project their last effect on to this our plane
of manifestations; one who has traced matter back to its noumenon, the
explanation of the physicist is like calling anger, or its effects -- the
exclamation provoked by it -- a secretion or a fluid, and man, the cause of it
-- its material conductor. But, as Grove prophetically remarked, that day is
fast approaching when it will be confessed that the "forces" we know
of are but the phenomenal manifestations of realities we know nothing about, --
but which were known to the ancients and -- by them worshipped.
He
made one still more suggestive remark, however, which ought to have become the
motto of Science, but has not. Sir W. Grove said that "SCIENCE SHOULD HAVE
NEITHER DESIRES NOR PREJUDICES. TRUTH SHOULD BE HER SOLE AIM."
Meanwhile,
in our days, Scientists are more self-opinionated and bigoted than even the
clergy. For they minister to, if they do not actually worship,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The newest Authorities have rejected these explanations as "exploded
theories," and have now deified "Motion" as their sole Idol.
But, surely, they and their idol will one day share the fate of their predecessors.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 510 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"Force-Matter,"
which is their Unknown God. And how unknown it is may be inferred from the many
confessions of the most eminent physicists and biologists, with Faraday at
their head. Not only, he said, could he never presume to pronounce whether
Force was a property or function of Matter, but he actually did not know what
was meant by the word matter.
There
was a time, he added, when he believed he knew something of matter. But the
more he lived, and the more carefully he studied it, the more he became
convinced of his utter ignorance of the nature of matter.* (See Buckwell's
"Electric Science.")
The
Occultists are often misunderstood because, for lack of better terms, they
apply to the essence of Force under certain aspects the descriptive epithet of
substance. Now the names for the varieties of "substance" on
different planes of perception and being are legion. Eastern Occultism has a
special appellation for each kind; but Science -- like England, in the
recollection of a witty Frenchman, blessed with thirty-six religions and only
one fish-sauce -- has but one name for all, namely, "Substance."
Moreover, neither the orthodox physicists nor their critics seem to be very
certain of their premises, and are as apt to confuse the effects as they do the
causes. It is incorrect, for instance, to say, as Stallo does, that
"matter can no more be realized or conceived as mere spacial presence than
as a concretion of forces," or that "force is nothing without mass,
and mass is nothing without force" -- for one is the noumenon and the
other the phenomenon. Again; Schelling, when saying that "It is a mere
delusion of the phantasy that something, we know not what, remains after we
have denuded an object of all the predicates belonging to it"** -- could
never have applied the remark to the realm of transcendental metaphysics. It is
true that pure force is nothing in the world of physics; it is ALL in the
domain of Spirit. Says Stallo: "If we reduce the mass upon which a given
force, however small, acts to its limit zero -- or, mathematically expressed,
until it becomes infinitely small -- the consequence is that the velocity of
the resulting motion is infinitely great, and that the 'thing' . . . is at any
given moment neither here nor there, but everywhere -- that there is no
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This ominous confession was made, we believe, at a Scientific Congress at
Swansea. Faraday held a similar opinion, however, as stated by Tyndall:
"What do we know of the atom apart from its force? You imagine a nucleus
which may be called a and surround it by forces which may be called m; to my
mind the a or nucleus vanishes and the substance consists of the powers m. And,
indeed, what notion can we form of the nucleus independent of its powers? What
thought remains on which to hang the imagination of an a independent of the
acknowledged forces?"
**
Schelling, "Ideen," etc., p. 18.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 511 WHAT IS FORCE?
real
presence; it is impossible, therefore, to construct matter by a synthesis of
forces" (p. 161).
This
may be true in the phenomenal world, inasmuch as the illusive reflection of the
one reality of the supersensual world may appear true to the dwarfed
conceptions of a materialist. It is absolutely incorrect when the argument is
applied to things, in what the Kabalists call the supermundane spheres.
Inertia, so called, "is force" according to Newton (Princ. Def.
iii.), and for the student of Esoteric Sciences the greatest of the occult
forces. A body may be considered divorced from its relations with other bodies --
which, according to physical and mechanical sciences, give rise to its
attributes -- only conceptually, only on this plane of illusion. In fact, it
can never be so detached: death itself being unable to detach it from its
relation with the Universal forces, of which the one FORCE or LIFE is the
synthesis: but simply continues such inter-relation on another plane. But what,
if Stallo is right, can Dr. James Croll mean when, in speaking "On the
Transformation of Gravity" (Philosophical Magazine, Vol. II., p. 252), he brings
forward the views advocated by Faraday, Waterston, and others? For he says very
plainly that gravity --
".
. . . . is a force pervading Space external to bodies, and that, on the mutual approach
of the bodies, the force is not increased, as is generally supposed, but the
bodies merely pass into a place where the force exists with greater intensity.
. . . ."
No
one will deny that a force (whether gravity, electricity, or any other force) which
exists outside of the bodies and in open space -- be it ether or vacuum -- must
be something, and not a pure nothing, when conceived apart from a mass?
Otherwise it could hardly exist in one place with a greater and in another with
reduced "intensity." G. A. Hirn declares the same in his Theorie
Mecanique de l'Univers. He tries to demonstrate that the atom of the chemists
is not an entity of pure convention, or simply an explicative device, but that
it exists really, that its volume is unalterable, and that consequently it is
not elastic (!!). "Force, therefore, is not in the atom; it is in the
space which separates the atoms from each other."
The
above-cited views, expressed by two men of Science of great eminence in their
respective countries, show that it is not in the least unscientific to speak of
the substantiality of the so-called Forces. Subject to some future specific
name, this force is substance of some kind, and can be nothing else; and
perhaps one day Science will be the first to re-adopt the derided name of
phlogiston. Whatever may be the future name given to it, to maintain that force
does not reside in the atoms, but only in "space between them," may
be scientific enough; nevertheless it is not true. To the mind of an Occultist
it is like saying
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 512 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
that
water does not reside in the drops of which the ocean is composed, but only in
the space between those drops!
The
objection made that there are two distinct schools of physicists, by one of
which "the force is assumed to be an independent substantial entity, which
is NOT a property of matter nor is it essentially related to matter,"* is
hardly likely to help the profane to any clearer understanding. It is, on the
contrary, still more calculated to throw the question into greater confusion
than ever. For Force is, then, neither this nor the other. By viewing it as
"an independent substantial entity," the theory extends the right hand
of fellowship to Occultism, while the strange contradictory idea that it is not
related to matter "otherwise than by its power to act upon it,"**
leads physical science to the most absurd contradictory hypotheses. Whether
"force" or "motion," (Occultism, seeing no difference
between the two, never attempts to separate them) it cannot act for the
adherents of the atomo-mechanical theory one way, and for those of the rival
school in another way. Nor can the atoms be, in one case, absolutely uniform in
size and weight, and in another, vary in their weight (Avogadro's law). For, in
the words of the same able critic,
.
. . "While the absolute equality of the primordial units of mass is thus
an essential part of the very foundations of the mechanical theory, the whole
modern Science of chemistry is based upon a principle directly subversive of it
-- a principle of which it has recently been said that 'it holds the same place
in chemistry that the law of gravitation does in astronomy.'*** This principle
is known as the law of Avogadro or Ampere."****
This
shows that either modern chemistry or modern physics is entirely wrong in its
respective fundamental principles. For if the assumption of atoms of different
specific gravities on the basis of the atomic theory in physics is deemed
absurd, and chemistry meets, nevertheless, on its opposite basis (in the
question of the formation and transformation of chemical compounds) with
"unfailing experimental verification,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Concepts of Modern Physics," xxxi., Introductory to the 2nd edition.
**
Loc. cit.
***
J. P. Cooke, The New Chemistry, p. 13.
****
"It imports that equal volumes of all substances, when in the gaseous
state, and under like conditions of pressure and temperature, contain the same
number of molecules -- whence it follows that the weights of the molecules are
proportional to the specific gravities of the gases; that therefore, these
being different, the weights of the molecules are different also; and inasmuch
as the molecules of certain elementary substances are monatomic (consist of but
one atom each) while the molecules of various other substances contain the same
number of atoms, that the ultimate atoms of such substances are of different
weights" (Concepts of Modern Physics, p. 34). As shown further on in the
same volume, this cardinal principle of modern theoretical chemistry is in
utter and irreconcilable conflict with the first proposition of the
atomo-mechanical theory -- namely, the absolute equality of the primordial
units of mass.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 513 THEY AGREE TO DISAGREE.
then
it becomes apparent that it is the atomo-mechanical theory which is untenable.
The explanations of the latter, that "the differences of weight are only
differences of density, and differences of density are differences of distance
between the particles contained in a given space," are not really valid,
because, before a physicist can argue in his defence that, "as in the atom
there is no multiplicity of particles and no void space: hence differences of
density or weight are impossible in the case of atoms," he must first know
what an atom is, in reality, and that he cannot know. He must bring it under
the observation of at least one of his physical senses -- and that he cannot
do: for the simple reason that no one has ever seen, smelt, heard, touched or
tasted an "atom." The atom belongs wholly to the domain of
metaphysics. It is an entified abstraction -- at any rate for physical Science
-- and has nought to do with physics, strictly speaking, as it can never be
brought to the test of retort or balance. The mechanical conception, therefore,
becomes a jumble of the most conflicting theories and dilemmas, in the minds of
the many Scientists who disagree on this, as on other subjects; the evolution
of which the Eastern Occultist, who follows this scientific strife, beholds in
the greatest bewilderment.
To
conclude on the question of gravity. How can Science presume to know anything
certain of it? How can it maintain its position and its hypotheses against
those of the Occultists, who see in gravity only sympathy and antipathy, or
attraction and repulsion, caused by physical polarity on our terrestrial plane,
and by spiritual causes outside of its influence? How can they disagree with
the Occultists before they agree among themselves? Indeed one hears of the conservation
of energy, and in the same breath of the perfect hardness and inelasticity of
the atoms; of the Kinetic theory of gases being identical with "potential
energy," so called; and, at the same time, of the elementary units of mass
being absolutely hard and inelastic! An Occultist opens a scientific work and
reads as follows:--
"Physical
atomism derives all the qualitative properties of matter from the forms of
atomic motion. The atoms themselves remain as elements utterly devoid of
property." (Wundt, "Die Theorie der Materie," p. 381.)
And
further:
"Chemistry
in its ultimate form must be atomic mechanics." (Nazesmann,
"Thermochemie," p. 150.)
And
a moment after he is told that:
"Gases
consist of atoms which behave like solid, perfectly elastic spheres."
(Kroenig, Clausius, Maxwell, etc., Philosophical Magazine, Vol. XIX., p. 18.)
Finally,
to crown all, Sir W. Thomson is found declaring that:
"We
are forbidden by the modern theory of the conservation of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 514 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
energy
to assume inelasticity, or anything short of perfect elasticity of the ultimate
molecules whether of ultra mundane or mundane matter." (!!!)
("Philosophical Magazine," p. 321, loc. cit.)
But
what do the men of true Science say to all this? By the "men of true
Science" we mean those who care too much for truth and too little for
their personal vanity to dogmatise on anything, as the majority do. There are
several among them -- perhaps more than dare publish openly their secret
conclusions for fear of the cry "Stone him to death!" -- men, whose
intuitions have made them span the abyss that lies between the terrestrial
aspect of matter, and the -- to us, on our plane of illusion -- subjective,
i.e., TRANSCENDENTALLY OBJECTIVE SUBSTANCE, and led them to proclaim the
existence of the latter. Matter, to the Occultist, it must be remembered, is
that totality of existences in the Kosmos, which falls within any of the planes
of possible perception. We are but too well aware that the orthodox theories of
sound, heat and light, are against the occult doctrines. But, it is not enough
for the men of Science, or their defenders, to say that they do not deny
dynamic power to light and heat; and urge as a proof the fact that Mr. Crookes'
radiometer has unsettled no views. If they would fathom the ultimate nature of
these Forces, they have first to admit their substantial nature, however
supersensuous. Neither do the Occultists deny the correctness of the vibratory
theory.* Only they limit its functions to our Earth -- declaring its inadequacy
on other planes than ours, since "Masters" in the Occult Sciences
perceive the CAUSES that produce ethereal vibrations. Were all these only the
fictions of the alchemists, or dreams of the Mystics, such men as Paracelsus,
Philalethes, Van Helmont, and so many others, would have to be regarded as
worse than visionaries: they would become impostors and deliberate
mystificators.
The
Occultists are taken to task for calling the Cause of light, heat, sound,
cohesion, magnetism, etc., etc., a substance.** Mr. Clerk Maxwell has stated
that the pressure of strong sunlight on a square mile is about 3 1/4 lbs. It
is, they are told, "the energy of the myriad ether waves;" and when
they call it a "substance" impinging on that area, their explanation
is proclaimed unscientific.
There
is no justification for such an accusation. In no way -- as stated
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Referring to the Aura, one of the Masters says in the "Occult World,"
"How could you make yourself understood by, command in fact, those
semi-intelligent forces, whose means of communication with us are not through
spoken words but through sounds and colours in correlation between the
vibrations of the two." It is this "correlation" that is unknown
to modern Science, yet was many times explained by the Alchemists.
**
The "substance" of the Occultist, however, is to the most refined
substance of the physicist, what radiant matter is to the leather of the
Chemist's boots.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 515 THE MYSTIC RAYS.
more
than once before now -- do the Occultists dispute the explanations of Science,
as affording a solution of the immediate objective agencies at work. Science
only errs in believing that, because it has detected in vibratory waves the
proximate cause of these phenomena, it has, therefore, revealed ALL that lies
beyond the threshold of Sense. It merely traces the sequence of phenomena on a
plane of effects, illusory projections from the region that Occultism has long
since penetrated. And the latter maintains that those etheric tremors, are not,
as asserted by Science, set up by the vibrations of the molecules of known
bodies -- the matter of our terrestrial objective consciousness, -- but that we
must seek for the ultimate causes of light, heat, etc., etc., in MATTER
existing in super-sensuous states -- states, however, as fully objective to the
spiritual eye of man, as a horse or a tree is to the ordinary mortal. Light and
heat are the ghost or shadow of matter in motion. Such states can be perceived
by the SEER or the Adept during the hours of trance, under the Sushumna ray --
the first of the Seven Mystic rays of the Sun.*
Thus,
we put forward the Occult teaching which maintains the reality of a
supersubstantial and supersensible essence of that Akasa (not ether, which is
only an aspect of the latter), the nature of which cannot be inferred from its
remoter manifestations -- its merely phenomenal phalanx of effects -- on this
terrene plane. Science, on the contrary, informs us that heat can never be
regarded as matter in any conceivable state.** We are also told that the two
great obstacles to the fluid (?) theory of heat undoubtedly are:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The names of the Seven Rays -- which are, Sushumna, Harikesa, Viswakarman,
Viswatryarchas, Sannaddha, Sarvavasu and Swaraj -- are all mystical, and each
has its distinct application in a distinct state of consciousness, for occult
purposes. The Sushumna, which, as said in the Nirukta (11, 6), is only to light
up the moon, is the ray nevertheless cherished by the initiated Yogis. The
totality of the Seven Rays spread through the Solar system constitute, so to
say, the physical Upadhi (basis) of the Ether of Science; in which Upadhi,
light, heat, electricity, etc., etc., -- the forces of orthodox science --
correlate to produce their terrestrial effects. As psychic and spiritual
effects, they emanate from, and have their origin in, the supra-solar Upadhi,
in the ether of the Occultist -- or Akasa.
**
To cite a most impartial critic, one whose authority no one can call in
question, as a reminder to Western Dogmatists, that the question cannot be in
any way considered as settled: "There is no fundamental difference between
light and heat . . . each is merely a metamorphosis of the other. . . . Heat is
light in complete repose. Light is heat in rapid motion. Directly light is
combined with a body, it becomes heat; but when it is thrown off from that body
it again becomes light." (Leslie's Fluid Theory of Light and Heat.)
"Whether this is true or false we cannot tell, and many years, perhaps
many generations, will have to elapse before we shall be able to tell."
(Buckle's History of Civilization, Vol. III., p. 384.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(1.)
The production of heat by friction -- excitation of molecular motions.
(2.)
The conversion of heat into mechanical motion.
The
answer given is: There are fluids of various kinds. Electricity is called a
fluid, and so was heat quite recently, but it was on the supposition that heat
was some imponderable substance. This was during the supreme and autocratic
reign of matter. When the latter was dethroned, and MOTION was proclaimed the
sole sovereign ruler of the Universe, heat became "a mode of motion."
We need not despair: it may become something else to-morrow. Like the Universe
itself, Science is ever becoming, and can never say, "I am that I
am." On the other hand, Occult Science has its changeless traditions from
prehistoric times. It may err in particulars; it can never become guilty of a
mistake in questions of Universal laws, simply because that Science, justly
referred to by philosophy as the "divine," was born on higher planes,
and was brought on Earth by beings who were wiser than man will be, even in the
seventh Race of his Seventh Round. And that Science maintains that Forces are
not what modern learning would have them; e.g., Magnetism is not a "mode
of motion"; and, in this particular case, at least, exact "modern
Science" is sure to come to grief some day. Nothing, at the first blush,
can appear more ridiculous, more outrageously absurd than to say, for instance:
"the Hindu initiated Yogi knows really ten times more than the greatest
European physicist of the ultimate nature and constitution of light -- both
solar and lunar." Yet why is the Sushumna ray believed to be that ray
which furnishes the moon with its borrowed light? Why is it "the ray
cherished by the initiated Yogi?" Why is the moon held as the deity of the
mind, by those Yogis? We say, because light, or rather all its occult
properties, every combination and correlation of it with other forces, mental,
psychic, and spiritual, were perfectly known to the old adepts.
Therefore,
although, in its knowledge of the ultimate constitution of matter, or in the
so-called ultimate analysis as opposed to the proximate in chemistry, occult
science may be less well-informed as to the behaviour of compound elements in
various cases of physical correlations: still, it is immeasurably higher in its
knowledge of the ultimate occult states of matter, and of the true nature of
matter, than all the physicists and chemists of our modern day put together.
Now,
if we state the truth openly and in full sincerity, namely, that the ancient
Initiates had a far wider knowledge of physics -- as a Science of Nature --
than our Academies of Science, all taken together, possess, the statement will
be characterized as an impertinence and an absurdity; for physical sciences are
considered to have been carried in our age to the apex of perfection. Hence,
the twitting query -- "Can
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[[Vol.
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the
Occultists meet successfully the two points, namely (a) the production of heat
by friction -- excitation of molecular motions; and (b) the conversion of heat
into mechanical force, if they hold to the old "exploded" theory of
heat being a substance or a fluid?"
To
answer the question, it must first be observed that the Occult Sciences do not
regard either electricity or any of the forces supposed to be generated by it,
as matter, in any of the states known to physical Science; to put it more
clearly, none of these "forces," so-called, are either solids, gases,
or fluids. If it did not look pedantic, an Occultist would even object to
electricity being called a fluid -- as it is an effect and not a cause. But its
noumenon, he would say, is a conscious cause. The same in the cases of
"Force" and the "Atom." Let us see what an eminent
Academician, Butlerof, the chemist, had to say about these two abstractions.
--------------
"What
is Force?" argues this great man of Science, "what is it from a
strictly scientific stand-point, and as warranted by the law of conservation of
energy? Conceptions of Force are resumed by our conceptions of this, that, or
another mode of motion." Force is thus simply the passage of one state of
motion into another state of the same: of electricity, into heat and light, of
heat into sound or some mechanical function, and so on.* The first time
electric fluid was produced by man on earth it must have been by friction;
hence, as well-known, it is heat that produces it by disturbing its laya state,**
and electricity exists no more on earth per se than heat or light, or any other
force. They are all correlations, as science says. "When a given quantity
of heat, assisted by a steam engine, is transformed into mechanical work, we
speak of steam power (or force). When a falling body strikes an obstacle in its
way, thereby generating heat and sound -- we call it the power of collision.
When electricity decomposes water or heats a platinum wire, we speak of the
force of the electric fluid. When the rays of the sun are intercepted by the
thermometer bulb and its quicksilver expands, we speak of the calorific energy
of the sun. In short, when one state of a determined quantity of motion ceases,
another state of motion equivalent to the preceding takes its place, and the
result of such a transformation or correlation is -- force. In all cases where
such a transformation, or the passage of one state of motion into another, is
entirely absent, there no force is possible. Let us admit for a moment an
absolutely homogeneous state of the Universe, and our conception of force falls
down to nought."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
On the plane of manifestation and illusionary matter it may be so; not that it
is nothing more, for it is vastly more.
**
Neutral, or zero.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Therefore
it becomes evident that the force, which materialism considers as the cause of
the diversity that surrounds us, is in sober reality only an effect, a result
of that diversity. From such point of view force is not the cause of motion,
but a result, while the cause of that force, or forces, is not the substance or
matter, but motion itself. Matter thus must be laid aside and with it the basic
principle of materialism, which has become unnecessary, as force brought down
to a state of motion can give no idea of the substance. If force is the result
of motion, then it becomes incomprehensible why that motion should become
witness to matter and not to Spirit or a Spiritual essence. True, our reason
cannot conceive of a motion minus something moving (and our reason is right);
but the nature or esse of that something moving remains to Science entirely unknown;
and the Spiritualist, in such case, has as much right to attribute it to a
"Spirit," as a Materialist to creative and all-potential matter. A
Materialist has no special privileges in this instance, nor can he claim any.
The law of the conservation of energy, as thus seen, is shown to be
illegitimate in its pretensions and claims in this case. The "great
dogma" -- no force without matter and no matter without force -- falls to
the ground, and loses entirely the solemn significance with which materialism
has tried to invest it. The conception of force still gives no idea of matter
and compels us in no way to see in it "the origin of all origins."
("Scientific Letters," Professor Butlerof.)
We
are assured that real science is not materialistic; and our own conviction
tells us that it cannot be so, when its learning is real. There is a good
reason for it, well defined by some physicists and chemists themselves. Natural
sciences cannot go hand in hand with materialism. To be at the height of their
calling, men of science have to reject the very possibility of materialistic
doctrines having aught to do with the atomic theory; and we find that Lange,
Butlerof, Du Bois Reymond, -- the latter probably unconsciously -- and several
others, have proved it. And it is, furthermore, demonstrated by the fact, that
Kanada in India, and Leucippus, Democritus, and after them Epicurus -- the
earliest atomists in Europe -- while propagating their doctrine of definite
proportions, believed in Gods or supersensuous entities, at the same time.
Their ideas upon matter thus differed from those now prevalent. We must be
allowed to make our statement clearer in a short synopsis of the ancient and
modern views of philosophy upon atoms, and thus prove that the atomic theory
kills Materialism.
From
the standpoint of Materialism, which reduces the beginnings of all to matter,
the Universe consists, in its fullness, of atoms and vacuity. Even leaving
aside the axiom -- now absolutely demonstrated by telescope and microscope --
taught by the ancients, that nature abhors
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[[Vol.
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vacuum,
what is an atom? "It is, we are answered by Science," writes
Professor Butlerof, "the limited division of substance, the indivisible
particle of matter. To admit the divisibility of the atom, amounts to an
admission of an infinite divisibility of substance, which is equivalent to
reducing substance to nihil, a nothingness. Owing to a feeling of
self-preservation alone, materialism cannot admit infinite divisibility;
otherwise, it would have to bid farewell for ever to its basic principle and
thus sign its own death-warrant." Buchner, for instance, like a true
dogmatist in materialism, declares that "to accept infinite divisibility
is absurd, and amounts to doubting the very existence of matter." The Atom
is indivisible then, saith Materialism? Very well.
"See
now what a curious contradiction this fundamental principle of the materialists
is leading them into," writes Butlerof. "The atom is indivisible, and
at the same time we know it to be elastic. An attempt to deprive it of
elasticity is unthinkable; it would amount to an absurdity. Absolutely
non-elastic atoms could never exhibit a single one of those numerous phenomena
that are attributed to their correlations. Without any elasticity, the atoms
could not manifest their energy, and the substance of the materialists would
remain weeded of every force. Therefore, if the Universe is composed of atoms,
then those atoms must be elastic. It is here that we meet with an insuperable
obstacle. For, what are the conditions requisite for the manifestation of
elasticity? An elastic ball, when striking against an obstacle, is flattened
and contracts, which it would be impossible for it to do, were not that ball to
consist of particles, the relative position of which experiences at the time of
the blow a temporary change. This may be said of elasticity in general; no
elasticity is possible without change with respect to the position of the
compound particles of an elastic body. This means that the elastic body is
changeful and consists of particles, or, in other words, that elasticity can
pertain only to those bodies that are divisible. And the atom is elastic."
This
is sufficient to show how absurd are the simultaneous admissions of the
non-divisibility and elasticity of the atom. The atom is elastic, ergo, the
atom is divisible, and must consist of particles, or of sub-atoms. And these
sub-atoms? They are either non-elastic, and in such case they represent no
dynamic importance, or, they are elastic also; and in that case, they, too, are
subject to divisibility. And thus ad infinitum. But infinite divisibility of
atoms resolves matter into simple centres of force, i.e., precludes the
possibility of conceiving matter as an objective substance.
This
vicious circle is fatal to materialism. It finds itself caught in its own nets,
and no issue is possible for it out of the dilemma. If it says that the atom is
indivisible, then it will have mechanics asking it the awkward question:
"How does the Universe move in this case, and how do its forces correlate?
A world built on absolutely non-elastic atoms, is like an engine without steam,
it is doomed to eternal inertia."*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Scientific Letters," Butlerof.
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[[Vol.
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Accept
the explanations and teachings of Occultism, and, the blind inertia of physical
Science being replaced by the intelligent active Powers behind the veil of
matter, motion and inertia become subservient to those Powers. It is on the
doctrine of the illusive nature of matter, and the infinite divisibility of the
atom, that the whole science of Occultism is built. It opens limitless horizons
to substance informed by the divine breath of its soul in every possible state
of tenuity, states still undreamt of by the most spiritually disposed chemists
and physicists.
The
above views were enunciated by an Academician, the greatest chemist in Russia,
and a recognised authority even in Europe -- the late Professor Butlerof. True,
he was defending the phenomena of the Spiritualists, the materializations, so
called, in which he believed as Professors Zollner, and Hare did, as Mr. A.
Russell Wallace, Mr. W. Crookes, and many another Fellow of the Royal Society,
do still, whether openly or secretly. But his argument with regard to the
nature of the essence that acts behind the physical phenomena of light, heat,
electricity, etc., is no less scientific and authoritative for all that, and
apply admirably to the case in hand. Science has no right to deny to the
Occultists their claim to a more profound knowledge of the so-called Forces;
which, they say, are only the effects of causes generated by Powers,
substantial, yet supersensuous, and beyond any kind of matter with which they
(the Scientists) have hitherto become acquainted. The most science can do is to
assume the attitude of agnosticism and to maintain it. Then it can say:
"Your case is no more proven than is ours; but we confess to knowing
nothing in reality either about Force or matter, or that which lies at the
bottom of the so-called correlations of Forces. Therefore, time alone can prove
who is right and who is wrong. Let us wait patiently, and meanwhile show
courtesy instead of scoffing at each other."
But
to do this requires a boundless love of truth and the surrender of that
prestige -- however false -- of infallibility, which the men of Science have
acquired among the ignorant and flippant, though cultured, masses of the
profane. To blend the two sciences, the archaic and the modern, requires first
of all the abandonment of the actual materialistic lines. It necessitates a
kind of religious mysticism and even the study of old magic, which our
Academicians will never take up. The necessity is easily explained. Just as in
old alchemical works the real meaning of the substances and elements meant are
concealed under the most ridiculous metaphors, so are the physical, psychic,
and spiritual natures of the Elements (say of fire) concealed in the Vedas, and
especially in the Puranas, under allegories comprehensible only to the
Initiates. Had they no meaning, then indeed all those long legends and
allegories about the sacredness of the three types of fire, and the forty-nine
original fires --
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[[Vol.
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personified
by the Sons of Daksha's daughters and the Rishis, their husbands, "who
with the first son of Brahma and his three descendants constitute the
forty-nine fires" -- would be idiotic verbiage and no more. But it is not
so. Every fire has a distinct function and meaning in the worlds of the
physical and the spiritual. It has, moreover, in its essential nature a
corresponding relation to one of the human psychic faculties, besides its well
determined chemical and physical potencies when coming in contact with the
terrestrially differentiated matter. Science has no speculations to offer upon
fire per se; Occultism and ancient religious science have. This is shown even
in the meagre and purposely veiled phraseology of the Puranas, where (as in the
Vayu Purana) many of the qualities of the personified fires are explained.
Thus, Pavaka is electric, or Vaidyuta, fire; Pavamana, the fire produced by
friction, (or Nirmathya): and Suchi is solar (or Saura) fire* -- all these
three being the sons of Abhimanin, the Agni (fire), eldest son of Brahma and of
Swaha. Pavaka, moreover, is made parent to Kavyavahana, the fire of the Pitris:
Suchi to Havyavahana -- the fire of the gods; and Pavamana, to Saharaksha, the
fire of the Asuras. Now all this shows that the writers of the Puranas were
perfectly conversant with the "Forces" of Science and their
correlations; moreover, with the various qualities of the latter in their
bearing upon those psychic and physical phenomena which receive no credit and are
unknown to physical science now. Very naturally, when an Orientalist, --
especially one with materialistic tendencies -- reads that these are only
appellations of fire employed in the invocations and rituals, he calls this
"Tantrika superstition and mystification"; and he becomes more
careful to avoid errors in spelling, than to give attention to the secret
meaning attached to the personifications, or to seek their explanation in the
physical correlations of forces, so far as known. So little credit, indeed, is
given to the ancient Aryans for knowledge, that even such glaring passages as
in Book I. chap. ii, Vishnu Purana, are left without any notice. Nevertheless,
what can this sentence mean? -- "Then Ether, air, light, water, and earth,
severally united with the properties of sound and other qualities, existed as
distinguishable according to their properties, . . . . but possessing many and
various energies and being unconnected, they could not, without combination,
create living beings, not having blended with each other. . . . Having combined
. . . they assumed through mutual association, the character of one mass of
entire unity; and directed by Spirit . . ." etc. This means, of course,
that the writers were perfectly acquainted with correlation and were well posted
about the origin of Kosmos from the "undiscrete Principle" --
Avyaktanugrahena, as applied
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Called the "drinker of waters," solar heat causing water to
evaporate.
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[[Vol.
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to
Parabrahmam and Mulaprakriti conjointly, and not to "Avyakta, either First
Cause, or matter," as Wilson gives it. The old Initiates knew of no
"miraculous creation," but taught the evolution of atoms (on our
physical plane), and their first differentiation from laya into the protyle, as
Mr. Crookes has suggestively named matter, or primordial substance beyond the
zero-line:-- there where we place Mulaprakriti, the "root-Principle"
of the world stuff and of all in the world.
This
can be easily demonstrated. Take, for instance, the newly-published catechism
of the Visishtadwaita Vedantins, an orthodox and exoteric system, yet fully
enunciated and taught in the XIth century (its founder, Ramanujacharya, being
born in A.D. 1017), at a time when European "Science" still believed
in the squareness and flatness of the Earth, of Cosmas-Indicopleustes of the
VIth century. It teaches that before evolution began, Prakriti (Nature) was in
a condition of laya or absolute homogeneity, as "matter exists in two
conditions, the sukshma, or latent and undifferentiated, and the sthula or
differentiated condition." Then it became anu, atomic. It teaches of Sudda-satwa
-- "a substance not subject to the qualities of matter, from which it is
quite different," and adds that out of that substance the bodies of the
inhabitants of Vaikuntaloka (the heaven of Vishnu), the gods, are formed. That
every particle or atom of Prakriti contains Jiva (divine life), and is the
sarira (body) of that Jiva which it contains, while every Jiva is in its turn
the sarira of the supreme spirit, as "Parabrahm pervades every Jiva, as
well as every particle of matter." Dualistic and anthropomorphic as may be
the philosophy of the Visishtadwaita, when compared with that of the Adwaita --
the non-dualists, -- it is yet supremely higher in logic and philosophy than
the cosmogony accepted by either Christianity, or its great opponent, modern Science.
The followers of one of the greatest minds that ever appeared on Earth, the
Adwaita Vedantins are called Atheists, because they regard all save Parabrahm,
the secondless, or Absolute Reality -- as an illusion. Yet the wisest Initiates
came from their ranks, as also the greatest Yogis. The Upanishads show that
they most assuredly knew not only what is the causal substance in the effects
of friction, and that their forefathers were acquainted with the conversion of
heat into mechanical force, but that they were acquainted with the noumena of
every spiritual as well as of every cosmic phenomenon.
Truly
the young Brahmin who graduates in the universities and colleges of India with
the highest honours; who starts in life as an M.A. and an LL.B., with a tail
initialed from Alpha to Omega after his name, and a contempt for his national
gods proportioned to the honours received in his education in physical
sciences; truly he has but to read in the light of the latter, and with an eye
to the correlation of
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[[Vol.
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physical
Forces, certain passages in his Puranas, if he would learn how much more his
ancestors knew than he will ever know -- unless he becomes an occultist. Let
him turn to the allegory of Pururavas and the celestial Gandharva,* who
furnished the former with a vessel full of heavenly fire. The primeval mode of
obtaining fire by friction has its scientific explanation in the Vedas, and is
pregnant with meaning for him who reads between the lines. The Tretagni (sacred
triad of fires) obtained by the attrition of sticks made of the wood of the
Aswattha tree (the Bo-tree, of Wisdom and Knowledge) -- sticks "as many
finger-breaths long as there are syllables in the gayatri" must have a
secret meaning, or else the writers of the Vedas and Puranas were no sacred
writers but mystificators. That it has such a meaning, the Hindu Occultists are
a proof, and they alone are able to enlighten Science, as to why and how,
"the fire, that was primevally one, was made threefold (treta) in our
present Manvantara, by the Son of Ila (Vach), the primeval woman after the
Deluge, the wife and daughter of Vaivasvata Manu. The allegory is suggestive,
in whatever Purana it may be read and studied.
--------------
VII.
AN
ATTACK ON THE SCIENTIFIC THEORY OF FORCE BY A MAN OF SCIENCE.
THE
wise words of several (English) men of Science have now to be quoted in our
favour. Ostracised for "principle's sake" by the few, they are
tacitly approved of by the many. That one of them preaches almost Occult
doctrines, in some things identical with, and often amounting to a public
recognition of our "Fohat and his seven Sons" --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Gandharva of the Veda is the deity who knows and reveals the secrets of
heaven and divine truths to mortals. Cosmically -- the Gandharvas are the
aggregate powers of the solar-fire, and constitute its Forces; psychically --
the intelligence residing in the Sushumna, Solar ray, the highest of the seven
rays; mystically -- the occult force in the Soma (the moon, or lunar plant) and
the drink made of it; physically -- the phenomenal, and spiritually -- the
noumenal causes of Sound and the "Voice of Nature." Hence, they are
called the 6,333 "heavenly Singers" and musicians of Indra's loka who
personify (even in number) the various and manifold sounds in Nature, both
above and below. In the latter allegories they are said to have mystic power
over women, and to be fond of them. The esoteric meaning is plain. They are one
of the forms, if not the prototypes, of Enoch's angels, the Sons of God, who
saw that the daughters of men were fair (Gen. vi.) who married them, and taught
the daughters of the Earth the secrets of Heaven.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Occult Gandharva of the Vedas -- will be recognised by every Occultist, and
even by some profane readers.
If
the latter open Volume V. of the Popular Science Review (pp. 329-334), they
will find in it an article on "Sun Force and Earth Force," by Dr. B.
W. Richardson, F.R.S., which reads as follows:--
"At
this moment, when the theory of mere motion as the origin of all varieties of
force is again becoming the prevailing thought, it were almost heresy to
re-open a debate, which for a period appears, by general consent, to be
virtually closed; but I accept the risk, and shall state, therefore, what were
the precise views of the immortal heretic, whose name I have whispered to the
readers, (Samuel Metcalfe), respecting Sun Force. Starting with the argument on
which nearly all physicists are agreed, that there exist in nature two agencies
-- matter which is ponderable, visible, and tangible, and a something which is
imponderable, invisible, and appreciable only by its influence on matter --
Metcalfe maintains that the imponderable and active agency which he calls
'caloric' is not a mere form of motion, not a vibration amongst the particles
of ponderable matter, but itself a material substance flowing from the Sun
through Space,* filling the voids between the particles of solid bodies, and
conveying by sensation the property called heat. The nature of caloric, or Sun-Force,
is contended for by him on the following grounds:--
"(i.)
That it may be added to, and abstracted from other bodies and measured with
mathematical precision.
"(ii.)
That it augments the volume of bodies, which are again reduced in size by its
abstraction.
"(iii.)
That it modifies the forms, properties, and conditions of all other bodies.
"(iv.)
That it passes by radiation through the most perfect vacuum** that can be
formed, in which it produces the same effects on the thermometer as in the
atmosphere.
"(v.)
That it exerts mechanical and chemical forces which nothing can restrain, as in
volcanoes, the explosion of gunpowder, and other fulminating compounds.
"(vi.)
That it operates in a sensible manner on the nervous system, producing intense
pain; and when in excess, disorganization of the tissues.
"As
against the vibratory theory, Metcalfe further argues that if caloric were a
mere property or quality, it could not augment the volume of other bodies; for
this purpose it must itself have volume, it must occupy space, and it must,
therefore, be a material agent. If caloric were only the effect of vibratory
motion amongst the particles of ponderable matter, it could not radiate from
hot bodies without the simultaneous transition of the vibrating particles; but
the fact stands out that heat can radiate from material ponderable substance
without
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Not only "through space," but filling every point of our solar
system, for it is the physical residue, so to say, of Ether, its lining on our
plane; Ether having to serve other cosmic and terrestrial purposes besides
being the "agent" for transmitting light. It is the astral fluid or
"Light" of the Kabalists, and the "Seven rays" of Sun-Vishnu.
**
What need, then, of etheric waves for the transmission of light, heat, etc., if
this substance can pass through vacuum?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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loss
of weight of such substance. . . . With this view as to the material nature of
caloric or sun-force; with the impression firmly fixed on his mind that
'everything in Nature is composed of two descriptions of matter, the one
essentially active and ethereal, the other passive and motionless,'* Metcalfe
based the hypothesis that the Sun-force, or caloric, is a Self-active
principle. For its own particles, he holds, it has repulsion; for the particles
of all ponderable matter it has affinity; it attracts the particles of
ponderable matter with forces which vary inversely as the squares of the
distance. It thus acts through ponderable matter. If universal space were
filled with caloric, sun-force, alone (without ponderable matter), caloric
would also be inactive and would constitute a boundless Ocean of powerless or
quiescent ether, because it would then have nothing on which to act, while
ponderable matter, however inactive of itself, has 'certain properties by which
it modifies and controls the actions of caloric, both of which are governed by
immutable laws that have their origin in the mutual relations and specific
properties of each.'
"And
he lays down a law which he believes is absolute, and which is thus
expressed:--
"
'By the attraction of caloric for ponderable matter, it unites and holds
together all things; by its self-repulsive energy it separates and expands all
things.' "
This,
of course, is almost the occult explanation of cohesion. Dr. Richardson
continues:--
"As
I have already said, the tendency of modern teaching is to rest upon the
hypothesis . . . that heat is motion, or, as it would, perhaps, be better
stated, a specific force or form of motion.**
"But
this hypothesis, popular as it is, is not one that ought to be accepted to the
exclusion of the simpler views of the material nature of sun-force, and of its
influence in modifying the conditions of matter. We do not yet know sufficient
to be dogmatic."***
.
. . "The hypothesis of Metcalfe respecting sun-force and earth-force is
not only very simple, but most fascinating. . . . Here are two elements in the
Universe, the one is ponderable matter . . . The second element is the
all-pervading Ether, solar-fire. It is without weight, substance, form, or
colour; it is matter infinitely divisible, and its particles repel each other;
its rarity
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And how can it be otherwise? Gross ponderable matter is the body, the Shell of
matter or Substance, the female passive principle; and this Fohatic force is
the second principle, prana -- the male and the active? On our globe this
Substance is the second principle of the septenary Element -- Earth; in the
atmosphere, it is that of air, which is the cosmic gross body; in the Sun it
becomes the Solar body and that of the Seven rays; in sidereal space it
corresponds with another principle, and so on. The whole is a homogeneous Unity
alone, the parts are all differentiations.
**
Or the reverberation, and for sound, repercussion on our plane of that which is
a perpetual motion of that Substance on higher planes. Our world and senses are
victims of Maya, ceaselessly.
***
An honest admission, that.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
such that we have no word, except ether,* by which to express it. It pervades
and fills space, but alone it too is quiescent -- dead.** We bring together the
two elements, the inert matter, the self-repulsive Ether (?) and thereupon dead
(?) ponderable matter is vivified"; [Ponderable matter may be inert but
never dead -- this is Occult Law. -- H.P.B.] . . . "through the particles
of the ponderable substance the ether [Ether's second principle. -- H.P.B.]
penetrates, and, so penetrating, it combines with the ponderable particles and
holds them in mass, holds them together in bond of union; they are dissolved in
the Ether."
"This
distribution of solid ponderable matter through ether extends, according to the
theory before us, to everything that exists at this moment. The ether is
all-pervading. The human body itself is charged with the ether [Say astral
light. -- H.P.B.]; its minute particles are held together by it; the plant is
in the same condition; the most solid earth, rock, adamant, crystal, metal, all
are the same. But there are differences in the capacities of different kinds of
ponderable matter to receive sun-force, and upon this depends the various
changing conditions of matter; the solid, the liquid, the gaseous condition.
Solid bodies have attracted caloric in excess over fluid bodies, and hence
their firm cohesion; when a portion of molten zinc is poured upon a plate of
solid zinc, the molten zinc becomes as solid because there is a rush of caloric
from the liquid to the solid, and in the equalization the particles, previously
loose or liquid, are more closely brought together. . . . Metcalfe himself,
dwelling on the above-named phenomena, and accounting for them by the unity of
principle of action, which has already been explained, sums up his argument in
very clear terms, in a comment on the densities of various bodies. 'Hardness
and softness' (he says), 'solidity and liquidity, are not essential conditions
of bodies, but depend on the relative proportions of ethereal and ponderable
matter of which they are composed. The most elastic gas may be reduced to the
liquid form by the abstraction of caloric, and again converted into a firm
solid, the particles of which would cling together with a force proportional to
their augmented affinity for caloric. On the other hand, by adding a sufficient
quantity of the same principle to the densest metals, their attraction for it
is diminished when they are expanded into the gaseous state, and their cohesion
is destroyed.' "
Having
thus quoted at length the heterodox views of the great "heretic" --
views that need only a little alteration of terms here and there, the same
eminent scientist -- an original and liberal thinker, undeniably -- proceeds to
sum up those views, and continues:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Yet it is not Ether, but only one of the principles of Ether, the latter being
itself one of the principles of Akasa.
**
And so does prana (Jiva) pervade the whole living body of man; but alone,
without having an atom to act upon, it would be quiescent -- dead; i.e., would
be in laya, or as Mr. Crookes has it, "locked in protyle." It is the
action of Fohat upon a compound or even a simple body that produces life. When
a body dies it passes into the same polarity as its male energy and repels
therefore the active agent, which, losing hold of the whole, fastens on the
parts or molecules, this action being called chemical. Vishnu, the Preserver,
transforms himself into Rudra-Siva, the Destroyer -- a correlation seemingly
unknown to Science.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 527 WE DISAGREE.
"I
shall not dwell at great length on this unity of sun-force and earth, which
this theory implies. But I may add that out of it, or out of the hypothesis of
mere motion as force, and of virtue without substance, we may gather, as the
nearest possible approach to the truth on this, the most complex and profound
of all subjects, the following inferences:--
"(a)
Space, inter-stellary, inter-planetary, inter-material, inter-organic, is not a
vacuum, but is filled with a subtle fluid or gas, which for want of a better
term* we may still call, as the ancients did, Aith-ur -- Solar fire, AETHER.
This fluid, unchangeable in composition, indestructible, invisible,** pervades
everything and all [ponderable. -- H. P. B.] matter,*** the pebble in the
running brook, the tree overhanging, the man looking on, is charged with the
ether in various degree; the pebble less than the tree, the tree less than man.
All in the planet is in like manner so charged! A world is built up in ethereal
fluid, and moving through a sea of it.
"(b)
The Ether, whatever its nature is, is from the sun and from the suns**** the
suns are the generators of it, the store-houses of it, the diffusers of
it.*****
"(c.)
Without the ether there could be no motion; without it particles of ponderable
matter could not glide over each other; without it there could be no impulse to
excite those particles into action.
"(d.)
Ether determines the constitution of bodies. Were there no ether there could be
no change of constitution in substance; water, for instance, could only exist
as a substance, compact and insoluble beyond any conception we could form of
it. It could never even be ice, never flint, never vapour, except for ether.
"(e.)
Ether connects sun with planet, planet with planet, man with planet, man with
man. Without ether there could be no communication in the Universe; no light,
no heat, no phenomenon of motion."
Thus
we find that Ether and elastic atoms are, in the alleged mechanical conception
of the Universe, the Spirit and Soul of Kosmos, and that the theory -- put it
any way and under whatever disguise -- always leaves a more widely opened issue
for men of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Verily, unless the occult terms of the Kabalists are adopted!
**
"Unchangeable" only during Manvantaric periods, after which it merges
once more into Mulaprakriti; "invisible" for ever, in its own
essence, but seen in its reflected coruscations, called the Astral light by the
modern Kabalists. Yet, conscious and grand Beings clothed in that same Essence
move in it.
***
One has to add (ponderable), to distinguish it from that Ether which is matter
still, though a substratum.
****
The Occult Sciences reverse the statement, and say that it is the sun, and all
the suns that are from it, which emanate at the Manvantaric dawn from the
Central Sun.
*****
Here, we decidedly beg to differ with the learned gentleman. Let us remember
that this AEther, whether Akasa is meant by the term, or its lower principle,
Ether -- is septenary. Akasa is Aditi in the allegory, and the mother of
Martanda (the sun), the Deva-matri -- "Mother of the gods." In the
solar system, the sun is her Buddhi and Vahan, the Vehicle, hence the 6th
principle; in Kosmos all the suns are the Kama rupa of Akasa and so is ours. It
is only when regarded as an individual Entity in his own Kingdom that Surya
(the sun) is the 7th principle of the great body of matter.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 528 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Science
to speculate beyond the line drawn by modern materialism -- or call it agnosticism
rather, to be more correct* -- than the majority avails itself of. Atoms,
Ether, or both, modern speculation cannot get out of the circle of ancient
thought; and the latter was soaked through with archaic occultism. Undulatory
or corpuscular theory -- it is all one. It is speculation from the aspects of
phenomena, not from the knowledge of the essential nature of the cause and
causes. When modern Science has explained to its audience the late achievements
of Bunsen and Kirchoff, and shown the seven colours, the "primary" of
a ray which is decomposed in a fixed order on a screen; and described the
respective lengths of luminous waves, what has it proved? It has justified its
reputation for exactness in mathematical achievement by measuring even the length
of a luminous wave -- "varying from about seven hundred and sixty
millionths of a millimetre at the red end of the spectrum to about three
hundred and ninety-three millionths of a millimetre at the violet end."
But when the exactness of the calculation with regard to the effect on the
light-wave is thus vindicated, Science is forced to admit that the force (which
is the supposed cause) is believed to produce "inconceivably minute
undulations" in some medium -- "generally regarded as identical with
the ethereal medium"** -- and that medium itself is still only -- a
"hypothetical agent!"
Auguste
Comte's pessimism with respect to the impossibility of knowing some day the
chemical composition of the sun, has not been belied thirty years later by
Kirchoff, as claimed. The spectroscope has helped us to see that the elements,
with which the modern chemist is familiar, must in all probability be present
in the sun's outward robes -- not in the sun itself; and, taking these
"robes," the solar cosmic veil, for the sun itself, the physicists
have declared its luminosity to be due to combustion and flame, and have
mistaken the vital principle of that luminary for a purely material thing, and
called it "chromosphere."*** We have hypotheses and theories only so
far, not law -- by any means.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Brutal but frank materialism is more honest than Janus-faced agnosticism in our
days. Monism is the Pecksniff of modern philosophy, turning a pharisaical face
to psychology and idealism, and its natural face of a Roman Augur, swelling his
cheek with his tongue -- to Materialism. The Monists are worse than the
Materialists; because, while looking at the Universe and psycho-spiritual man
from the same negative stand-point, the latter put their case far less
plausibly than sceptics of Mr. Tyndall's or even Mr. Huxley's stamp. Herbert
Spencer, Bain and Lewes are more dangerous to universal truths than Buchner.
**
"Geology," by Professor A. Winchell.
***
See Five Years of Theosophy -- Articles: "Do the Adepts deny the nebular
theory?" and "Is the Sun merely a cooling mass?" -- for the true
Occult teaching.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 529 MYSTERIOUS SUN FLUID.
VIII.
LIFE,
FORCE, OR GRAVITY.
THE
imponderable fluids have had their day; "mechanical Forces" are less
talked about; Science has put on a new face for this last quarter of a century;
but gravitation has remained, owing its life to new combinations after the old
ones had nearly killed it. It may answer scientific hypotheses very well, but
the question is whether it answers as well to truth, and represents a fact in
nature. Attraction by itself is not sufficient to explain merely planetary
motion; how can it presume to explain the rotatory motion in the infinitudes of
Space? Attraction alone will never fill all the gaps, unless a special impulse
is admitted for every sidereal body, and the rotation of every planet with its
satellites is shown to be due to some one cause combined with attraction. And
even then, says an astronomer ("Philosophie Naturelle," art. 142),
Science would have to name that cause.
Occultism
has named it for ages, and so have all the ancient philosophers; but then all
such beliefs are now proclaimed exploded superstitions. The "extra
cosmic" God has killed every possibility of belief in intra cosmic
intelligent Forces, yet who, or what is the original pusher in that motion?
"When we have learned the cause, unique et speciale, that pushes, we will
be ready to combine it with the one which attracts," says Francoeur
("Astronomie," p. 342). And again -- "Attraction between the
celestial bodies is only repulsion: it is the Sun that drives them incessantly
onward; for otherwise, their motion would stop."
If
ever this theory of the Sun-Force being the primal cause of all life on earth
and motion in heaven is accepted, and if that other far bolder one of Herschell
-- about certain organisms in the Sun -- is accepted even as a provisional
hypothesis, then will our teachings be vindicated, and esoteric allegory shown
to have anticipated Modern Science by millions of years, probably, for these
are the Archaic teachings. Martanda (the Sun) watches and threatens -- without
abandoning the central position to which his Mother, Aditi, relegated him --
his seven brothers, the planets; "he pursues them, turning slowly around
himself . . . and follows them from afar, moving in the same direction that
they do, on the path that encircles their houses" -- or the orbit. (See
Comment to Stanza IV., Book I.) It is the Sun-fluids or Emanations that impart
all motion and awaken all into life, in the Solar System. It is attraction and
repulsion, but not as understood by modern physics and according to the law of
gravity; but in harmony with the laws of Manvantaric motion de-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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signed
from the early Sandhya, the Dawn of the rebuilding and higher reformation of
the System. These laws are immutable; but the motion of all the bodies, which
motion is diverse and alters with every minor Kalpa -- is regulated by the
Movers, the Intelligences within the Cosmic Soul. Are we so very wrong in
believing all this? Well, here is a modern and a great man of Science who,
speaking of vital electricity, uses language far more akin to Occultism than to
modern materialistic thought. We refer the sceptical reader to an article on
"The Source of Heat in the Sun," by Robert Hunt, F.R.S., (in
"Popular Science Review," Vol. IV., p. 148), who, speaking of the
luminous envelope of the Sun and its "peculiar curdy appearance,"
says:--
"Arago
proposed that this envelope should be called the Photosphere, a name now
generally adopted. By the elder Herschell, the surface of this photosphere was
compared to mother-of-pearl. . . . . It resembles the Ocean on a tranquil
summer-day, when its surface is slightly crisped by a gentle breeze. . . . Mr.
Nasmyth has discovered a more remarkable condition than any that had previously
been suspected . . . objects which are peculiarly lens-shaped . . . . like
'willow leaves' . . . . different in size . . . . . not arranged in any order crossing
each other in all directions . . . . . with an irregular motion among
themselves . . . . . . . They are seen approaching to and receding from each
other, and sometimes assuming new angular positions, so that the appearance . .
. . . has been compared to a dense shoal of fish, which, indeed, they resemble
in shape. . . . The size of these objects gives a grand idea of the gigantic
scale upon which physical (?) operations are carried out in the Sun. They
cannot be less than 1,000 miles in length, and from two to three hundred miles
in breadth. The most probable conjecture which has been offered respecting
those leaf or lens-like objects, is that the photosphere* is an immense ocean
of gaseous matter (what kind of "matter?") . . . in a state of
intense (apparent) incandescence, and that they are perspective projections of
the sheets of flame. . . ."
Solar
"flames" seen through telescopes are reflections, says Occultism. But
see what Occultists have to say to this in Book I.
"Whatever
they may be (those sheets of flame), it is evident they are the immediate
sources of solar heat and light. Here we have a surrounding envelope of
photogenic matter,** which pendulates with mighty energies, and by
communicating its motion to the ethereal medium in stellar space, produces heat
and light in far distant worlds. We have said that those forms have been
compared to certain organisms, and Herschell says, 'Though it would be too
daring to speak of such organizations as partaking of life [why not?],*** yet
we do not know that vital action is competent to develop heat, light, and
electricity.' . . . Can it be that there is truth in this fine thought? May the
pulsing of vital matter
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And the central mass, too, as will be found, or rather the centre of the
reflection.
**
That "matter" is just like the reflection in a mirror of the flame
from a "photogenic" lamp-wick.
***
See "Five Years of Theosophy," p. 258 -- answer to this speculation
of Herschell's.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 531 SUN-FORCE AND EARTH-FORCE.
in
the central Sun of our System be the source of all that life which crowds the earth,
and without doubt overspreads the other planets, to which the Sun is the mighty
Minister?" . . .
Occultism
answers these queries in the affirmative; and Science will find this to be the
case, one day.
Again,
on p. 156, Mr. Hunt writes:--
"But
regarding Life -- Vital Force -- as a power far more exalted than either light,
heat, or electricity, and indeed capable of exerting a controlling power over
them all" (this is absolutely occult). . . . . "we are certainly
disposed to view with satisfaction that speculation which supposes the
photosphere to be the primary seat of vital power, and to regard with a poetic
pleasure that hypothesis which refers the Solar energies to Life."
Thus,
we have an important scientific corroboration for one of our fundamental dogmas
-- namely, that (a) the Sun is the store-house of Vital Force, which is the
Noumenon of Electricity; and (b) that it is from its mysterious,
never-to-be-fathomed depths, that issue those life currents which thrill
through Space, as through the organisms of every living thing on Earth. For see
what another eminent physician says, who calls this (our life-fluid)
"nervous Ether." Change a few sentences in the article, extracts from
which now follow, and you have another quasi-Occult treatise on Life Force.
This once, it is again Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S., who gives his views in the
"Popular Science Review," Vol. X., p. 380-3, on "Nervous
Ether," as he has on "Sun-Force" and "Earth-Force":--
"The
idea attempted to be conveyed by the theory is, that between the molecules of
the matter, solid or fluid, of which the nervous organisms, and, indeed, of
which all the organic parts of a body are composed, there exists a refined
subtle medium, vaporous or gaseous, which holds the molecules in a condition for
motion upon each other, and for arrangement and rearrangement of form; a medium
by and through which all motion is conveyed; by and through which the one organ
or part of the body is held in communion with the other parts, by which and
through which the outer living world communicates with the living man: a
medium, which, being present, enables the phenomena of life to be demonstrated,
and which, being universally absent, leaves the body actually dead. . . . .
."
And
the whole Solar System falls into Pralaya -- the author might have added. But
let us read further:
.
. . "I use the word Ether in its general sense as meaning a very light,
vaporous or gaseous matter; I use it, in short, as the astronomer uses it when
he speaks of the Ether of Space, by which he means a subtle but material
medium. . . . . When I speak of a nervous Ether, I do not convey that the ether
is existent in nervous structure only: I believe truly that it is a special
part of the nervous organization; but, as nerves pass into all structures that
have capacities for movement and sensibilities, so the nervous ether passes
into all such parts; and as the nervous ether is, according to my view, a
direct product from blood, so we may look upon it as a part of the atmosphere
of the blood.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 532 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
.
. . The evidence in favour of the existence of an elastic medium pervading the
nervous matter and capable of being influenced by simple pressure is
all-convincing. . . . In nervous structure there is, unquestionably, a true
nervous fluid, as our predecessors taught* The precise chemical (?)**
composition of this fluid is not yet well known; the physical characters of it
have been little studied. Whether it moves in currents, we do not know; whether
it circulates, we do not know; whether it is formed in the centres and passes
from them to the nerves, or whether it is formed everywhere where blood enters
nerve, we do not know. The exact uses of the fluid we do not consequently know.
It occurs to my mind, however, that the veritable fluid of nervous matter is
not of itself sufficient to act as the subtle medium that connects the outer
with the inner universe of man and animal. I think -- and this is the
modification I suggest to the older theory -- there must be another form of
matter present during life; a matter which exists in the condition of vapour or
gas, which pervades the whole nervous organism, surrounds as an enveloping
atmosphere*** each molecule of nervous structure, and is the medium of all
motion, communicated to and from the nervous centres. . . . When it is once
fairly presented to the mind that during life there is in the animal body a
finely diffused form of matter, a vapour filling every part -- and even stored
in some parts; a matter constantly renewed by the vital chemistry; a matter as
easily disposed of as the breath, after it has served its purpose -- a new
flood of light breaks on the Intelligence ." . . . .
A
new flood of light is certainly thrown on the wisdom of ancient and mediaeval
Occultism and its votaries. For Paracelsus wrote the same thing more than three
hundred years ago, namely, in the sixteenth century, as follows:--
"The
whole of the Microcosm is potentially contained in the Liquor Vitae, a nerve
fluid . . . in which is contained the nature, quality, character, and essence
of beings." . . . (De Generatione Hominis). . . . "The Archaeus or
Liquor Vitae is an essence that is equally distributed in all parts of the
human body. . . . The Spiritus Vitae takes its origin from the Spiritus Mundi.
Being an emanation of the latter, it contains the elements of all cosmic
influences, and is therefore the cause by which the action of the stars (cosmic
forces) upon the invisible body of man (his vital lingasharira) may be
explained." (De Viribus Membrorum. See "Life of Paracelsus" by
Franz Hartmann, M.D., F.T.S.)
Had
Dr. Richardson studied all the secret works of Paracelsus, he would not have
been obliged to confess so often -- "we do not know" . . . . "it
is not known to us" . . . . etc., etc. Nor would he have ever pronounced
the following sentence, recanting the best portions of his independent
rediscovery, in which he says (p. 384):--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Paracelsus for one, who called it liquor vitae, and Archaeus.
**
Rather alchemical -- "composition."
***
"This vital force . . . radiates around man like a luminous sphere" .
. . says Paracelsus in Paragranum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 533 PANTHEISM OR MONOTHEISM.
"It
may be urged that in this line of thought is included no more than the theory
of the existence of the ether . . . . supposed to pervade space. . . . . It may
be said that this universal ether pervades all the organism of the animal body
as from without, and as part of every organization. This view would be
Pantheism physically discovered if it were true (!!) It fails to be true
because it would destroy the individuality of every individual sense. . . .
."
We
fail to see it, and we know it is not so. Pantheism may be "physically
rediscovered." It was known, seen, and felt by the whole of antiquity.
Pantheism manifests itself in the vast expanse of the starry heavens, in the
breathing of the seas and oceans and the quiver of life of the smallest blade
of grass. Philosophy rejects one finite and imperfect God in the universe, as
the anthropomorphic deity of the monotheist is represented by his followers. It
repudiates in its name of Philo-Theo-Sophia the grotesque idea that Infinite,
Absolute Deity should, or rather could, have any, whether direct or indirect,
relation to finite illusive evolutions of matter, and therefore cannot imagine
a universe outside that Deity, or the latter absent from the smallest speck of
animate or inanimate substance.* Why either the Ether of Space, or
"nervous Ether" should "destroy the individuality of every
sense" seems incomprehensible for one acquainted with the real nature of
that "nervous ether" under its Sanskrit, or rather esoteric and
Kabalistic name. Dr. Richardson agrees that --
"If
we did not individually produce the medium of communication between ourselves
and the outer world, if it were produced from without and adapted to one kind
of vibration alone, there were fewer senses required than we possess: for,
taking two illustrations only -- ether of light is not adapted for sound, and
yet we hear as well as see; while air, the medium of motion of sound, is not
the medium of light, and yet we see and hear."
This
is not so. The opinion that "Pantheism fails to be true because it would
destroy the individuality of every individual sense" shows that all the
conclusions of the learned doctor are based on the modern physical theories,
though he would fain reform them. But he will find it impossible to do this
unless he allows the existence of spiritual senses to replace the gradual
atrophy of the physical. "We see and hear," in accordance (of course
in Dr. Richardson's mind) with the explanations of the phenomena of sight and
hearing, by that same materialistic
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This does not mean that every bush, tree or stone is God or a god; but only
that every speck of the manifested material of Kosmos belongs to and is the
substance of "God," however low it may have fallen in its cyclic
gyration through the Eternities of the ever becoming,; and also that every such
speck individually, and Kosmos collectively, is an aspect and a reminder of
that universal One Soul -- which philosophy refuses to call God, thus limiting
the eternal and ever-present root and essence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 534 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
science
which postulates that we cannot see and hear otherwise. The Occultists and
mystics know better. The Vedic Aryans were as familiar with the mysteries of
sound and colour as our physiologists are on the physical plane, but they had
mastered the secrets of both on planes inaccessible to the materialist. They
knew of a double set of senses; spiritual and material. In a man who is
deprived of one or more senses, the remaining become the more developed: e.g.,
the blind man will recover his sight through the senses of touch, of hearing,
etc., and he who is deaf will be able to hear through sight, by seeing audibly
the words uttered by the lips and mouth of the speaker. But these are cases
that belong to the world of matter still. The spiritual senses, those that act
on a higher plane of consciousness are rejected a priori by physiology because
the latter is ignorant of the sacred science. It limits the action of ether to
vibrations, and, dividing it from air -- though air is simply differentiated
and compound ether -- makes it assume functions to fit in with the special
theories of the physiologist. But there is more real science in the teachings
of the Upanishads when these are correctly understood, than the Orientalists, who
do not understand them at all, are ready to admit. Mental as well as physical
correlations of the seven senses (seven on the physical and seven on the mental
planes) are clearly explained and defined in the Vedas, and especially in the
Upanishad called Anugita: "The indestructible and the destructible, such
is the double manifestation of the Self. Of these the indestructible is the
existent (the true essence or nature of Self, the underlying principles). The
manifestation as an individual (or entity) is called the destructible."
Thus speaks the ASCETIC in Anugita; and also: "Every one who is twice-born
(initiated) knows such is the teaching of the ancients. . . . . Space is the
first entity. . . . . Now Space (Akasa, or the noumenon of Ether) has one quality
. . . and that is sound only . . . and the qualities of sound are Shadga,
Rishabha, Gandhara, Madhyama, Panchama, and beyond these five Nishada and
Dhaivata"; (the Hindu gamut). These seven notes of the scale are the
principles of sound. (Vide ch. xxxvi. of Anugita.) The qualities of every
Element, as of every sense, are septenary, and to judge and dogmatize on them
from their manifestation (likewise sevenfold in itself) on the material or
objective plane above is quite arbitrary. For it is only by the SELF
emancipating itself from these (seven) causes of illusion that one acquires the
knowledge (secret wisdom) of the qualities of objects of sense on their dual
plane of manifestation -- the visible and the invisible. Thus it is said:--
"State
this wonderful mystery . . . . . Hear the assignment of causes exhaustively.
The nose, and the tongue, and the eye, and the
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[[Vol.
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skin,
and the ear as the fifth (organ of sense) Mind and Understanding,* these seven
(senses) should be understood to be the causes of (the knowledge of their)
qualities. Smell, and taste, and colour, sound, and touch as the fifth, the
object of the mental operation, and the object of the Understanding (the
highest spiritual sense or perception), these seven are causes of action. He
who smells, he who eats, he who sees, he who speaks, and he who hears as the
fifth, he who thinks, and he who understands, these seven should be regarded as
the causes of the agents.** These (the agents) being possessed of qualities
(sattwa, rajas, tamas), enjoy their own qualities, agreeable and
disagreeable" (Anugita).
Then
one reads in the Bhagavadgita (chap. vii.) the Deity (or Krishna) saying:--
".
. . . Only some know me truly. Earth, Water, Fire, Air, Space (or Akasa,
AEther), Mind, Understanding and Egoism (or the perception of all the former on
the illusive plane). . . This is a lower form of my nature. Know (that there
is) another (form of my) nature, and higher than this, which is animate, O you
of mighty arms! and by which this Universe is upheld. . . . All this is woven
upon me, like numbers of pearls upon a thread (Mundakopanishad, p. 298). . . .
I am the taste in the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The division of the physical senses into five, comes to us from great
antiquity. But while adopting the number, no modern philosopher has asked
himself how these senses could exist, i.e., be perceived and used in a
self-conscious way, unless there was the sixth sense, mental perception to
register and record them; and (this for the Metaphysicians and Occultists) the
SEVENTH to preserve the spiritual fruition and remembrance thereof, as in a Book
of Life which belongs to Karma. The ancients divided the senses into five,
simply because their teachers (the Initiates) stopped at the hearing, as being
that sense which developed in the physical plane (got dwarfed rather, limited
to this plane) only at the beginning of the Fifth Race. (The Fourth Race
already had begun to lose the spiritual condition, so pre-eminently developed
in the Third Race.)
**
The modern commentators, failing to comprehend the subtle meaning of the
ancient Scholiasts, take this sentence, "causes of the agents," to
mean "that the powers of smelling, etc., when attributed to the Self, make
him appear as an agent, as an active principle" (!), which is entirely
fanciful. These "seven" are understood to be the causes of the
Agents, because "the objects are causes, as their enjoyment causes an
impression." It means esoterically that they, these seven senses, are
caused by the AGENTS, which are the "deities," for what does, or can,
the sentence which follows this one mean? "Thus," it is said,
"these seven (senses) are the causes of emancipation" (i.e., when
these causes are made ineffectual). "And among the learned (the wise
Initiates) who understand the qualities which are in the position (in the
nature, rather) of the deities, each in its place," means simply that the
"learned" understand the nature of the noumenoi of the various
phenomena; and that "qualities," in this instance, mean the qualities
of the high planetary or Elementary gods or Intelligences, which rule the
elements and their products, and not at all "the senses," as the
modern commentator thinks. For the "learned do not suppose their senses to
have aught to do with them, any more than with their SELF." (Vide pp. 278
and 279 of the VIII. Vol. of "The Sacred Books of the East."
Anugita.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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water,
O son of Kunti! I am the light of the sun and moon. I am . . . sound ('i.e.,
the Occult essence which underlies all these and the other qualities of the
various things mentioned,' Transl.), in space . . . the fragrant smell in the
earth, refulgence in the fire . . . etc., etc."
Truly,
then, one should study Occult philosophy before one begins to verify and seek
the mysteries of nature on its surface alone, as he alone "who knows the
truth about the qualities of nature, who understands the creation of all
entities . . . is emancipated" from error. Says the "preceptor":
"Accurately understanding the great tree of which the unperceived (Occult
nature, the root of all) is the sprout from the seed (Parabrahmam) which
consists of the understanding (Mahat, or the universal intelligent Soul) as its
trunk, the branches of which are the great egoism,* in the holes of which are
the sprouts, namely, the senses, of which the great (Occult, or invisible)
elements are the flower-bunches,** the gross elements (the gross objective
matter), the smaller boughs, which are always possessed of leaves, always
possessed of flowers . . . . which is eternal and the seed of which is the
Brahman (the deity); and cutting it with that excellent sword -- knowledge
(secret wisdom) -- one attains immortality and casts off birth and death."
This
is the Tree of Life, the Asvattha tree, only after the cutting of which the
slave of life and death, MAN, can be emancipated.
But
the men of Science know nought, nor will they hear of the "Sword of
Knowledge" used by the adepts and ascetics. Hence the one-sided remarks of
the most liberal among them, based on and flowing from undue importance given
to the arbitrary divisions and classification of physical science. Occultism
heeds them very little, and nature still less. The whole range of physical
phenomena proceed from the Primary of Ether -- Akasa, as dual-natured Akasa
proceeds from undifferentiated Chaos, so-called, the latter being the primary
aspect of Mulaprakriti, the root-matter and the first abstract Idea one can
form of Parabrahmam. Modern Science may divide its hypothetically conceived
ether in as many ways as it likes; the real AEther of Space will remain as it
is throughout. It has its seven principles, as all the rest of nature has, and
where there was no Ether there would be no sound, as it is the vibrating
sound-board in nature in all of its seven differentiations. This is the first
mystery the Initiates of old have learned. Our present normal physical senses
were (from our present point of view) abnormal in those days of slow and
progressive downward evolution and fall into matter. And there was a day when
all that which in our modern times is regarded as phenomena, so puzzling to the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ahamkara, I suppose, that Egoship (or Ahamship) which leads to every error.
**
The elements are the five tanmatras of earth, water, fire, air and ether, the
producers of the grosser elements.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 537 WHAT IS NERVOUS ETHER?
physiologists
now compelled to believe in them -- such as thought transference, clairvoyance,
clairaudience, etc.; in short, all that which is called now "wonderful and
abnormal" -- all that and much more belonged to the senses and faculties
common to all humanity. We are, however, cycling back and cycling forward;
i.e., having lost in spirituality that which we acquired in physical
development until almost the end of the Fourth Race, we (mankind) are as
gradually and imperceptibly losing now in the physical all that we regain once
more in the spiritual re-evolution. This process must go on until the period
which will bring the Sixth Root-Race on a parallel line with the spirituality
of the Second, long extinct mankind.
But
this will hardly be understood at present. We must return to Dr. Richardson's
hopeful though somewhat incorrect hypothesis about "nervous ether."
Under the misleading translation of the word as "Space" (Akasa), it
has just been shown in the ancient Hindu system as the "first born"
of the One, having but one quality, SOUND (which is septenary). In esoteric
language this "One" is the "Father" Deity, and
"Sound" is synonymous with Logos (Verbum, or the Son). Whether
consciously or otherwise, it must be the latter; and Dr. Richardson, while
preaching an Occult doctrine -- chooses the lowest form of the septenary nature
of that "SOUND" and speculates upon it, adding:--
"The
theory, I offer, is that the nervous Ether is an animal product. In different
classes of animals it may differ in physical quality so as to be adapted to the
special wants of the animal, but essentially it plays one part in all animals,
and is produced, in all, in the same way. . . ."
Herein
lies the nucleus of error leading to all the resultant mistaken views. This
"Nervous Ether" is the lowest principle of the Primordial Essence
which is Life. It is animal vitality diffused in all nature and acting
according to the conditions it finds for its activity. It is not an
"animal product," but the living animal, the living flower or plant
are its products. The animal tissues only absorb it according to their more or
less morbid or healthy state -- as do physical materials and structures (in
their primogenial State -- nota bene) -- and henceforward, from the moment of
the birth of the Entity, are regulated, strengthened, and fed by it. It
descends in a larger supply to vegetation in the Sushumna sun-ray which lights
and feeds the moon, and it is through her beams that it pours its light upon,
and penetrates man and animal, more during their sleep and rest, than when they
are in full activity. Therefore Dr. Richardson errs again in stating that:--
"The
nervous ether is not, according to my idea of it, in itself active, nor an
excitant of animal motion in the sense of a force; but it is essential as
supplying the conditions by which the motion is rendered possible." (It is
just the reverse.) . . . . "It is the conductor of all vibrations of heat,
of light, of sound, of electrical action, of mechanical
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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friction.*
It holds the nervous system throughout in perfect tension, during states of
life (true). By exercise it is disposed of (rather generated) . . . and when
demand for it is greater than the supply, its deficiency is indicated by
nervous collapse or exhaustion.** It accumulates in the nervous centres during
sleep, bringing them, if I may so speak, to their due tone, and therewith
raising the muscles to awakening and renewed life. . . ."
Just
so; this is quite correct, and as comprehensible. Therefore, "The body
fully renewed by it, presents capacity for motion, fulness of form, life. The
body bereft of it presents inertia, the configuration of shrunken death, the
evidence of having lost something physical that was in it when it lived."
Modern
Science denies the existence of a "vital principle." This extract is
a clear proof of its grand mistake. But this "physical something,"
that we call life-fluid -- the Liquor Vitae of Paracelsus -- has not deserted
the body, as Dr. Richardson thinks. It has only changed its state from activity
to passivity, and become latent owing to the too morbid state of the tissues,
on which it has no more hold. Once the rigor mortis absolute, the "Liquor
Vitae" will re-awaken into action, and begin its work on the atoms
chemically. Brahma-Vishnu -- the creator and the Preserver of Life -- will have
transformed himself into Siva the Destroyer.
Lastly
he writes on p. 387:--
"The
nervous Ether may be poisoned; it may, I mean, have diffused through it, by
simple gaseous diffusion, other gases or vapours derived from without; it may
derive from within products of substances swallowed and ingested, or gases of
decomposition produced during disease in the body itself."
And
the learned gentleman might have added on the same Occult principle: "That
the 'nervous Ether' of one person can be poisoned by the 'nervous Ether' of
another person or his auric emanations. But see what Paracelsus said of
'Nervous Ether'":--
"The
Archaeus is of a magnetic nature, and attracts or repels other sympathetic or
antipathetic forces belonging to the same plane. The less power of resistance
for astral influences a person possesses, the more will he be subject to such
influences. The vital force is not enclosed in man, but radiates (within) and
around him like a luminous sphere (aura) and it may be made to act at a
distance. . . . It may poison the essence of life (blood) and cause diseases,
or it may purify it after
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The conductor in the sense of Upadhi -- a material or physical basis; but, as
the second principle of the universal Soul and Vital Force in Nature, it is
intelligently guided by the fifth principle thereof.
**
And too great an exuberance of it in the nervous system leads as often to
disease and death. If it were the animal system which generated it, such would
not be the case, surely. Hence, the latter emergency shows its independence of
the system, and connection with the Sun-Force, as Metcalfe and Professor Hunt
explain it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 539 THE LIFE-PRINCIPLE.
it
has been made impure, and restore the health" (Paragranum; "Life of
Paracelsus," by Dr. F. Hartmann.)
That
the two, Archaeus and "nervous Ether," are identical, is shown by the
English Scientist, who says that the tension of it generally may be too high or
too low; that it may be so "owing to local changes in the nervous matter
it invests." . . . "Under sharp excitation it may vibrate as if in a
storm and plunge every muscle under cerebral or spinal control into
uncontrolled motion --unconscious convulsions."
This
is called nervous excitation, but no one, except Occultists, knows the reason
of such nervous perturbation or explains the primary causes of it. The
"principle of Life" may kill when too exuberant, as also when there
is too little of it. But this principle on the manifested (or our) plane is but
the effect and the result of the intelligent action of the "Host" --
collectively, Principle -- the manifesting LIFE and LIGHT. It is itself
subordinate to, and emanates from the ever-invisible, eternal and Absolute ONE
LIFE in a descending and a re-ascending scale of hierarchic degrees -- a true
septenary ladder, with SOUND (or the Logos) at the upper end and the
Vidyadharas* (the inferior Pitris) at the lower.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In a recent work on the Symbolism in Buddhism and Christianity (in Buddhism and
Roman Catholicism, rather, many later rituals and dogmas in Northern Buddhism
in its popular exoteric form, being identical with those of the Latin Church)
some curious facts are to be found. The author of this volume, with more
pretensions than erudition, has indiscriminately crammed into his work ancient
and modern Buddhist teachings, and sorely confused Lamaism with Buddhism. On
page 404 of this volume, called "Buddhism in Christendom, or Jesus the
Essene," our pseudo-Orientalist devotes himself to criticizing the
"Seven Principles" of the Esoteric Buddhists, and attempts to
ridicule them. On page 405, the closing page, he speaks enthusiastically of the
Vidyadharas, "the seven great legions of dead men made wise." Now,
these "Vidyadharas," whom some Orientalists call
"demi-gods," are in fact, exoterically, a kind of Siddhas,
"affluent in devotion," and, esoterically, they are identical with
the seven classes of Pitris, one class of which endow man in the Third Race
with Self-Consciousness by incarnating in the human shells. The "Hymn to
the Sun," at the end of his queer volume of mosaic, which endows Buddhism
with a personal god (!!), is an unfortunate thrust at the very proofs so
elaborately collected by the unlucky author.
Theosophists
are fully aware that Mr. Rhys Davids has expressed his opinion on their beliefs
likewise. He said that the theories propounded by the author of Esoteric
Buddhism "were not Buddhism, and were not Esoteric." The remark is
the result of (a) the unfortunate mistake of writing "Buddhism"
instead of "Budhaism," or Budhism, i.e., of connecting the system
with Gautama's religion instead of with the Secret Wisdom taught by Krishna,
Sankaracharya, and by many others, as much as by Buddha; and (b) of the
impossibility of Mr. Rhys Davids knowing anything of true esoteric teachings.
But he is, at all events, the greatest Pali and Buddhist scholar of the day,
and whatever he may say is entitled to respectful hearing. But when one who
knows no more of exoteric Buddhism on scientific and materialistic lines, than
he knows of esoteric philosophy, defames those whom he honours with his spite,
and assumes with the Theosophists the airs of a profound scholar, one can only
smile and -- heartily laugh at him.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Of
course, the Occultists are fully aware of the fact that the Vitalist
"fallacy," so derided by Vogt and Huxley, is, nevertheless, still
countenanced in very high scientific quarters, and, therefore, they are happy
to feel that they do not stand alone. Thus, Professor de Quatrefages writes:--
"It
is very true we do not know what life is; but no more do we know what the force
is that set the stars in motion. . . . . Living beings are heavy, and therefore
subject to gravitation; they are the seat of numerous and various
physico-chemical phenomena which are indispensable to their existence, and
which must be referred to the action of etherodynamy (electricity, heat, etc.).
But these phenomena are here manifested under the influence of another force. .
. . . Life is not antagonistic to the inanimate forces, but it governs and
rules their action by its laws."*
--------------
IX.
THE
SOLAR THEORY.
A
SHORT ANALYSIS OF THE COMPOUND AND SINGLE ELEMENTS OF SCIENCE AS AGAINST THE
OCCULT TEACHINGS. HOW FAR SCIENTIFIC IS THIS THEORY, AS GENERALLY ACCEPTED.
IN
his reply to Dr. Gull's attack on the theory of vitality (connected inseparably
with the Elements of the ancients in the Occult philosophy), Professor Beale,
the great physiologist, has a few words as suggestive as they are beautiful:--
"There
is a mystery in life -- a mystery which has never been fathomed, and which
appears greater, the more deeply the phenomena of life are studied and
contemplated. In living centres -- far more central than the centres seen by
the highest magnifying powers, in centres of living matter, where the eye
cannot penetrate, but towards which the understanding may tend -- proceed
changes of the nature of which the most advanced physicists and chemists fail
to afford us the conception: nor is there the slightest reason to think that
the nature of these changes will ever be ascertained by physical investigation,
inasmuch as they are certainly of an order or nature totally distinct from that
to which any other phenomenon known to us can be relegated."
This
"mystery," or the origin of the LIFE ESSENCE, Occultism locates in
the same centre as the nucleus of prima materia (for they are one) of our Solar
system.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Human Species," p. 11.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 541 THE HEART OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM.
"The
Sun is the heart of the Solar World (System) and its brain is hidden behind the
(visible) Sun. From thence, sensation is radiated into every nerve-centre of
the great body, and the waves of the life-essence flow into each artery and
vein. . . . The planets are its limbs and pulses. . . ." (Commentary.)
It
was stated elsewhere (in the Theosophist) that Occult philosophy denies that
the Sun is a globe in combustion, but defines it simply as a world, a glowing
sphere, the real Sun being hidden behind, and the visible being only its
reflection, its shell. The Nasmyth willow leaves, mistaken by Sir J. Herschell
for "Solar inhabitants," are the reservoirs of solar vital energy,
"the vital electricity that feeds the whole system. . . . . The Sun in
abscondito being thus the storehouse of our little Kosmos, self-generating its
vital fluid, and ever receiving as much as it gives out," and the visible
Sun only a window cut into the real Solar palace and presence, which reflects,
however, faithfully the interior work.
Thus,
there is a regular circulation of the vital fluid throughout our system, of
which the Sun is the heart -- the same as the circulation of the blood in the human
body -- during the manvantaric solar period, or life; the Sun contracting as
rhythmically at every return of it, as the human heart does. Only, instead of
performing the round in a second or so, it takes the solar blood ten of its
years, and a whole year to pass through its auricles and ventricles before it
washes the lungs and passes thence to the great veins and arteries of the
system.
This,
Science will not deny, since Astronomy knows of the fixed cycle of eleven years
when the number of solar spots increases,* which is due to the contraction of
the Solar HEART. The universe (our world in this case) breathes, just as man
and every living creature, plant, and even mineral does upon the earth; and as
our globe itself breathes every twenty-four hours. The dark region is not due
"to the absorption exerted by the vapours issuing from the bosom of the
sun and interposed between the observer and the photosphere," as Father
Secchi would have it ("Le Soleil" II., 184), nor are the spots formed
"by the matter (heated gaseous matter) which the irruption projects upon
the solar disc" (ibid). It is similar to the regular and healthy pulsation
of the heart, as the life fluid passes through its hollow muscles. Could the
human heart be made luminous, and the living and throbbing organ be made
visible, so as to have it reflected upon a screen, such as
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Not only does it not deny the occurrence, though attributing it to a wrong
cause, as always, each theory contradicting every other, (see the theories of
Secchi, of Faye, and of Young), the spots depending on the superficial
accumulation of vapours cooler than the photosphere (?), etc., etc., but we
have men of science who astrologize upon the spots. Professor Jevons attributes
all the great periodical commercial crises to the influence of the Sun spots
every eleventh cyclic year. (See his "Investigations into Currency and
Finance.") This is worthy of praise and encouragement surely.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 542 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
used
by the astronomers in their lectures -- say for the moon -- then every one
would see the Sun-spot phenomenon repeated every second -- due to its
contraction and the rushing of the blood.
It
is said in a work on Geology that it is the dream of Science that "all the
recognized chemical elements will one day be found but modifications of a
single material element." ("World-Life," p. 48.)
Occult
philosophy has taught this since the existence of human speech and languages,
adding only, on the principle of the immutable law of analogy -- "as it is
above, so it is below" -- that other axiom, that there is neither Spirit
nor matter, in reality, but only numberless aspects of the One ever-hidden IS
(or Sat). The homogeneous primordial Element is simple and single only on the
terrestrial plane of consciousness and sensation, since matter, after all, is
nothing else than the sequence of our own states of consciousness, and Spirit
an idea of psychic intuition. Even on the next higher plane, that single
element which is defined on our earth by current science, as the ultimate
undecomposable constituent of some kind of matter, would be pronounced in the
world of a higher spiritual perception as something very complex indeed. Our
purest water would be found to yield, instead of its two declared simple
elements of oxygen and hydrogen, many other constituents, undreamt of by our
terrestrial modern chemistry. As in the realm of matter, so in the realm of
Spirit, the shadow of that which is cognized on the plane of objectivity exists
on that of pure subjectivity. The speck of the perfectly homogeneous substance,
the sarcode of the Haeckelian monera, is now viewed as the archebiosis of
terrestrial existence (Mr. Huxley's "protoplasm")*; and Bathybius
Haeckelii has to be traced to its pre-terrestrial archebiosis. This is first
perceived by the astronomers at its third stage of evolution, and in the
"secondary creation," so-called. But the students of Esoteric
philosophy understand too well the secret meaning of the stanza: "Brahma
has essentially the aspect of prakriti, both evolved and unevolved . . . .
Spirit, O twice-born, (Initiate) is the leading aspect of Brahma. The next is a
two-fold aspect -- of Prakriti and Purusha, both evolved and unevolved; and
time is the last! Anu is one of the names of Brahma (as distinct from Brahma
neuter), and it means "atom": Aniyamsam aniyasam, "the most
atomic of the atomic," the "immutable and imperishable (achyuta)
Purushottama."
Surely,
then, the elements now known to us -- be their number whatever it may -- as
they are understood and defined at present, are not,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Unfortunately, as these pages are being written the "archebiosis of
terrestrial existence" has turned, under a somewhat stricter chemical
analysis, into a simple precipitate of sulphate of lime -- hence from the
scientific standpoint not even an organic substance!!! Sic transit gloria
mundi!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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nor
can they be, the primordial elements. Those were formed from "the curds of
the cold radiant mother" and "the fire-seed of the hot Father"
who "are one," or, to express it in the plainer language of modern
science, those elements had their genesis in the depths of the primordial
fire-mist -- the masses of incandescent vapour of the irresolvable nebulae; for
as Professor Newcomb shows (in his "Popular Astronomy," on page 444),
resolvable nebulae are not a class of proper nebulae.
More
than half of those which were at first mistaken for nebulae -- he thinks -- are
what he calls "starry clusters." The elements now known, have arrived
at their state of permanency in this 4th Round and 5th Race. They have a short
period of rest before they are propelled once more on their upward spiritual
evolution; when the "living fire of Orcus" will dissociate the most
irresolvable and scatter them into the primordial ONE -- again.
Meanwhile
the Occultist goes further, as has been shown in the Commentaries on the Seven
Stanzas. Hence he can hardly hope for any help or recognition from science,
which will reject both his "aniyamsam aniyasam" (the absolutely
spiritual atom) and his Manasaputras -- "mind-born men." By resolving
the "single material element" into one absolute irresolvable element
-- Spirit, or "Root-matter," thus placing it at once outside the
reach and province of physical philosophy -- he has, of course but little in
common with the orthodox men of science. He maintains that Spirit and Matter
are two FACETS of the unknowable UNITY, their apparently contrasted aspects
depending, (a) on the various degrees of differentiation of the latter, and (b)
on the grades of consciousness attained by man himself. This is, however,
metaphysics, and has little to do with physics -- however great in its own
terrestrial limitation that physical philosophy may now be.
Nevertheless,
once that Science admits, if not the actual existence, at any rate, the
possibility of the existence, of a Universe with its numberless forms,
conditions, and aspects built out of a "single Substance,"* it has
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In his "World-Life" -- page 48 -- in the appended foot notes,
Professor Winchell says:-- "It is generally admitted that at excessively
high temperatures matter exists in a state of dissociation -- that is, no
chemical combination can exist;" and would appeal, to prove the unity of
matter, to the spectrum, which in every case of homogeneity will show a bright
line, whereas in the case of several molecular arrangements existing -- in the
nebulae say, or a star -- "the spectrum should consist of two or three
bright lines!" This would be no proof either way to the
physicist-Occultist, who maintains that beyond a certain limit of visible
matter, no spectrum, no telescope and no microscope are of any use. The unity
of matter, of that which is real cosmic matter to the Alchemist, or
"Adam's Earth" as the Kabalists call it, can hardly be proved or
disproved, by either the French savant Dumas, who suggests "the composite
nature of the "elements" on certain relations of atomic
weights," or even by Mr. Crookes's "radiant matter," though his
experiments may seem [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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to
go further. Unless it also admits the possibility of One Element, or the ONE
LIFE of the Occultists. It will have to hang up that "single
substance," especially if limited to only the solar nebulae, like the
coffin of Mahomet, in mid air, though minus the attractive magnet that sustains
that coffin. Fortunately for the speculative physicists, if unable to state
with any degree of precision what the nebular theory does imply, we have,
thanks to Professor Winchell, and several disagreeing astronomers, been able to
learn what it does not imply.* (Vide Supra.)
Unfortunately,
this is far from clearing even the most simple of the problems that have vexed,
and still do vex, the men of learning in their research after truth. We have to
proceed with our inquiries, starting with the earliest hypotheses of modern
science, if we would discover where and why it sins. Perchance it may be found
that Stallo is right, after all. That the blunders, contradictions, and
fallacies made by the most eminent men of learning are simply due to their
abnormal attitude. They are, and want to remain materialistic quand meme, and
yet "the general principles of the atomo-mechanical theory -- the basis of
modern physics -- are substantially identical with the cardinal doctrines of
ontological metaphysics." Thus, "the fundamental errors of ontology
become apparent in proportion to the advance of physical Science." (Int.
p. VI., "Concepts of Modern Physics.") Science is honeycombed with
metaphysical conceptions, but the Scientists will not admit the charge and
fight desperately to put atomo-mechanical masks on purely incorporeal and
spiritual laws in nature, on our plane -- refusing to admit their
substantiality even on other planes, the bare existence of which they reject a
priori.
It
is easy to show, however, how Scientists, wedded to their materialistic views,
have endeavoured, ever since the day of Newton, to put false masks on fact and
truth. But their task is becoming with every year more difficult; and with
every year also, Chemistry, above all the other sciences, approaches nearer and
nearer the realm of the Occult in nature. It is assimilating the very truths
taught by the Occult Sciences
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] "to be best understood on the hypothesis of
the homogeneity of the elements of matter, and the continuity of the states of
matter." For all this does not go beyond MATERIAL matter, so to say, even
in what is shown by the spectrum, that modern "eye of Siva" of
physical experiments. It is of this matter only, that H. St. Claire Deville
could say that "when bodies, deemed to be simple, combine with one
another, they vanish, they are individually annihilated"; simply because
he could not follow those bodies in their further transformation in the world
of spiritual cosmic matter. Verily modern science will never be able to dig
deep enough into the cosmological formations to find the roots of the
world-stuff or matter, unless she works on the same lines of thought as the
medieval alchemist did.
*
"World-Life," Ibid.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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for
ages, but hitherto bitterly derided. "Matter is eternal," says the
Esoteric Doctrine. But the matter the Occultists conceive of in its laya, or
zero state, is not the matter of modern science; not even in its most rarefied
gaseous state. Mr. Crookes' "radiant matter" would appear matter of
the grossest kind in the realm of the beginnings, as it becomes pure spirit
before it has returned back even to its first point of differentiation.
Therefore, when the adept or alchemist adds that, though matter is eternal, for
it is PRADHANA, yet atoms are born at every new manvantara, or reconstruction
of the universe, it is no such contradiction as a materialist, who believes in
nothing beyond the atom, might think. There is a difference between manifested
and unmanifested matter, between pradhana, the beginningless and endless cause,
and prakriti, or the manifested effect. Says the sloka; --
"That
which is the unevolved cause is emphatically called by the most eminent sages,
pradhana, original base, which is subtile prakriti, viz., that which is
eternal, and which at once is, and is not, a mere process."*
That
which in modern phraseology is respectively referred to as Spirit and Matter,
is ONE in eternity as the perpetual cause, and it is neither Spirit nor matter,
but IT -- rendered in Sanskrit TAD ("that"), -- all that is, was, or
will be, all that the imagination of man is capable of conceiving. Even the
exoteric Pantheism of Hinduism renders it as no monotheistic philosophy ever
did, for in superb phraseology its cosmogony begins with the well-known
words:--
"There
was neither day nor night, neither heaven nor earth, neither darkness nor
light. And there was not ought else apprehensible by the senses or by the
mental faculties. There was then one Brahma, essentially prakriti (Nature) and
Spirit. For the two aspects of Vishnu which are other than his supreme essential
aspect are prakriti and Spirit, and Brahman. When these two other ASPECTS of
his no longer subsist, but are dissolved, then that aspect whence form and the
rest, i.e., creation, proceed anew, is denominated time, O twice-born."
It
is that which is dissolved, or the illusionary dual aspect of That, the essence
of which is eternally ONE, that we call eternal matter or Substance (Vide in
Part II., "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought"), formless,
sexless, inconceivable, even to our sixth sense or mind,** in which, therefore,
we refuse to see that which Monotheists call a personal, anthropomorphic God.
How
are these two propositions -- "that matter is eternal," and "the
atom periodical, and not eternal" -- viewed by modern exact Science? The
materialistic physicist will criticize and laugh them to scorn. The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Book I. ch. II. Vishnu Purana, Fitzedward Hall's Translation.
**
Vide preceding Section IX., "Life, Force, and Gravity," quotation
from Anugita.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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liberal
and progressive man of Science, however, the true and earnest scientific
searcher after truth -- e.g., the eminent chemist, Mr. Crookes, will
corroborate the probability of the two statements. For, hardly has the echo of
his lecture on the "Genesis of the Elements" died away --the lecture
which, delivered by him before the Chemical Section of the British Association,
at the last Birmingham meeting, so startled every evolutionist who heard or
read it -- than there came another one in March last, 1888. Once more the
President of the Chemical Society brings before the world of Science and the
public the fruits of some new discoveries in the realm of atoms, and these
discoveries justify the occult teachings in every way. They are more startling
even than the statements made by him in the first lecture (quoted later) and
deserve well the attention of every Occultist, Theosophist, and Metaphysician.
This is what he says in his "Elements and Meta-Elements," thus
justifying Stallo's charges and prevision with the fearlessness of a scientific
mind which loves science for truth's sake, regardless of any consequences to
his own glory and reputation. We quote his own words:
Permit
me, gentlemen, now to draw your attention for a short time to a subject which
concerns the fundamental principles of chemistry, a subject which may lead us
to admit the possible existence of bodies which, though neither compounds nor
mixtures, are not elements in the strictest sense of the word -- bodies which I
venture to call "meta-elements." To explain my meaning it is
necessary for me to revert to our conception of an element. What is the
criterion of an element? Where are we to draw the line between distinct
existence and identity? No one doubts that oxygen, sodium, chlorine, sulphur
are separate elements; and when we come to such groups as chlorine, bromine,
iodine, &c., we still feel no doubt, although were degrees of
"elementicity" admissible -- and to that we may ultimately have to
come -- it might be allowed that chlorine approximates much more closely to
bromine than to oxygen, sodium, or sulphur. Again, nickel and cobalt are near
to each other, very near, though no one questions their claim to rank as
distinct elements. Still I cannot help asking what would have been the
prevalent opinion among chemists had the respective solutions of these bodies
and their compounds presented identical colours, instead of colours which,
approximately speaking, are mutually complementary. Would their distinct nature
have even now been recognised? When we pass further and come to the so-called
rare earths the ground is less secure under our feet. Perhaps we may admit
scandium, ytterbium, and others of the like sort to elemental rank; but what
are we to say in the case of praseo- and neo-dymium, between which there may be
said to exist no well-marked chemical difference, their chief claim to separate
individuality being slight differences in basicity and crystallizing powers,
though their physical distinctions, as shown by spectrum observations, are very
strongly marked? Even here we may imagine the disposition of the majority of
chemists would incline toward the side of leniency, so that they would admit
these two bodies within the charmed circle. Whether in so doing they would be
able to appeal to any broad principle is an open question. If we admit these
candidates
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[[Vol.
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how
in justice are we to exclude the series of elemental bodies or meta-elements
made known to us by Kruss and Nilson? Here the spectral differences are well
marked, while my own researches on didymium show also a slight difference in
basicity between some at least of these doubtful bodies. In the same category
must be included the numerous separate bodies into which it is probable that
yttrium, erbium, samarium, and other "elements" -- commonly so-called
-- have been and are being split up. Where then are we to draw the line? The
different groupings shade off so imperceptibly the one into the other that it
is impossible to erect a definite boundary between any two adjacent bodies and
to say that the body on this side of the line is an element, while the one on
the other side is non-elementary, or merely something which simulates or
approximates to an element. Wherever an apparently reasonable line might be
drawn it would no doubt be easy at once to assign most bodies to their proper
side, as in all cases of classification the real difficulty comes in when the
border-line is approached. Slight chemical differences, of course, are
admitted, and, up to a certain point, so are well-marked physical differences.
What are we to say, however, when the only chemical difference is an almost
imperceptible tendency for the one body -- of a couple or of a group -- to
precipitate before the other? Again, there are cases where the chemical
differences reach the vanishing point, although well-marked physical
differences still remain. Here we stumble on a new difficulty: in such
obscurities what is chemical and what is physical? Are we not entitled to call
a slight tendency of a nascent amorphous precipitate to fall down in advance of
another a "physical difference?" And may we not call coloured
reactions depending on the amount of some particular acid present and varying,
according to the concentration of the solution and to the solvent employed, "chemical
differences?" I do not see how we can deny elementary character to a body
which differs from another by well-marked colour, or spectrum-reactions, while
we accord it to another body whose only claim is a very minute difference in
basic powers. Having once opened the door wide enough to admit some spectrum
differences, we have to inquire how minute a difference qualifies the candidate
to pass? I will give instances from my own experience of some of these doubtful
candidates.
And
here the great chemist gives several cases of the very extraordinary behaviour
of molecules and earths, apparently the same, and which yet, when examined very
closely, were found to exhibit differences which, however imperceptible, still
show that none of them are simple bodies, and that the 60 or 70 elements
accepted in chemistry, can no longer cover the ground. Their name, apparently,
is legion, but as the so-called "periodic theory" stands in the way
of an unlimited multiplication of elements, Mr. Crookes is obliged to find some
means of reconciling the new discovery with the old theory. "That
theory," he says:--
"Has
received such abundant verification that we cannot lightly accept any
interpretation of phenomena which fails to be in accordance with it. But if we suppose
the elements reinforced by a vast number of bodies slightly differing from each
other in their properties, and forming, if I may use the expression,
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[[Vol.
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aggregations
of nebulae where we formerly saw, or believed we saw, separate stars, the
periodic arrangement can no longer be definitely grasped. No longer, that is,
if we retain our usual conception of an element. Let us, then, modify this
conception. For "element" read "elementary group" -- such
elementary groups taking the place of the old elements in the periodic scheme
-- and the difficulty falls away. In defining an element, let us take not an
external boundary, but an internal type. Let us say, e.g., the smallest
ponderable quantity of yttrium is an assemblage of ultimate atoms almost
infinitely more like each other than they are to the atoms of any other
approximating element. It does not necessarily follow that the atoms shall all
be absolutely alike among themselves. The atomic weight which we ascribed to
yttrium, therefore, merely represents a mean value around which the actual
weights of the individual atoms of the "element" range within certain
limits. But if my conjecture is tenable, could we separate atom from atom, we
should find them varying within narrow limits on each side of the mean. The
very process of fractionation implies the existence of such differences in
certain bodies."
Thus
fact and truth have once more forced the hand of "exact" Science, and
compelled it to enlarge its views and change its terms which, masking the
multitude, reduced them to one body -- like the Septenary Elohim and their
hosts transformed by the materialistic religionists into one Jehovah. Replace
the chemical terms "Molecule," "atom,"
"particle," etc., by the words "Hosts," "Monads,"
"Devas," etc., and one might think the genesis of gods, the primeval
evolution of manvantaric intelligent Forces, was being described. But the
learned lecturer adds something still more suggestive to his descriptive
remarks; whether consciously or unconsciously, who knoweth? For he says the
following:--
"Until
lately such bodies passed muster as elements. They had definite properties,
chemical and physical; they had recognised atomic weights. If we take a pure
dilute solution of such a body, yttrium for instance, and if we add to it an
excess of strong ammonia, we obtain a precipitate which appears perfectly
homogeneous. But if instead we add very dilute ammonia in quantity sufficient
only to precipitate one-half of the base present, we obtain no immediate
precipitate. If we stir up the whole thoroughly so as to insure a uniform
mixture of the solution and the ammonia, and set the vessel aside for an hour,
carefully excluding dust, we may still find the liquid clear and bright,
without any vestige of turbidity. After three or four hours, however, an
opalescence will declare itself, and the next morning a precipitate will have
appeared. Now let us ask ourselves, What can be the meaning of this phenomenon?
The quantity of precipitant added was insufficient to throw down more than half
the yttria present, therefore a process akin to selection has been going on for
several hours. The precipitation has evidently not been effected at random,
those molecules of the base being decomposed which happened to come in contact
with a corresponding molecule of ammonia, for we have taken care that the
liquids should be uniformly mixed, so that one molecule of the original salt
would not be more exposed to decomposition
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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than
any other. If, further, we consider the time which elapses before the
appearance of a precipitate, we cannot avoid coming to the conclusion that the
action which has been going on for the first few hours is of a selective
character. The problem is not why a precipitate is produced, but what
determines or directs some atoms to fall down and others to remain in solution.
Out of the multitude of atoms present, what power is it that directs each atom
to choose the proper path? We may picture to ourselves some directive force
passing the atoms one by one in review, selecting one for precipitation and
another for solution till all have been adjusted."
The
italics in the above passage are ours. Well may a man of science ask himself,
"What power is it that directs each atom," and what is it that its
character should be selective? Theists would solve the question by answering
"God"; and would solve nothing philosophically. Occultism answers on
its own pantheistic grounds, and refers the reader to a subsequent section,
"Gods, Monads, and Atoms." The learned lecturer sees in it that which
is his chief concern: the finger-posts and the traces of a path which may lead
to the discovery, and the full and complete demonstration of an homogeneous
element in nature. He remarks:--
"In
order that such a selection can be effected there evidently must be some slight
differences between which it is possible to select, and this difference almost
certainly must be one of basicity, so slight as to be imperceptible by any test
at present known, but susceptible of being nursed and encouraged to a point
when the difference can be appreciated by ordinary tests."
Occultism,
which knows of the existence and presence in Nature of the One eternal element
at the first differentiation of which the roots of the tree of life are
periodically struck, needs no scientific proofs. It says:-- Ancient Wisdom has
solved the problem ages ago. Aye; earnest, as well as mocking reader, Science
is slowly but as surely approaching our domains of the Occult. It is forced by
its own discoveries to adopt nolens volens our phraseology and symbols.
Chemical Science is now compelled, by the very force of things, to accept even
our illustration of the evolution of the gods and atoms, so suggestively and
undeniably figured in the caduceus of Mercury, the God of Wisdom, and in the
allegorical language of the Archaic Sages. Says a commentary in the esoteric
doctrine:--
.
. . . The trunk of the ASVATTHA (the tree of Life and Being, the ROD of the
caduceus) grows from and descends at every Beginning (every new manvantara)
from the two dark wings of the Swan (HANSA) of Life. The two Serpents, the
ever-living and its illusion (Spirit and matter) whose two heads grow from the
one head between the wings, descend along the trunk, interlaced in close
embrace. The two tails join on earth (the manifested Universe) into one, and
this is the great illusion, O Lanoo!"
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Every
one knows what the caduceus is, already modified by the Greeks. The original
symbol -- with the triple head of the serpent -- became altered into a rod with
a knob, and the two lower heads were separated, thus disfiguring somewhat the
original meaning. Yet it is as good an illustration as can be for our purpose,
this laya rod entwined by two serpents. Verily the wonderful powers of the
magic caduceus were sung by all the ancient poets, with a very good reason for
those who understood the secret meaning.
[[diagram]]
Now
what says the learned President of the Chemical Society of Great Britain, in that
same lecture, which has any reference to, or bearing upon, our above-mentioned
doctrine. Very little; only this -- and nothing more:--
"In
the Birmingham address already referred to I asked my audience to picture the
action of two forces on the original protyle --- one being time, accompanied by
a lowering of temperature; the other, swinging to and fro like a mighty
pendulum, having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and activity, being
intimately connected with the imponderable matter, essence, or source of energy
we call electricity. Now, a simile like this effects its object if it fixes in
the mind the particular fact it is intended to emphasize, but it must not be
expected necessarily to run parallel with all the facts. Besides the lowering of
temperature with the periodic ebb and flow of electricity, positive or
negative, requisite to confer on the newly-born elements their particular
atomicity, it is evident that a third factor must be taken into account. Nature
does not act on a flat plane; she demands space for her cosmogenic operations,
and if we introduce space as the third factor, all appears clear. Instead of a
pendulum, which, though to a certain extent a good illustration, is impossible
as a fact, let us seek some more satisfactory way of representing what I
conceive may have taken place. Let us suppose the zigzag diagram not drawn upon
a plane, but projected in space of three dimensions. What figure can we best
select to meet all the conditions involved? Many of the facts can be well explained
by supposing the projection in space of Professor Emerson Reynolds' zigzag
curve to be a spiral. This figure is, however, inadmissible, inasmuch as the
curve has to pass through a point neutral as to electricity and chemical energy
twice in each cycle. We must, therefore, adopt some other figure. A figure of
eight (8), or lemniscate, will foreshorten into a zigzag just as well as a
spiral, and it fulfils every condition of the problem."
A
lemniscate for the evolution downward, from Spirit into matter;
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[[Vol.
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another
form of a spiral, perhaps, in its reinvolutionary path onward, from matter into
Spirit, and the necessary gradual and final reabsorption into the laya state,
that which Science calls in her own way "the point neutral as to
electricity" etc., or the zero point. Such are the Occult facts and
statement. They may be left with the greatest security and confidence to Science,
to be justified some day. Let us hear some more, however, about this primordial
genetic type of the symbolical caduceus.
"Such
a figure will result from three very simple simultaneous motions. First, a
simple oscillation backwards and forwards (suppose east and west); secondly, a
simple oscillation at right angles to the former (suppose north and south) of
half the periodic time -- i.e., twice as fast; and thirdly, a motion at right
angles to these two (suppose downwards), which, in its simplest form, would be
with unvarying velocity. If we project this figure in space we find on
examination that the points of the curves, where chlorine, bromine, and iodine
are formed, come close under each other; so also will sulphur, selenium, and
tellurium; again, phosphorus, arsenic, and antimony; and in like manner other
series of analogous bodies. It may be asked whether this scheme explains how
and why the elements appear in this order? Let us imagine a cyclical
translation in space, each evolution witnessing the genesis of the group of
elements which I previously represented as produced during one complete
vibration of the pendulum. Let us suppose that one cycle has thus been
completed, the centre of the unknown creative force in its mighty journey
through space having scattered along its track the primitive atoms -- the
seeds, if I may use the expression -- which presently are to coalesce and
develop into the groupings now known as lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus,
sulphur, and chlorine. What is most probably the form of track now pursued?
Were it strictly confined to the same plane of temperature and time, the next
elementary groupings to appear would again have been those of lithium, and the
original cycle would have been eternally repeated, producing again and again
the same 14 elements. The conditions, however, are not quite the same. Space
and electricity are as at first, but temperature has altered, and thus, instead
of the atoms of lithium being supplemented with atoms in all respects analogous
with themselves, the atomic groupings which come into being when the second
cycle commences form, not lithium, but its lineal descendant, potassium.
Suppose, therefore, the vis generatrix travelling to and fro in cycles along a
lemniscate path, as above suggested, while simultaneously temperature is
declining and time is flowing on -- variations which I have endeavoured to
represent by the downward sink -- each coil of the lemniscate track crosses the
same vertical line at lower and lower points. Projected in space, the curve
shows a central line neutral as far as electricity is concerned, and neutral in
chemical properties -- positive electricity on the north, negative on the
south. Dominant atomicities are governed by the distance east and west from the
neutral centre line, monatomic elements being one remove from it, diatomic two
removes, and so on. In every successive coil the same law holds good."
And,
as if to prove the postulate of Occult Science and Hindu philos-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ophy,
that, at the hour of the Pralaya, the two aspects of the unknowable deity,
"the Swan in darkness" -- Prakriti and Purusha, nature or matter in
all its forms and Spirit -- "no longer subsist but are (absolutely)
dissolved," we learn the conclusive scientific opinion of the great
English chemist, who caps his proofs by saying:-- "We have now traced the
formation of the chemical elements from knots and voids in a primitive,
formless fluid. We have shown the possibility, nay, the probability that the
atoms are not eternal in existence, but share with all other created beings the
attributes of decay and death."
Occultism
says amen to this, as the Scientific "possibility" and
"probability" are for it facts demonstrated beyond the necessity of
further proof or any extraneous physical evidence. Nevertheless, it repeats
with as much assurance as ever: "MATTER IS ETERNAL, becoming atomic (its
aspect) only periodically." This is as sure as that the other proposition,
which is almost unanimously accepted by astronomers and physicists -- namely,
that the wear and tear of the body of the Universe is steadily going on, and
that it will finally lead to the extinction of the Solar fires and the
destruction of the Universe -- is quite erroneous on the lines traced by Men of
Science. There will be, as there ever were in time and eternity, periodical
dissolutions of the manifested Universe, but (a) a partial pralaya after every
"Day of Brahma;" and (b) an Universal pralaya -- the MAHA-PRALAYA --
only after the lapse of every Brahma's age. But the scientific causes for such
dissolution, as brought forward by exact Science, have nothing to do with the
true causes. However that may be, Occultism is once more justified by Science,
for Mr. Crookes said:--
"We
have shown, from arguments drawn from the chemical laboratory, that in matter
which has responded to every test of an element, there are minute shades of
difference which may admit of selection. We have seen that the time-honoured
distinction between elements and compounds no longer keeps pace with the
developments of chemical science, but must be modified to include a vast array
of intermediate bodies -- "meta-elements." We have shown how the
objections of Clerk-Maxwell, weighty as they are, may be met; and finally, we
have adduced reasons for believing that primitive matter was formed by the act
of a generative force, throwing off at intervals of time atoms endowed with
varying quantities of primitive forms of energy. If we may hazard any
conjectures as to the source of energy embodied in a chemical atom, we may, I
think, premise that the heat radiations propagated outwards through the ether from
the ponderable matter of the universe, by some process of nature not yet known
to us, are transformed at the confines of the universe into the primary -- the
essential -- motions of chemical atoms, which, the instant they are formed,
gravitate inwards, and thus restore to the universe the energy which otherwise
would be lost to it through radiant heat. If this conjecture be well founded,
Sir William Thomson's startling prediction of the final decrepitude of the
universe through the dissipation of its energy falls to the ground. In this
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[[Vol.
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fashion,
gentlemen, it seems to me that the question of the elements may be provisionally
treated. Our slender knowledge of these first mysteries is extending steadily,
surely, though slowly."
By
a strong and curious coincidence even our "septenary" doctrine seems
to force the hand of Science. If we understand rightly, Chemistry speaks of
fourteen groupings of primitive atoms -- lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon,
nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine, sodium, magnesium, aluminium, silicon, phosphorus,
sulphur and chlorine; and Mr. Crookes, speaking of the "dominant
atomicities," enumerates seven groups of these, for he says:--
"As
the mighty focus of creative energy goes round, we see it in successive cycles
sowing in one tract of space seeds of lithium, potassium, rubidium, and
caesium; in another tract, chlorine, bromine, and iodine; in a third, sodium,
copper, silver, and gold; in a fourth, sulphur, selenium, and tellurium; in a
fifth, beryllium, calcium, strontium, and barium; in a sixth, magnesium, zinc,
cadmium, and mercury; in a seventh, phosphorus, arsenic, antimony, and bismuth"
-- which makes seven groupings on the one hand. And after showing "in
other tracts the other elements -- namely, aluminium, gallium, indium, and
thallium; silicon, germanium, and tin; carbon, titanium, and zirconium."
He
adds: "While a natural position near the neutral axis is found for the
three groups of elements relegated by Professor Mendeleeff to a sort of
Hospital for Incurables -- his eighth family." It might be interesting to
compare these "seven of the eighth family of 'incurables'" with the
allegories concerning the seven primitive sons of "Mother, Infinite
Space," or Aditi, and the eighth son rejected by her. Many a strange
coincidence may thus be found between "those intermediate links . . .
named 'meta-elements or elementoids and those whom occult science names their
noumenoi,' the intelligent minds and rulers of those groupings of Monads and
Atoms. But this would lead us too far. Let us be content with finding the
confession of the fact that "this deviation from absolute homogeneity
should mark the constitution of these molecules or aggregations of matter which
we designate elements and will perhaps be clearer if we return in imagination
to the earliest dawn of our material universe, and, face to face with the Great
Secret, try to consider the processes of elemental evolution." Thus
finally Science, in the person of its highest representatives, in order to make
itself clearer to the profane, adopts the phraseology of such old adepts as
Roger Bacon, and returns to the "protyle." All this is hopeful and
suggestive of the "signs of the times."
Indeed
these "signs" are many and multiply daily; but none are more
important than those just quoted. For now the chasm between the occult
"superstitious and unscientific" teachings and "exact"
science is completely bridged, and one, at least, of the few eminent chemists
of the day is in the realm of the infinite possibilities of occultism. Every
new
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[[Vol.
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step
he will take will bring him nearer and nearer to that mysterious centre, from
which radiate the innumerable paths that lead down Spirit into matter, and
which transform the gods and the living monads into man and sentient nature.
But
we have something more to say on this subject in the following section.
-------
X.
THE
COMING FORCE.
ITS
POSSIBILITIES AND IMPOSSIBILITIES.
Shall
we say that Force is "moving matter," or "matter in
motion," and a manifestation of energy; or that matter and force are the
phenomenal differentiated aspects of the one primary, undifferentiated Cosmic
Substance?
This
query is made with regard to that Stanza which treats of FOHAT and his
"Seven brothers or Sons," in other words, of the cause and the
effects of Cosmic Electricity, the latter called, in Occult parlance, the seven
primary forces of Electricity, whose purely phenomenal, and hence grossest
effects are alone cognizable by physicists on the cosmic and especially on the
terrestrial plane. These include, among other things, Sound, Light, Colour,
etc., etc. Now what does physical Science tell us of these "Forces"?
SOUND, it says, is a sensation produced by the impact of atmospheric molecules
on the tympanum, which, by setting up delicate tremors in the auditory apparatus,
thus communicate themselves to the brain. LIGHT is the sensation caused by the
impact of inconceivably minute vibrations of ether on the retina of the eye.
So,
too, we say. But this is simply the effect produced in our atmosphere and its immediate
surroundings, all, in fact, which falls within the range of our terrestrial
consciousness. Jupiter Pluvius sent his symbol in drops of rain, of water
composed, as is believed, of two "elements," which chemistry
dissociates and recombines. The compound molecules are in its power, but their
atoms still elude its grasp. Occultism sees in all these Forces and
manifestations a ladder, the lower rungs of which belong to exoteric physics,
and the higher are traced to a living, intelligent, invisible Power, which is,
as a rule, the unconcerned, and exceptionally, the conscious cause of the
sense-born phenomenon designated as this or another natural law.
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[[Vol.
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We
say and maintain that SOUND, for one thing, is a tremendous Occult power; that
it is a stupendous force, of which the electricity generated by a million of
Niagaras could never counteract the smallest potentiality when directed with
occult knowledge. Sound may be produced of such a nature that the pyramid of
Cheops would be raised in the air, or that a dying man, nay, one at his last
breath, would be revived and filled with new energy and vigour.
For
Sound generates, or rather attracts together, the elements that produce an
ozone, the fabrication of which is beyond chemistry, but within the limits of
Alchemy. It may even resurrect a man or an animal whose astral "vital
body" has not been irreparably separated from the physical body by the
severance of the magnetic or odic chord. As one saved thrice from death by that
power, the writer ought to be credited with knowing personally something about
it.
And
if all this appears too unscientific to be even noticed, let Science explain to
what mechanical and physical laws known to it, is due the recently produced
phenomena of the so-called "Keely motor?" What is it that acts as the
formidable generator of invisible but tremendous force, of that power which is
not only capable of driving an engine of 25 horse-power, but has even been
employed to lift the machinery bodily? Yet this is done simply by drawing a
fiddle-bow across a tuning fork, as has been repeatedly proven. For the etheric
Force, discovered by the well-known (in America and now in Europe) John Worrell
Keely, of Philadelphia, is no hallucination. Notwithstanding his failure to
utilize it, a failure prognosticated and maintained by some Occultists from the
first, the phenomena exhibited by the discoverer during the last few years have
been wonderful, almost miraculous, not in the sense of the supernatural* but of
the superhuman. Had Keely been permitted to succeed, he might have reduced a
whole army to atoms in the space of a few seconds as easily as he reduced a
dead ox to the same condition.
The
reader is now asked to give a serious attention to that newly-discovered
potency which the discoverer has named "Inter-Etheric Force and
Forces."
In
the humble opinion of the Occultists, as of his immediate friends,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The word "supernatural" implies above or outside of nature. Nature
and Space are one. Now Space for the metaphysician exists outside of any act of
sensation, and is a purely subjective representation; materialism, which would
connect it forcibly with one or the other datum of sensation, notwithstanding.
For our senses, it is fairly subjective when independent of anything within it.
How then can any phenomenon, or anything else, step outside of or be performed
beyond that which has no limits? But when spacial extension becomes simply
conceptual, and is thought of in an idea connected with certain actions, as by
the materialists and the physicists, then again they have hardly a right to
define and claim that which can or cannot be produced by Forces generated
within even limited spaces, as they have not even an approximate idea of what
those forces are.
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Mr.
Keely, of Philadelphia, was, and still is, at the threshold of some of the
greatest secrets of the Universe; of that chiefly on which is built the whole
mystery of physical Forces, and the esoteric significance of the "Mundane
Egg" symbolism. Occult philosophy, viewing the manifested and the
unmanifested Kosmos as a UNITY, symbolizes the ideal conception of the former
by that "Golden Egg" with two poles in it. It is the positive pole
that acts in the manifested world of matter, while the negative is lost in the
unknowable absoluteness of SAT -- "Be-ness."* Whether this agrees
with the philosophy of Mr. Keely, we cannot tell, nor does it really much
matter. Nevertheless, his ideas about the ethero-material construction of the
Universe look strangely like our own, being in this respect nearly identical.
This is what we find him saying in an able pamphlet compiled by Mrs.
Bloomfield-Moore, an American lady of wealth and position, whose incessant
efforts in the pursuit of truth can never be too highly appreciated:--
"Mr. Keely, in explanation of the working of his engine, says: 'In the
conception of any machine heretofore constructed, the medium for inducing a
neutral centre has never been found. If it had, the difficulties of
perpetual-motion seekers would have ended, and this problem would have become
an established and operating fact. It would only require an introductory
impulse of a few pounds, on such a device, to cause it to run for centuries. In
the conception of my vibratory engine, I did not seek to attain perpetual
motion; but a circuit is formed that actually has a neutral centre, which is in
a condition to be vivified by my vibratory ether, and, while under operation by
said substance, is really a machine that is virtually independent of the mass
(or globe),** and it is the wonderful velocity of the vibratory circuit which
makes it so. Still, with all its perfection, it requires to be fed with the
vibratory ether to make it an independent motor . . . ."
"All
structures require a foundation in strength according to the weight of the mass
they have to carry, but the foundations of the universe rest on a vacuous point
far more minute than a molecule; in fact, to express this truth properly, on an
inter-etheric point, which requires an infinite mind to understand it. To look
down into the depths of an etheric centre is precisely the same as it would be
to search into the broad space of heaven's ether to find the end, with this
difference: that one is the positive field, while the other is the negative
field . . . ."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is not correct, when speaking of idealism, to show it based upon "the
old ontological assumptions that things or entities exist independently of each
other, and otherwise than as terms of relations" (Stallo). At any rate, it
is incorrect to say so of idealism in Eastern philosophy and its cognition, for
it is just the reverse.
**
Independent, in a certain sense, but not disconnected with it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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This,
as easily seen, is precisely the Eastern doctrine. His inter-etheric point is
the laya-point of the Occultists, which, however, does not require "an
infinite mind to understand it," but only a specific intuition and ability
to trace its hiding-place in this world of matter. Of course, the laya centre
cannot be produced, but an inter-etheric vacuum can -- as proved in the
production of bell-sounds in space. Mr. Keely speaks as an unconscious
Occultist, nevertheless, when he remarks in his theory of planetary
suspension:--
"As
regards planetary volume, we would ask in a scientific point of view, How can
the immense difference of volume in the planets exist without disorganising the
harmonious action that has always characterised them? I can only answer this
question properly by entering into a progressive analysis, starting on the
rotating etheric centres that were fixed by the Creator* with their attractive
or accumulative power. If you ask what power it is that gives to each etheric
atom its inconceivable velocity of rotation (or introductory impulse), I must
answer that no finite mind will ever be able to conceive what it is. The philosophy
of accumulation is the only proof that such a power has been given. The area,
if we can so speak, of such an atom, presents to the attractive or magnetic,
the elective or propulsive, all the receptive force and all the antagonistic
force that characterises a planet of the largest magnitude; consequently, as
the accumulation goes on, the perfect equation remains the same. When this
minute centre has once been fixed, the power to rend it from its position would
necessarily have to be so great as to displace the most immense planet that
exists. When this atomic neutral centre is displaced, the planet must go with
it. The neutral centre carries the full load of any accumulation from the
start, and remains the same, for ever balanced in the eternal space."
Mr.
Keely illustrates his idea of "a neutral centre" in this way:--
"We
will imagine that, after an accumulation of a planet of any diameter, say,
20,000 miles, more or less, for the size has nothing to do with the problem;
there should be a displacement of all the material, with the exception of a
crust 5,000 miles thick, leaving an intervening void between this crust and a
centre of the size of an ordinary billiard ball, it would then require a force
as great to move this small central mass as it would to move the shell of 5,000
miles thickness. Moreover, this small central mass would carry the load of this
crust for ever, keeping it equidistant; and there could be no opposing power,
however great, that could bring them together. The imagination staggers in
contemplating the immense load which bears upon this point of centre, where
weight ceases. . . . This is what we understand by a neutral centre."
And
what Occultists understand by a "laya centre."
The
above is pronounced "unscientific" by many. But so is everything that
is not sanctioned and kept on strictly orthodox lines by physical science.
Unless the explanation given by the inventor himself is accepted -- and his
explanations, being, as observed, quite orthodox from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"By Fohat, more likely," would be an Occultist's reply.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
spiritual and the Occult stand-points, if not from that of materialistic
speculative (called exact) Science, are therefore ours in this particular --
what can science answer to facts already seen which it is no longer possible
for anyone to deny? Occult philosophy divulges few of its most important vital
mysteries. It drops them like precious pearls, one by one, far and wide apart,
and only when forced to do so by the evolutionary tidal wave that carries on
humanity slowly, silently, but steadily toward the dawn of the Sixth-Race
mankind. For once out of the safe custody of their legitimate heirs and
keepers, those mysteries cease to be occult: they fall into the public domain
and have to run the risk of becoming in the hands of the selfish -- of the
Cains of the human race -- curses more often than blessings. Nevertheless,
whenever such individuals as the discoverer of Etheric Force -- John Worrell
Keely -- men with peculiar psychic and mental capacities* are born, they are
generally and more frequently helped than allowed to go unassisted; groping on
their way, though, if left to their own resources, falling very soon victims to
martyrdom and unscrupulous speculators. Only they are helped on the condition
that they should not become, whether consciously or unconsciously, an
additional peril to their age: a danger to the poor, now offered in daily
holocaust by the less wealthy to the very wealthy.** This necessitates a short
digression and an explanation.
Some
twelve years back, during the Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition, the writer,
in answering the earnest queries of a theosophist, one of the earliest admirers
of Mr. Keely, repeated to him what she had heard in quarters, information from
which she could never doubt.
It
had been stated that the inventor of the "Self-Motor" was what is called,
in the jargon of the Kabalists, a "natural-born magician." That he
was and would remain unconscious of the full range of his powers, and would
work out merely those which he had found out and ascertained in his own nature
-- firstly, because, attributing them to a wrong source, he could never give
them full sway; and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The reason for such psychic capacities is given farther on.
**
The above was written two years ago, at a time when hopes of success for the
"Keely Motor" were at their highest. What was then said by the writer
proved true, in every word, and now only a few remarks are added to it with
regard to the failure of his expectations, so far, which has now been admitted
by the discoverer himself. Though, however, the word failure is here used the
reader should understand it in a relative sense, for as Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore
explains: "What Mr. Keely does admit is that, baffled in applying
vibratory force to mechanics, upon his first and second lines of experimental
research, he was obliged either to confess a commercial failure, or to try a
third departure from his base or principle; seeking success through another
channel."
.
. And this "channel" is on the physical plane.
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[[Vol.
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secondly,
because it was beyond his power to pass to others that which was a capacity
inherent in his special nature. Hence the whole secret could not be made over
permanently to anyone for practical purposes or use.*
Individuals
born with such a capacity are not very rare. That they are not heard of more
frequently is due to the fact that they live and die, in almost every case, in
utter ignorance of being possessed of abnormal powers at all. Mr. Keely
possesses powers which are called "abnormal" just because they happen
in our day to be as little known as blood circulation was before Harvey's time.
Blood existed, and it behaved as it does at present in the first man born from
woman; and so does that principle in man which can control and guide etheric
vibratory force. At any rate it exists in all those mortals whose inner selves
are primordially connected, by reason of their direct descent, with that group
of Dhyan-Chohans who are called "the first-born of Ether." Mankind,
psychically considered, is divided into various groups, each of which is
connected with one of the Dhyanic groups that first formed psychic man; (see
paragraphs 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in the Commentary to Stanza VII.) Mr. Keely being
greatly favoured in this respect, and moreover, besides his psychic
temperament, being intellectually a genius in mechanics, may thus achieve most
wonderful results. He has achieved some already -- more than any mortal man,
not initiated into the final mysteries, has achieved in this age up to the
present day. What he has done is certainly quite sufficient "to demolish
with the hammer of Science the idols of Science" -- the idols of matter
with the feet of clay -- as his friends justly predict and say of him. Nor
would the writer for a moment think of contradicting Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore,
when in her paper on "Psychic Force and Etheric Force," she states
that Mr. Keely, as a philosopher, "is great enough in soul, wise enough in
mind, and sublime enough in courage to overcome all difficulties, and to stand
at last before the world as the greatest discoverer and inventor in the
world."
And
again she writes:-- "Should Keely do no more than lead scientists from the
dreary realms where they are groping into the open field of elemental force,
where gravity and cohesion are disturbed in their haunts and diverted to use;
where, from unity of origin, emanates infinite energy in diversified forms, he
will achieve immortal fame. Should he demonstrate, to the destruction of
materialism, that the universe is animated by a mysterious principle to which
matter, however perfectly organized, is absolutely subservient, he will be a
greater spiritual benefactor to our race than the modern world has yet found in
any man. Should he be able to substitute, in the treatment of disease,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We learn that these remarks are not applicable to Mr. Keely's latest discovery;
time alone can show the exact limit of his achievements.
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[[Vol.
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the
finer forces of nature for the grossly material agencies which have sent more human
beings to their graves than war, pestilence and famine combined, he will merit
and receive the gratitude of mankind. All this and more will he do, if he and
those who have watched his progress, day by day for years, are not too sanguine
in their expectations."
Writing
in the T. P. S. ("Theosophical Publication Society") series (No. 9),
the same lady, in her pamphlet, "Keely's Secrets," brings forward a
passage from an article, written a few years ago by the writer of the present
volume, in her journal, the Theosophist, in these words:--
"The
author of No. 5 of the pamphlets issued by the Theosophical Publication
Society, 'What is Matter and What is Force,' says therein, 'The men of science
have just found out "a fourth state of matter," whereas the Occultists
have penetrated years ago beyond the sixth, and therefore do not infer, but
know of, the existence of the seventh, the last.' This knowledge comprises one
of the secrets of Keely's so-called 'compound secret.' It is already known to
many that his secret includes 'the augmentation of energy,' the insulation of
the ether, and the adaptation of dynaspheric force to machinery."
It
is just because Keely's discovery would lead to a knowledge of one of the most
occult secrets, a secret which can never be allowed to fall into the hands of
the masses, that his failure to push his discoveries to their logical end seems
certain to Occultists. But of this more presently. Even in its limitations this
discovery may prove of the greatest benefit. For:--
"Step
by step, with a patient perseverance which some day the world will honour, this
man of genius has made his researches, overcoming the colossal difficulties
which again and again raised up in his path what seemed to be (to all but
himself) insurmountable barriers to further progress: but never has the world's
index finger so pointed to an hour when all is making ready for the advent of
the new form of force that mankind is waiting for. Nature, always reluctant to
yield her secrets, is listening to the demands made upon her by her master,
necessity. The coal mines of the world cannot long afford the increasing drain
made upon them. Steam has reached its utmost limits of power, and does not
fulfil the requirements of the age. It knows that its days are numbered.
Electricity holds back, with bated breath, dependent upon the approach of her
sister colleague. Air ships are riding at anchor, as it were, waiting for the
force which is to make aerial navigation something more than a dream. As easily
as men communicate with their offices from their homes by means of the
telephone, so will the inhabitants of separate continents talk across the
ocean. Imagination is palsied when seeking to foresee the grand results of this
marvellous discovery, when once it is applied to art and mechanics. In taking
the throne which it will force steam to abdicate, dynaspheric force will rule
the world with a power so mighty in the interests of civilization, that no
finite mind can conjecture the results. Laurence Oliphant, in his preface to
'Scientific Religion,' says: 'A new moral future is dawning upon the human race
-- one, certainly, of which it stands much in need.' In no way could this
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[[Vol.
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new
moral future be so widely, so universally, commenced as by the utilizing of
dynaspheric force to beneficial purposes in life. . . . ."
The
Occultists are ready to admit all this with the eloquent writer. Molecular
vibration is, undeniably, "Keely's legitimate field of research," and
the discoveries made by him will prove wonderful -- yet only in his hands and
through himself. The world so far will get but that with which it can be safely
entrusted. The truth of this assertion has, perhaps, not yet quite dawned upon
the discoverer himself, since he writes that he is absolutely certain that he
will accomplish all that he has promised, and will then give it out to the
world; but it must dawn upon him, and at no very far distant date. And what he
says in reference to his work is a good proof of it:--
"In
considering the operation of my engine, the visitor, in order to have even an
approximate conception of its modus operandi, must discard all thought of
engines that are operated upon the principle of pressure and exhaustion, by the
expansion of steam or other analogous gas which impinges upon an abutment, such
as the piston of a steam-engine. My engine has neither piston nor eccentrics,
nor is there one grain of pressure exerted in the engine, whatever may be the
size or capacity of it.
"My
system, in every part and detail, both in the developing of my power and in
every branch of its utilization, is based and founded on sympathetic vibration.
In no other way would it be possible to awaken or develop my force, and equally
impossible would it be to operate my engine upon any other principle. . . . . .
.This, however, is the true system; and henceforth all my operations will be
conducted in this manner -- that is to say, my power will be generated, my
engines run, my cannon operated, through a wire.
"It
has been only after years of incessant labour, and the making of almost
innumerable experiments, involving not only the construction of a great many
most peculiar mechanical structures, and the closest investigation and study of
the phenomenal properties of the substance 'ether,' per se, produced, that I
have been able to dispense with complicated mechanism, and to obtain, as I
claim, mastery over the subtle and strange force with which I am dealing."
The
passages underlined by us, are those which bear directly on the occult side of
the application of the vibratory force, or what Mr. Keely calls
"sympathetic vibration." The "wire" is already a step
below, or downward from the pure etheric plane into the terrestrial. The
discoverer has produced marvels -- the word "miracle" is not too
strong -- when acting through the inter-etheric Force alone, the fifth and
sixth principles of Akasa. From a "generator" six feet long, he has
come down to one "no larger than an old-fashioned silver watch;" and
this by itself is a miracle of mechanical (but not spiritual) genius. But, as
well expressed by his great patroness and defender, Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore,
"the two forms of force which he has been experimenting with, and the
phenomena attending them, are the very antithesis of each other." One was
generated and acted upon by and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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through
himself. No one, who should have repeated the thing done by himself, could have
produced the same results. It was "Keely's ether" that acted truly,
while "Smith's or Brown's" ether would have remained for ever barren
of results. For Keely's difficulty has hitherto been to produce a machine which
would develop and regulate the "force" without the intervention of
any "will power" or personal influence, whether conscious or
unconscious of the operator. In this he has failed, so far as others were
concerned, for no one but himself could operate on his "machines."
Occultly this was a far more advanced achievement than the "success"
which he anticipates from his "wire," but the results obtained from
the fifth and sixth planes of the etheric (or Astral) Force, will never be
permitted to serve for purposes of commerce and traffic. That Keely's organism
is directly connected with the production of the marvellous results is proven
by the following statement emanating from one who knows the great discoverer
intimately.
At
one time the shareholders of the "Keely Motor Co." put a man in his
workshop for the express purpose of discovering his secret. After six months of
close watching, he said to J. W. Keely one day: "I know how it is done,
now." They had been setting up a machine together, and Keely was
manipulating the stop-cock which turned the force on and off. "Try it,
then," was the answer. The man turned the cock, and nothing came.
"Let me see you do it again," the man said to Keely. The latter
complied, and the machinery operated at once. Again the other tried, but
without success. Then Keely put his hand on his shoulder and told him to try
once more. He did so, with the result of an instantaneous production of the
current. This fact, if true, settles the question.
We
are told that Mr. Keely defines electricity "as a certain form of atomic
vibration." In this he is quite right; but this is electricity on the
terrestrial plane, and through terrestrial correlations. He estimates --
Molecular
vibrations at 100,000,000 per second.
Inter-molecular
vibrations at 300,000,000 per second
Atomic
vibrations at 900,000,000 per second
Inter-atomic
vibrations at 2,700,000,000 per second
AEtheric
vibrations at 8,100,000,000 per second
Inter-AEtheric
vibrations at 24,300,000,000 per second
This
proves our point. There are no vibrations that could be counted or even
estimated at an approximate rate beyond "the realm of the fourth son of
Fohat," using an occult phraseology, or that motion which corresponds to
the formation of Mr. Crookes' radiant matter, or lightly called some years ago
the "fourth state of matter" -- on this our plane.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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If
the question is asked why Mr. Keely was not allowed to pass a certain limit,
the answer is easy; because that which he has unconsciously discovered, is the
terrible sidereal Force, known to, and named by the Atlanteans MASH-MAK, and by
the Aryan Rishis in their Ashtar Vidya by a name that we do not like to give.
It is the vril of Bulwer Lytton's "Coming Race," and of the coming
races of our mankind. The name vril may be a fiction; the Force itself is a
fact doubted as little in India as the existence itself of their Rishis, since
it is mentioned in all the secret works.
It
is this vibratory Force, which, when aimed at an army from an Agni Rath fixed
on a flying vessel, a balloon, according to the instructions found in Ashtar
Vidya, reduced to ashes 100,000 men and elephants, as easily as it would a dead
rat. It is allegorised in the Vishnu Purana, in the Ramayana and other works,
in the fable about the sage Kapila whose glance made a mountain of ashes of
King Sagara's 60,000 sons, and which is explained in the esoteric works, and
referred to as the Kapilaksha -- "Kapila's Eye."
And
is it this Satanic Force that our generations were to be allowed to add to
their stock of Anarchist's baby-toys, known as melenite, dynamite clock-works,
explosive oranges, "flower baskets," and such other innocent names?
Is it this destructive agency, which, once in the hands of some modern Attila,
e.g., a blood-thirsty anarchist, would reduce Europe in a few days to its
primitive chaotic state with no man left alive to tell the tale -- is this
force to become the common property of all men alike?
What
Mr. Keely has already done is grand and wonderful in the extreme; there is
enough work before him in the demonstration of his new system to "humble
the pride of those scientists who are materialistic, by revealing those mysteries
which lie behind the world of matter," without revealing it nolens volens
to all. For surely Psychists and Spiritualists -- of whom there are a good
number in the European armies -- would be the first to experience personally
the fruits of such mysteries revealed. Thousands of them would find themselves
(and perhaps with the populations of whole countries to keep them company) in
blue Ether very soon, were such a Force to be even entirely discovered, let
alone made publicly known. The discovery in its completeness is by several
thousand -- or shall we say hundred thousand? -- years too premature. It will
be at its appointed place and time only when the great roaring flood of
starvation, misery, and underpaid labour ebbs back again -- as it will when happily
at last the just demands of the many are attended to; when the proletariat
exists but in name, and the pitiful cry for bread, that rings throughout the
world unheeded, has died away. This may be hastened by the spread of learning,
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and
by new openings for work and emigration, with better prospects than exist now,
and on some new continent that may appear. Then only will "Keely's Motor and
Force," as originally contemplated by himself and friends, be in demand,
because it will be more needed by the poor than by the wealthy.
Meanwhile
the force discovered by him will work through wires, and this, if he succeeds,
will be quite sufficient in the present generation to make of him the greatest
discoverer of this age.
What
Mr. Keely says of Sound and Colour is also correct from the Occult stand-point.
Hear him talk as though he were the nursling of the "Gods-revealers,"
and had gazed all his life into the depths of Father-Mother AEther.
In
comparing the tenuity of the atmosphere with that of the etheric flows,
obtained by him from his invention for breaking up the molecules of air by
vibration, Keely says that:--
.
. . "It is as platina to hydrogen gas. Molecular separation of air brings
us to the first sub-division only; inter-molecular, to the second; atomic, to
the third; inter-atomic, to the fourth; etheric, to the fifth; and
inter-etheric, to the sixth sub-division, or positive association with
luminiferous ether.* In my introductory argument I have contended that this is
the vibratory envelope of all atoms. In my definition of atom I do not confine
myself to the sixth sub-division where this luminiferous ether is developed in
its crude form as far as my researches prove.** I think this idea will be
pronounced by the physicists of the present day, a wild freak of the
imagination. Possibly, in time, a light may fall upon this theory that will
bring its simplicity forward for scientific research. At present I can only
compare it to some planet in a dark space, where the light of the sun of
science has not yet reached it. . ."
"I
assume that sound, like odour, is a real substance of unknown and wonderful
tenuity, emanating from a body where it has been induced by percussion and
throwing out absolute corpuscles of matter, inter-atomic particles, with
velocity of 1,120 feet per second; in vacuo 20,000. The substance which is thus
disseminated is a part and parcel of the mass agitated, and, if kept under this
agitation continuously, would, in the course of a certain cycle of time, become
thoroughly absorbed by the atmosphere; or, more truly, would pass through the
atmosphere to an elevated point of tenuity corresponding to the condition of
sub-division that governs its liberation from its parent body." . . .
"The
sounds from vibratory forks, set so as to produce etheric chords, while
disseminating their tones (compound), permeate most thoroughly all substances
that come under the range of their atomic bombardment. The clapping of a bell
in vacuo liberates these atoms with the same velocity and volume as one in the
open air; and were the agitation of the bell kept up continuously for a few
millions of centuries it would
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This also is the division, made by the Occultists, under other names.
**
Quite so, since there is the seventh beyond, which begins the same enumeration,
from the first to the last, on another and higher plane.
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[[Vol.
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thoroughly
return to its primitive element; and, if the chamber were hermetically sealed,
and strong enough, the vacuous volume surrounding the bell would be brought to
a pressure of many thousands of pounds to the square inch, by the tenuous
substance evolved. In my estimation, sound truly defined is the disturbance of
atomic equilibrium, rupturing actual atomic corpuscles; and the substance thus
liberated must certainly be a certain order of etheric flow. Under these
conditions, is it unreasonable to suppose that, if this flow were kept up, and
the body thus robbed of its element, it would in time disappear entirely? All
bodies are formed primitively from this highly tenuous ether, animal,
vegetable, and mineral, and they are only returned to their high gaseous
condition when brought under a state of differential equilibrium." . . .
"As
regards odour, we can only get some definite idea of its extreme and wondrous
tenuity by taking into consideration that a large area of atmosphere can be
impregnated for a long series of years from a single grain of musk; which, if
weighed after that long interval, will be found to be not appreciably
diminished. The great paradox attending the flow of odorous particles is that
they can be held under confinement in a glass vessel! Here is a substance of
much higher tenuity than the glass that holds it, and yet it cannot escape. It
is as a sieve with its meshes large enough to pass marbles, and yet holding
fine sand which cannot pass through; in fact, a molecular vessel holding an
atomic substance. This is a problem that would confound those who stop to
recognize it. But infinitely tenuous as odour is, it holds a very crude
relation to the substance of sub-division that governs a magnetic flow (a flow
of sympathy, if you please to call it so). This sub-division comes next to
sound, but is above sound. The action of the flow of a magnet coincides
somewhat to the receiving and distributing portion of the human brain, giving
off at all times a depreciating ratio of the amount received. It is a grand
illustration of the control of mind over matter, which gradually depreciates
the physical till dissolution takes place. The magnet on the same ratio
gradually loses its power and becomes inert. If the relations that exist
between mind and matter could be equated and so held, we would live on in our
physical state eternally, as there would be no physical depreciation. But this
physical depreciation leads, at its terminus, to the source of a much higher
development -- viz., the liberation of the pure ether from the crude molecular;
which, in my estimation, is to be much desired." -- (From Mrs. Bloomfield-Moore's
paper, "The New Philosophy.")
It
may be remarked that, save a few small divergencies, no Adept nor Alchemist
could have explained the above any better, in the light of modern Science,
however much the latter may protest against the novel views. This is, in all
its fundamental principles, if not details, Occultism pure and simple, yet
withal, modern natural philosophy as well.
This
"New Force," or whatever Science may call it, the effects of which
are undeniable -- admitted by more than one naturalist and physicist who has
visited Mr. Keely's laboratory and witnessed personally its tremendous effects
-- what is it? Is it a "mode of motion," also, "in Vacuo,"
since there is no matter to generate it except Sound -- another "mode of
motion," no doubt, a sensation caused like
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colour
by vibrations? Fully as we believe in these vibrations as the proximate -- the immediate
-- cause of such sensations, we as absolutely reject the one-sided scientific
theory that there is no factor to be considered as external to us, other than
etheric or atmospheric vibrations.*
There
is a transcendental set of causes put in motion -- so to speak -- in the
occurrence of these phenomena, which, not being in relation to our narrow range
of cognition, can only be traced to their source and their nature, and
understood by the Spiritual faculties of the Adept. They are, as Asclepios puts
it to the King, "incorporeal corporealities" -- such as "appear
in the mirror," and "abstract forms" that we see, hear, and
smell, in our dreams, and visions. What have the "modes of motion,"
light, and ether to do with these? Yet we see, hear, and smell, and touch them,
ergo they are as much realities to us in our dreams, as any other thing on this
plane of Maya.
-------
XI.
ON
THE ELEMENTS AND ATOMS.
FROM
THE STAND-POINT OF SCIENCE AND THAT OF OCCULTISM.
WHEN
the Occultist speaks of "Elements," and of human Beings who lived
during those geological ages, the duration of which it is found as impossible
to determine, according to the opinion of one of the best
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In this case the American "Substantialists" are not wrong (though too
anthropomorphic and material in their views to be accepted by the Occultists)
when arguing through Mrs. M. S. Organ, M.D., that "there must be positive
entitative properties in objects which have a constitutional relation to the
nerves of animal sensations, or there can be no perception. No impression of
any kind can be made upon brain, nerve, or mind -- no stimulus to action --
unless there is an actual and direct communication of a substantial
force." ("Substantial" as far as it appears in the usual sense
of the word in this universe of illusion and MAYA, of course; not so in
reality.) "That force may be the most refined and sublimated immaterial
Entity (?). Yet it must exist; for no sense, element, or faculty of the human
being can have a perception, or be stimulated into action, without some
substantial force coming in contact with it. This is the fundamental law
pervading the whole organic and mental world. In the true philosophical sense
there is no such thing as independent action: for every force or substance is
correlated to some other force or substance. We can with just as much truth and
reason assert that no substance possesses any inherent gustatory property or
any olfactory property -- that taste and odour are simply sensations caused by
vibrations; and hence mere illusions of animal perceptions. . . ."
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 567 METAPHYSICAL CHEMISTRY.
English
geologists*, as the nature of matter, it is because he knows what he is talking
about. When he says "Man" and Elements, he neither means
"man" in his present physiological and anthropological form, nor the
elemental atoms, those hypothetical conceptions, the entitative abstractions of
matter in its highly attenuated state, as existing at present in scientific
minds; nor, again, the compound Elements of antiquity. In Occultism the word
Element means "rudiment" in every case. When we say "Elementary
Man," we mean either the proemial, incipient sketch of man, in its
unfinished and undeveloped condition, hence in that form which now lies latent
in physical man during his life-time, and takes shape only occasionally and
under certain conditions; or that form which for a time survives the material
body, and which is better known as an "Elementary."** With regard to
"Element," when the term is used metaphysically, it means, in
distinction to the mortal, the incipient divine man; and, in its physical
usage, inchoate matter in its first undifferentiated condition, or in the laya
state, which is the eternal and the normal condition of substance,
differentiating only periodically, and is during that differentiation in an
abnormal state -- in other words, a transitory illusion of the senses.
As
to the "elemental atoms," so called, the Occultists refer to them by
that name with a meaning analogous to that which is given by the Hindu to
Brahma when he calls him ANU, the "Atom." Every elemental atom, in
search of which more than one Chemist has followed the path indicated by the
Alchemists, is, in their firm belief (when not knowledge), a SOUL; not
necessarily a disembodied soul, but a jiva, as the Hindus call it, a centre of
POTENTIAL VITALITY, with latent intelligence in it, and, in the case of compound
Souls -- an intelligent active EXISTENCE, from the highest to the lowest order,
a form composed of more or less differentiations. It requires a metaphysician
-- and an Eastern metaphysician -- to understand our meaning. All those
atom-Souls are differentiations from the ONE, and in the same relation to it as
the divine Soul -- the Buddhi -- to its informing and inseparable Spirit, or
Atman.
Modern
physics, while borrowing from the ancients their atomic theory, forgot one
point, the most important of the doctrine; hence they got only the husks and
will never be able to get at the kernel. They left behind, in the adoption of
physical atoms, the suggestive fact that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In answer to a friend, that eminent geologist writes: . . . ."I can only
say, in reply to your letter, that it is at present, and perhaps always will
be, IMPOSSIBLE to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years, or
even into millenniums." (Signed William Pengelly, F.R.S.)
**
Plato speaking of the irrational, turbulent Elements "composed of fire,
air, water, and earth," means Elementary Daemons. (See Timaeus.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 568 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
from
Anaxagoras down to Epicurus, the Roman Lucretius, and finally even to Galileo,
all those Philosophers believed more or less in ANIMATED atoms, not in
invisible specks of so-called "brute" matter. Rotatory motion was
generated in their views, by larger (read, more divine and pure) atoms forcing
downwards other atoms; the lighter ones being thrust simultaneously upward. The
esoteric meaning of this is the ever cyclic curve downward and upward of
differentiated elements through intercyclic phases of existence, until each
reaches again its starting point or birthplace. The idea was metaphysical as
well as physical; the hidden interpretation embracing "gods" or
souls, in the shape of atoms, as the causes of all the effects produced on
Earth by the secretions from the divine bodies.* No ancient philosopher, not
even the Jewish Kabalists, ever dissociated Spirit from matter or vice versa.
Everything originated in the ONE, and, proceeding from the one, must finally
return to the One. "Light becomes heat, and consolidates into fiery
particles; which, from being ignited, become cold, hard particles, round and
smooth. And this is called Soul, imprisoned in its robe of matter;"**
Atoms and Souls having been synonymous in the language of the Initiates. The
"whirling Souls," Gilgoolem, a doctrine in which so many learned Jews
have believed (See Mackenzie's Royal Masonic Cyclopaedia), had no other meaning
esoterically. The learned Jewish Initiates never meant by the "Promised
land" Palestine alone, but the same Nirvana as the learned Buddhist and
Brahmin do -- the bosom of the ETERNAL ONE, symbolized by that of Abraham, and
by Palestine as its substitute on Earth.*** The passage of the SOUL-ATOM
"through the Seven Planetary Chambers" had the same metaphysical and
also physical meaning. It had the latter when it was said to dissolve into
Ether (See Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. 297.) Even Epicurus, the model Atheist
and materialist, knew and believed so much in the ancient Wisdom, that he taught
that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Plato uses the words "secretions" of turbulent Elements (Timaeus).
**
Valentinus' Esoteric Treatise on the Doctrine of Gilgul.
***
Surely no educated Jew ever believed the literal sense of this allegory --
namely, that "the bodies of Jews deposited in foreign lands contain within
them a principle of Soul which cannot rest, until by a process called the
"whirling of the Soul" the immortal particle reaches once more the
sacred Soil of the "Promised land." The meaning is evident to an
occultist. The process was supposed to be accomplished by a kind of
metempsychosis, the psychic spark being conveyed through bird, beast, fish, and
the most minute insect. (See Royal Masonic Cyclo. Mackenzie.) The Allegory
relates to the atoms of the body, which have each to pass through every form
before all reach the final state, which is the first starting point of the
departure of every atom -- its primitive Laya State. But the primitive meaning
of Gilgoolem, or "Revolution of Souls," was the idea of the
re-incarnating Souls or Egos. "All the Souls go into the gilgoolah,"
into a cyclic or revolving process; i.e., they all proceed on the cyclic path
of re-births. Some Kabalists interpret this doctrine to mean only a kind of
purgatory for the souls of the wicked. But this is not so.
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 569 PANTHEISM VERSUS MATERIALISM.
Soul
(entirely distinct from immortal Spirit when the former is enshrined latent in
it, as it is in every atomic speck), was composed of a fine, tender essence,
formed from the smoothest, roundest, and finest atoms.
And
this shows that the ancient Initiates, who were followed more or less closely
by all profane antiquity, meant by the term "ATOM," a Soul, a Genius
or Angel, the first-born of the ever-concealed CAUSE of all causes; and in this
sense their teachings become comprehensible. They claimed, as do their
successors, the existence of Gods and Genii, angels or "demons," not
outside, or independent of, the Universal Plenum, but within it. Only this
Plenum, during the life-cycles, is infinite. They admitted and taught a good
deal of that which modern Science teaches now --namely, the existence of a
primordial "World-stuff or Cosmic Substance," from which worlds are
formed, ever and eternally homogeneous, except during its periodic existence,
when it differentiates its universal diffusion throughout infinite space; and
the gradual formation of sidereal bodies from it. They taught the revolution of
the Heavens, the Earth's rotation, the Heliocentric System, and the Atomic
Vortices -- Atoms -- in reality Souls and intelligences. But those
"Atomists" were spiritual, most transcendental, and philosophical
Pantheists. It is not they who would have ever conceived, or dreamt that
monstrous contrasted progeny, the nightmare of our modern civilized Race;
namely -- inanimate material, self-guiding atoms, on the one hand, and an
extra-Cosmic God on the other.
It
may be useful to show what, in the teachings of the old Initiates, the Monad
was, and what its origin.
Modern
exact Science, as soon as it began to grow out of its teens, perceived the
great, and, to it, hitherto esoteric axiom, that nothing -- whether in the
spiritual, psychic, or physical realm of being -- could come into existence out
of nothing. There is no cause in the manifested universe without its adequate
effects, whether in space or time; nor can there be an effect without its
primal cause, which itself owes its existence to a still higher one -- the
final and absolute cause having to remain to man for ever an incomprehensible
CAUSELESS CAUSE. But even this is no solution, and must be viewed, if at all,
from the highest philosophical and metaphysical standpoints, otherwise the
problem had better be left unapproached. It is an abstraction, on the verge of
which human reason -- however trained to metaphysical subtleties -- trembles,
threatening to collapse. This may be demonstrated to any European who would
undertake to solve the problem of existence by the articles of faith of the
true Vedantin, for instance. Let him read and study the sublime teachings on
the subject of Soul and Spirit, of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Sankaracharya
(Viveka Chudamani)*, and the reader will realize what is now said.
While
the Christian is taught that the human soul is a breath of God -- being created
by him for sempiternal existence, i.e., having a beginning, but no end (and
therefore never to be called eternal) -- the Occult teaching says,
"Nothing is created, but is only transformed. Nothing can manifest itself
in this universe -- from a globe down to a vague, rapid thought -- that was not
in the universe already; everything on the subjective plane is an eternal IS;
as everything on the objective plane is an ever becoming -- because
transitory."
The
monad -- a truly "indivisible thing," as defined by Good, who did not
give it the sense we now do -- is here rendered as the Atma in conjunction with
Buddhi and the higher Manas. This trinity is one and eternal, the latter being
absorbed in the former at the termination of all conditioned and illusive life.
The monad, then, can be traced through the course of its pilgrimage and its
changes of transitory vehicles only from the incipient stage of the manifested
Universe. In Pralaya, or the intermediate period between two manvantaras, it
loses its name, as it loses it when the real ONE self of man merges into Brahm
in cases of high Samadhi (the Turiya state) or final Nirvana; "when the
disciple" in the words of Sankara, "having attained that primeval
consciousness, absolute bliss, of which the nature is truth, which is without
form and action, abandons this illusive body that has been assumed by the atma
just as an actor (abandons) the dress (put on)." For Buddhi (the
Anandamaya sheath) is but a mirror which reflects absolute bliss; and,
moreover, that reflection itself is yet not free from ignorance, and is not the
Supreme Spirit, being subject to conditions, being a spiritual modification of
Prakriti, and an effect; Atma alone is the one real and eternal substratum of
all -- the essence and absolute knowledge -- the Kshetragna.** It is called in
the Esoteric philosophy "the One Witness,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Translated for the Theosophist, by Mohini M. Chatterji as "Crest Jewel of
Wisdom," 1886. (See Theosophist, July and August numbers).
**
Now that the revised version of the gospels has been published and the most
glaring mistranslations of the old versions are corrected, one will understand
better the words in St. John v., vi., and vii.: "It is the Spirit that beareth
witness because the Spirit is the truth." The words that follow in the
mistranslated version about the "three witnesses," -- hitherto
supposed to stand for "the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost" --
show the real meaning of the writer (St. John) very clearly, thus still more
forcibly identifying his teaching in this respect with that of Sankaracharya.
For what can the sentence, "there are three who bear witness: the Spirit
and the Water and the Blood" -- mean, if they bear no relation to, or connection
with, the more philosophical statement of the great Vedanta teacher, who,
speaking of the sheaths (the principles in man) Jiva, Vignanamaya, etc., which
are, in their physical manifestation, "water and blood" or life, adds
that atma (spirit) alone is what remains after the [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and,
while it rests in Devachan, is referred to as "the Three Witnesses to
Karma."
Atma
(our seventh principle) being identical with the universal Spirit, and man
being one with it in his essence, what is then the Monad proper? It is that
homogeneous spark which radiates in millions of rays from the primeval
"Seven;" -- of which seven further on. It is the EMANATING spark from
the UNCREATED Ray -- a mystery. In the esoteric, and even exoteric Buddhism of
the North, Adi Buddha (Chogi dangpoi sangye), the One unknown, without
beginning or end, identical with Parabrahm and Ain-Soph, emits a bright ray
from its darkness.
This
is the Logos (the first), or Vajradhara, the Supreme Buddha (also called
Dorjechang). As the Lord of all Mysteries he cannot manifest, but sends into
the world of manifestation his heart -- the "diamond heart," Vajrasattva
(Dorjesempa). This is the second logos of creation, from whom emanate the seven
(in the exoteric blind the five) Dhyani Buddhas, called the Anupadaka,
"the parentless." These Buddhas are the primeval monads from the
world of incorporeal being, the Arupa world, wherein the Intelligences (on that
plane only) have neither shape nor name, in the exoteric system, but have their
distinct seven names in esoteric philosophy. These Dhyani Buddhas emanate, or
create from themselves, by virtue of Dhyana, celestial Selves -- the
super-human Bodhisattvas. These incarnating at the beginning of every human
cycle on earth as mortal men, become occasionally, owing to their personal
merit, Bodhisattvas among the Sons of Humanity, after which they may re-appear
as Manushi (human) Buddhas. The Anupadaka (or Dhyani-Buddhas) are thus
identical with the Brahminical Manasaputra, "mind-born sons" --
whether of Brahma or either of the other two Trimurtian Hypostases, hence
identical also with the Rishis and Prajapatis. Thus, a passage is found in
Anugita, which, read esoterically, shows plainly, though under another imagery,
the same idea and system. It says: "Whatever entities there are in this
world, moveable or immoveable, they are the very first to be dissolved (at pralaya);
and next the developments produced from the elements (from which the visible
Universe is fashioned); and, after these developments (evolved entities), all
the elements. Such is the upperward gradation among entities. Gods, Men,
Gandharvas, Pisachas, Asuras, Rakshasas, all have been created by Svabhava
(Prakriti, or plastic nature), not by actions, nor by a cause" -- i.e.,
not by any physical cause.
"These
Brahmanas (the Rishi Prajapati?), the creators of the world, are born here (on
earth) again and again. Whatever is produced from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] subtraction of the sheaths and that it is the
ONLY witness, or synthesized unity. The less spiritual and philosophical
school, solely with an eye to a trinity made three witnesses out of
"one," thus connecting it more with earth than with heaven.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 572 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
them
is dissolved in due time in those very five great elements (the five, or rather
seven, Dhyani Buddhas, also called "Elements" of Mankind), like
billows in the ocean. These great elements are in every way beyond the elements
that make up the world (the gross elements). And he who is released even from
these five elements (the tanmatras)* goes to the highest goal." "The
Lord Prajapati (Brahma) created all this by the mind only," i.e., by
Dhyana, or abstract meditation and mystic powers like the Dhyani Buddhas (vide
supra). Evidently then, these "Brahmanas" are identical with the
Bodhisattvas (the terrestrial) of the heavenly Dhyani Buddhas. Both, as
primordial, intelligent "Elements," become the creators or the
emanators of the monads destined to become human in that cycle; after which
they evolve themselves, or, so to say, expand into their own selves as
Bodhisattvas or Brahmanas, in heaven and earth, to become at last simple men
--"the creators of the world are born here, on earth again and again"
-- truly. In the Northern Buddhist system, or the popular exoteric religion, it
is taught that every Buddha, while preaching the good law on earth, manifests
himself simultaneously in three worlds: in the formless, as Dhyani Buddha, in
the World of forms, as a Bodhisattva, and in the world of desire, the lowest
(or our world) as a man. Esoterically the teaching differs: The divine, purely
Adi-Buddhic monad manifests as the universal Buddhi (the Maha-buddhi or Mahat
in Hindu philosophies) the spiritual, omniscient and omnipotent root of divine
intelligence, the highest anima mundi or the Logos. This descends "like a
flame spreading from the eternal Fire, immoveable, without increase or
decrease, ever the same to the end" of the cycle of existence, and becomes
universal life on the Mundane Plane. From this Plane of conscious Life shoot
out, like seven fiery tongues, the Sons of Light (the logoi of Life); then the
Dhyani-Buddhas of contemplation: the concrete forms of their formless Fathers
-- the Seven Sons of Light, still themselves, to whom may be applied the
Brahmanical mystic phrase: "Thou art 'THAT' -- Brahm." It is from
these Dhyani-Buddhas that emanate their chhayas (Shadows) the Bodhisattvas of
the celestial realms, the prototypes of the super-terrestrial Bodhisattvas, and
of the terrestrial Buddhas, and finally of men. The "Seven Sons of
Light" are also called "Stars."
The
star under which a human Entity is born, says the Occult teaching, will remain
for ever its star, throughout the whole cycle of its incarnations in one
Manvantara. But this is not his astrological star. The latter is concerned and
connected with the personality, the former with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Tanmatras are literally the type or rudiment of an element devoid of
qualities; but esoterically, they are the primeval noumenoi of that which
becomes in the progress of evolution a Cosmic element in the sense given to the
term in antiquity, not in that of physics. They are the logoi, the seven emanations
or rays of the logos.
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 573 THE CREST-JEWEL OF WISDOM.
the
INDIVIDUALITY. The "Angel" of that Star, or the Dhyani-Buddha will be
either the guiding or simply the presiding "Angel," so to say, in
every new rebirth of the monad, which is part of his own essence, though his
vehicle, man, may remain for ever ignorant of this fact. The adepts have each
their Dhyani-Buddha, their elder "twin Soul," and they know it, calling
it "Father-Soul," and "Father-Fire." It is only at the last
and supreme initiation, however, that they learn it when placed face to face
with the bright "Image." How much has Bulwer Lytton known of this
mystic fact when describing, in one of his highest inspirational moods, Zanoni
face to face with his Augoeides?
The
Logos, or both the unmanifested and the manifested WORD, is called by the
Hindus, Iswara, "the Lord," though the Occultists give it another
name. Iswara, say the Vedantins, is the highest consciousness in nature.
"This highest consciousness," answer the Occultists, "is only a
synthetic unit in the world of the manifested Logos -- or on the plane of
illusion; for it is the sum total of Dhyan-Chohanic consciousnesses." "Oh,
wise man, remove the conception that not-Spirit is Spirit," says
Sankaracharya. Atma is not-Spirit in its final Parabrahmic state, Iswara or
Logos is Spirit; or, as Occultism explains, it is a compound unity of
manifested living Spirits, the parent-source and nursery of all the mundane and
terrestrial monads, plus their divine reflection, which emanate from, and
return into, the Logos, each in the culmination of its time. There are seven
chief groups of such Dhyan Chohans, which groups will be found and recognised
in every religion, for they are the primeval SEVEN Rays. Humanity, occultism
teaches us, is divided into seven distinct groups and their sub-divisions,
mental, spiritual, and physical.* The monad, then, viewed as ONE, is above the
seventh principle (in Kosmos and man), and as a triad, it is the direct radiant
progeny of the said compound UNIT, not the breath (and special creation out of
nihil) of "God," as that unit is called; for such an idea is quite
unphilosophical, and degrades Deity, dragging it down to a finite, attributive
condition. As well expressed by the translator of the "Crest-Jewel of
Wisdom" -- though Iswara is "God" "unchanged in the
profoundest depths of pralayas and in the intensest activity of the
manvantaras" . . ., still "beyond (him) is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence the seven chief planets, the spheres of the indwelling seven spirits,
under each of which is born one of the human groups which is guided and
influenced thereby. There are only seven planets (specially connected with
earth), and twelve houses, but the possible combinations of their aspects are
countless. As each planet can stand to each of the others in twelve different
aspects, their combinations must, therefore, be almost infinite; as infinite,
in fact, as the spiritual, psychic, mental, and physical capacities in the
numberless varieties of the genus homo, each of which varieties is born under
one of the seven planets and one of the said countless planetary combinations.
See Theosophist, for August, 1886.
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[[Vol.
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'ATMA,'
round whose pavilion is the darkness of eternal MAYA."* The
"triads" born under the same Parent-planet, or rather the radiations
of one and the same Planetary Spirit (Dhyani Buddha) are, in all their after
lives and rebirths, sister, or "twin-souls," on this Earth.**
This
was known to every high Initiate in every age and in every country: "I and
my Father are one," said Jesus (John x. 30).*** When He is made to say,
elsewhere (xx. 17): "I ascend to my Father and your Father," it meant
that which has just been stated. It was simply to show that the group of his
disciples and followers attracted to Him belonged to the same Dhyani Buddha,
"Star," or "Father," again of the same planetary realm and
division as He did. It is the knowledge of this occult doctrine that found
expression in the review of "The Idyll of the White Lotus," when Mr.
T. Subba Row wrote: "Every Buddha meets at his last initiation all the
great adepts who reached Buddhahood during the preceding ages . . . every class
of adepts has its own bond of spiritual communion which knits them together. .
. . . The only possible and effectual way of entering into such brotherhood . .
. . is by bringing oneself within the influence of the Spiritual light which
radiates from one's own Logos. I may further point out here . . . . that such
communion is only possible between persons whose souls derive their life and sustenance
from the same divine RAY, and that, as seven distinct rays radiate from the
'Central Spiritual Sun,' all adepts and Dhyan Chohans are divisible into seven
classes, each of which is guided, controlled, and overshadowed by one of the
seven forms or manifestations of the divine Wisdom."
("Theosophist," Aug., 1886.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The now universal error of attributing to the ancients the knowledge of only seven
planets, simply because they mentioned no others, is based on the same general
ignorance of their occult doctrines. The question is not whether they were, or
were not, aware of the existence of the later discovered planets; but whether
the reverence paid by them to the four exoteric and three secret great gods --
the star-angels, had not some special reason. The writer ventures to say there
was such a reason, and it is this. Had they known of as many planets as we do
now (and this question can hardly be decided at present, either way), they
would have still connected with their religious worship only the seven, because
these seven are directly and specially connected with our earth, or, using
esoteric phraseology, with our septenary ring of spheres. (See supra.)
**
It is the same, only still more metaphysical idea, as that of the Christian
Trinity -- "Three in One" -- i.e., the Universal
"over-Spirit," manifesting on the two higher planes, those of Buddhi
and Mahat; and these are the three hypostases, metaphysical, but never
personal.
***
The identity, and at the same time the illusive differentiation of the
Angel-Monad and the Human-Monad is shown by the following sentences: "My
Father is greater than I" (John xiv. 26); "Glorify your Father who is
in Heaven" (Matt. v. 16); "The righteous will shine in the kingdom of
their Father" (not our Father) (Matt. xiii. 43) "Know ye not ye are a
temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you? (I Cor. iii. 16);
"I ascend to my Father," etc., etc.
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[[Vol.
1, Page]] 575 WHAT ARE THE SEVEN PLANETS?
It
is then the "Seven Sons of Light" -- called after their planets and
(by the rabble) often identified with them -- namely Saturn, Jupiter, Mercury,
Mars, Venus, and -- presumably for the modern critic, who goes no deeper than
the surface of old religions* -- the Sun and Moon, which are, according to the
Occult teachings, our heavenly Parents, or "Father," synthetically.
Hence, as already remarked, polytheism is really more philosophical and
correct, as to fact and nature, than anthropomorphic monotheism. Saturn,
Jupiter, Mercury, and Venus, the four exoteric planets, and the three others,
which must remain unnamed, were the heavenly bodies in direct astral and
psychic communication with the Earth, its Guides, and Watchers -- morally and
physically; the visible orbs furnishing our Humanity with its outward and
inward characteristics, and their "Regents" or Rectors with our
Monads and spiritual faculties. In order to avoid creating new misconceptions,
let it be stated that among the three secret orbs (or star-angels) neither
Uranus nor Neptune entered; not only because they were unknown under these
names to the ancient Sages, but because they, as all other planets, however
many there may be, are the gods and guardians of other septenary chains of
globes within our systems.
Nor
do the two last discovered great planets depend entirely on the Sun like the
rest of the planets. Otherwise, how explain the fact that Neptune receives 900
times less light than our Earth, and Uranus 390 times less, and that their
satellites show a peculiarity of inverse rotation found in no other planets of
the Solar System. At any rate, what we say applies to Uranus, though recently
the fact begins again to be disputed.
This
subject will, of course, be considered mere vagary by all those who confuse the
universal order of being with their own systems of classification. Here,
however, simple facts from Occult teachings are stated, to be either accepted
or rejected, as the case may be. There are details which, on account of their
great metaphysical abstractions, cannot be entered upon. Hence, we merely state
that only seven of our planets are as intimately related to our globe, as the
Sun is to all
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These are planets accepted for purposes of judicial astrology only. The
astrotheogonical division differed from this one. The Sun, being a central star
and no planet, stands in more occult and mysterious relations with its seven
planets of our globe than is generally known. The Sun was, therefore,
considered the great Father of all the Seven "Fathers," which
accounts for the variations found between seven and eight great gods of the
Chaldean and other countries. Neither the earth nor the moon -- its satellite
-- nor yet stars, for another reason -- were anything else than substitutes for
esoteric purposes. Yet, even with the Sun and the Moon thrown out of the calculation,
the ancients seem to have known of seven planets. How many more are known to
us, so far, if we throw out the Earth and Moon? Seven, and no more: Seven
primary or principal planets, the rest planetoids rather than planets.
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[[Vol.
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the
bodies subject to him in his system. Of these bodies the poor little number of
primary and secondary planets known to astronomy, looks wretched enough, in
truth.* Therefore, it stands to reason that there are a great number of
planets, small and large, that have not been discovered yet, but of the
existence of which ancient astronomers -- all of them initiated adepts -- must
have certainly been aware. But, as their relation to the gods was sacred, it
had to remain arcane, as also the names of various other planets and stars.
Besides
which, even the Roman Catholic theology speaks of "seventy planets that
preside over the destinies of the nations of this globe"; and, save the
erroneous application, there is more truth in this tradition than in exact
modern astronomy. The seventy planets are connected with the seventy elders of
the people of Israel (Numb. 11, 16) because the regents of these planets are
meant, not the orbs themselves; and the word seventy is a play and a blind upon
the 7 x 7 of the subdivisions. Each people and nation, as said already, has its
direct Watcher, Guardian and Father in Heaven -- a Planetary Spirit. We are
willing to leave their own national God, Jehovah, to the descendants of Israel,
the worshippers of Sabaoth or SATURN; for, indeed, the monads of the people
chosen by him are his own, and the Bible has never made a secret of it. Only
the text of the English (Protestant) Bible is, in disagreement, as usual, with
those of the Septuagint and the Vulgate. Thus, while in the former one reads
(in Deuter. xxxii., 8 and 9) "When the MOST HIGH (not Jehovah) divided to
the nations their inheritance . . . he set the bounds of the people according
to the number of the children of Israel," in the Septuagint the text reads
"according to the number of the Angels" (Planet-Angels), which is
more concordant with truth and fact. Moreover, all the texts agree that
"the Lord's (Jehovah) portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his
inheritance" (Deut. xxxii. 9); and this settles the question. The
"Lord" Jehovah took for his portion Israel -- what have other nations
to do with that particular national Deity? Let then, the "angel Gabriel"
watch over Iran and "Mikael-Jehovah" over the Hebrews. These are not
the gods of other nations, and it is difficult to see why Christians
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
When one remembers that under the powerful telescope of Sir W. Herschell, that
eminent astronomer, gauging merely that portion of heaven in the equatorial
plane, the approximate centre of which is occupied by our Earth -- saw pass in
one quarter of an hour, 16,000 stars; and applying this calculation to the
totality of the "Milky Way" he found in it no less than 18 (eighteen)
millions of SUNS -- one wonders no longer that Laplace, in conversation with
Napoleon I. should have called God a HYPOTHESIS -- perfectly useless to
speculate upon for exact physical Science, at any rate. Occult metaphysics and
transcendental philosophy will alone be able to lift the smallest corner of the
impenetrable veil in this direction.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 577 CYCLIC FALL OF THE GODS.
should
have selected a god against whose commandments Jesus was the first one to rise
in rebellion.
The
Planetary origin of the Monad (Soul) and of its faculties was taught by the
Gnostics. On its way to the Earth, as on its way back from the Earth, each soul
born in, and from, the "Boundless Light,"* had to pass through the
seven planetary regions both ways. The pure Dhyani and Devas of the oldest
religions had become, in course of time, with the Zoroastrians, the Seven Devs,
the ministers of Ahriman, "each chained to his planet" (see Origen's
Copy of the Chart); with the Brahmins, the Asuras and some of its Rishis --
good, bad and indifferent; and among the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth or
(Hermes) who was the chief of the seven whose names are given by Origen as
Adonai, genius of the Sun; Tao, of the Moon; Eloi, of Jupiter; Sabao, of Mars;
Orai, of Venus; Astaphai, of Mercury; and Ildabaoth (Jehovah), of Saturn.
Finally, the Pistis-Sophia, which the greatest modern authority on exoteric
Gnostic beliefs, the late Mr. C. W. King, refers to as "that precious
monument of Gnosticism," -- this old document echoes, while distorting it
to sectarian purposes, the archaic belief of the ages. The Astral Rulers of the
Spheres (the planets) create the monads (the Souls) from their own substance
out of the "tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their torments,"
endowing the monads with a spark of the Divine Light, which is their substance.
It will be shown in Book II. why these "Lords of the Zodiac and
Spheres" have been transformed by sectarian theology into the rebellious
angels of the Christians, who took them from the Seven Devs of the Magi,
without understanding the significance of the allegory. (Vide Part II.,
"On the Seven Souls," and Section xv. in this Part, "GODS,
MONADS AND ATOMS").
As
usual, that which is and was from its beginning divine, pure, and spiritual in
its earliest unity, became, by reason of its differentiation by the distorted
prism of man's conceptions, human and impure, as reflecting man's own sinful
nature. Thus, in time, the planet Saturn became reviled by the worshippers of
other "gods." The nations born under Saturn -- the Jewish, for
instance -- with whom he had become Jehovah, after having been held as a son of
Saturn, or Ilda-Baoth, by the Ophites, and in the book of Jasher -- were
eternally fighting with those born under Jupiter, Mercury, or any other planet,
except Saturn-Jehovah; genealogies and prophecies notwithstanding, Jesus the
initiate (or Jehoshua) -- the type from whom the "historical" Jesus
was
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
C. W. King, identifies it with "that summum bonum of Oriental aspiration,
the Buddhist Nirvana," perfect repose, the Epicurean Indolentia, which
looks flippant enough in its expression, though not quite untrue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 578 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
copied
-- was not of pure Jewish blood, and thus recognised no Jehovah; nor did he
worship any planetary god beside his own "Father," whom he knew, and
with whom he communed as every high initiate does, "Spirit to Spirit and
Soul to Soul." This can hardly be taken exception to, unless the critic
explains to every one's satisfaction the strange sentences put in the mouth of
Jesus by the author of the Fourth Gospel (chapter viii.) during his disputes
with the Pharisees.
"I
know ye are Abraham's seed* . . . I speak the things which I have seen with my
Father; and ye do the things which ye heard from your Father. . . . . Ye do the
works of your Father. . . . . Ye are of your Father, the Devil. . . . . He was
a murderer from the beginning, and stood not in the truth, because there is no
truth in him. When one speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own; for his father
also is a liar and the father thereof," etc., etc.
That
"Father" of the Pharisees was Jehovah, because identical with Cain,
Saturn, Vulcan, etc. -- the planet under which they were born, and the God whom
they worshipped. Evidently there must be an occult meaning sought in these
words and admonitions, however mistranslated, since they are pronounced by one
who threatened with hell-fire anyone who says simply raca (fool) to his brother
(Matthew v., 22). And evidently, again, the planets are not merely spheres,
twinkling in Space, and made to shine for no purpose, but the domains of
various beings with whom the profane are so far unacquainted; nevertheless,
having a mysterious, unbroken, and powerful connection with men and globes.
Every heavenly body is the temple of a god, and these gods themselves are the
temples of GOD, the Unknown "Not Spirit." There is nothing profane in
the Universe. All Nature is a consecrated place, as Young says:--
"Each
of these Stars is a religious house." . . . .
Thus
can all exoteric religions be shown the falsified copies of the esoteric
teaching. It is the priesthood which has to be held responsible for the
reaction in favour of materialism of our day. It is by worshiping and enforcing
on the masses the worship of the shells -- personified for purposes of allegory
-- of pagan ideals, that the latest exoteric religion has made of Western lands
a Pandemonium, in which the higher classes worship the golden calf, and the
lower and ignorant masses are made to worship an idol with feet of clay.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Abraham and Saturn are identical in astro-symbology, and he is the forefather of
the Jehovistic Jews.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 579 ANTIQUITY OUR GREAT MASTER.
XII.
ANCIENT
THOUGHT IN MODERN DRESS.
MODERN
SCIENCE IS ANCIENT THOUGHT DISTORTED, and no more. We have seen, however, WHAT
INTUITIONAL SCIENTISTS THINK, and are busy about; and now the reader may be
given a few more proofs of the fact that more than one F.R.S. is unconsciously
approaching the derided Secret Sciences.
With
regard to cosmogony and primeval matter, modern speculations are undeniably
ancient thought, improved by contradictory theories of recent origin. But the
whole foundation belongs to Grecian and Indian Archaic astronomy and physics,
in those days always called philosophy. In all the Aryan and Greek
speculations, one meets with the conception of an all-pervading, unorganized,
and homogeneous matter, or Chaos, re-named by modern scientists "Nebular
condition of the world-stuff." What Anaxagoras called "Chaos" in
his Homoiomeria is now called "primitive fluid" by Sir W. Thomson.
The Hindu and Greek Atomists -- Kanada, Leucippus, Democritus, Epicurus,
Lucretius, etc., etc., are now reflected as in a clear mirror, in the
supporters of the atomic theory of our modern days, beginning with Leibnitz's
Monads, and ending with the "Vortical Atoms" of Sir W. Thomson.*
True, the corpuscular theory of old is rejected, and the undulatory theory has
taken its place. But the question is, whether the latter is so firmly
established as not to be liable to be dethroned as was its predecessor? Light
from its metaphysical aspect was fully treated of in "Isis
Unveiled":--
"Light
is the first begotten, and the first emanation of the Supreme, and Light is
Life, says the Evangelist and the Kabalist. Both are electricity -- the life
principle, the anima mundi, pervading the universe, the electric vivifier of
all things. Light is the great Protean magician, and under the divine will of
the architect,** or rather the architects, the "Builders" (called One
collectively), its multifarious, omnipotent waves gave birth to every form as
well as to every living being. From its swelling electric bosom, spring matter
and spirit. Within its beams lie the beginnings of all physical and chemical
action, and of all cosmic and spiritual phenomena; it vitalizes and
disorganizes; it gives life and produces death, and from its primordial point
gradually emerged into existence the myriads of worlds, visible and invisible
celestial bodies. It was at the ray of this First mother, one in three, that
"God," according to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the Mind have not been improved by their
modern transformation.
**
I have been often taken to task for using expressions in Isis denoting belief
in a personal and anthropomorphic God. This is not my idea. Kabalistically
speaking, the "Architect" is the generic name for the Sephiroth, the
Builders of the Universe, as the "Universal Mind" represents the collectivity
of the Dhyan Chohanic Minds.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 580 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Plato,
lighted a fire which we now call the sun,"* and which is not the cause of
either light or heat, but merely the focus, or, as we might say, the lens, by
which the rays of the primordial light become materialised, are concentrate
upon our Solar System, and produce all the correlations of forces."
This
is the Ether, as just explained in the views of Metcalfe, repeated by Dr.
Richardson, save the submission of the former to some details of the modern
undulatory theory. We do not say that we deny the theory, but assert only that
it needs completion and re-arrangement. But the Occultists are by no means the
only heretics in this respect; for Mr. Robert Hunt, F.R.S., remarks, in his
Researches on Light in its Chemical Relations, that:--
.
. . . "the undulatory theory does not account for the results of his
experiments. Sir David Brewster, in his Treatise on Optics, showing 'that the
colours of vegetable life arise . . . . from a specific attraction which the
particles of these bodies exercise over the differently-coloured rays of
light,' and that 'it is by the light of the sun that the coloured juices of
plants are elaborated, that the colours of bodies are changed, etc. . . . .'
remarks that it is not easy to allow 'that such effects can be produced by the
mere vibration of an ethereal medium.' And he is forced, he says, 'by this
class of facts, to reason as if light was material (?).' Professor Josiah P.
Cooke, of Harvard University, says that he 'cannot agree . . . . with those who
regard the wave-theory of light as an established principle of science.'**
Herschell's doctrine, that the intensity of light, in effect of each undulation,
'is inversely as the square of the distance from the luminous body,' if
correct, damages a good deal, if it does not kill the undulatory theory. That
he is right, was proved repeatedly by experiments with photometers; and though
it begins to be much doubted, the undulatory theory is still alive."
("Isis Unveiled.")
To
this remark of Sir W. Brewster -- "forced to reason as if light was
material" -- there is a good deal to reply. Light, in one sense, is certainly
as material as electricity itself is. And if electricity is not material, if it
is only "a mode of motion," how is it that it can be stored up in
Faure's accumulators? Helmholtz says that electricity must be as atomic as
matter; and Mr. W. Crookes, F.R.S., supported the view in his address to the
Chemical Section of the British Association, of which he was President (at
Birmingham, 1886). This is what Helmholtz says (in his Faraday Lectures,
1881):--
"If
we accept the hypothesis that the elementary substances are composed of atoms,
we cannot avoid concluding that electricity also, positive as well as negative,
is divided into definite elementary portions, which behave like atoms of
electricity."
Here
we have to repeat that which was already said in Section IX: there is but one
science that can henceforth direct modern research into the one path which will
lead to the discovery of the whole, hitherto
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Timaeus."
**
Modern Chemistry.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 581 A CHASE AFTER THE PRIMAL MATTER.
occult,
truth, and it is the youngest of all -- chemistry, as it now stands reformed.
There is no other, not excluding astronomy, that can so unerringly guide
scientific intuition, as chemistry can. Two proofs of it are to be found in the
world of Science -- two great chemists, each among the greatest in his own
country, and these are Mr. Crookes and the late Professor Butlerof: one, a
thorough believer in abnormal phenomena; the other, as fervid a Spiritualist as
he was great in natural Sciences. It becomes evident that while pondering over
the ultimate divisibility of matter, and in the hitherto fruitless chase after
the element of negative atomic weight, the scientifically trained mind of the
chemist must feel irresistibly drawn towards those ever-shrouded worlds, to the
mysterious beyond, whose measureless depths seem to close against the approach
of the too materialistic hand that would fain draw aside its veil. "It is
the unknown and the ever unknowable," warns the Monist-Agnostic. Not so;
answers the persevering chemist:-- "We are on the track and are not
daunted, and fain would we enter the mysterious region which ignorance tickets
unknown."*
A
few lines at the very close of his lecture on the Genesis of the Elements --
two or three sentences -- showed the eminent Scientist to be on the royal road
to the greatest discoveries. He has been overshadowing for some time "the
original protyle," and came to the conclusion that "he who grasps the
Key will be permitted to unlock some of the deepest mysteries of
creation." The protyle, as that great chemist explains:--
".
. . is a word analogous to protoplasm, to express the idea of the original
primal matter existing before the evolution of the chemical elements. The word
I have ventured to use for this purpose is compounded of [[pro]] (earlier than)
and [[hyle]] (the stuff of which things are made). The word is scarcely a new
coinage, for 600 years ago Roger Bacon wrote in his Arte Chymiae, "The
elements are made out of [[hyle]] and every element is converted into the
nature of another element."
The
Knowledge of Roger Bacon did not come to this wonderful old magician** by
inspiration, but because he studied ancient works on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Crookes' "Presidential Address" at Birmingham. "There is but
one unknown -- the ultimate substratum of Spirit (Space). That which is not the
Absolute and the One is, in virtue of that very differentiation, however far
removed from the physical senses, always accessible to the spiritual human
mind, which is a coruscation of the undifferentiable Integral." --
(Practical Lessons on the Occult.)
**
Thus, what the writer of the present work said ten years ago in "Isis
Unveiled" (Vol. I.) was prophetic, it seems. These are the words:
"Many of these mystics, by following what they were taught by some
treatises, secretly preserved from one generation to another, achieved
discoveries which would not be despised even in our modern days of exact
sciences. Roger Bacon, the friar, was laughed at as a quack, and is now
generally numbered among 'pretenders' to magic art; but his discoveries were
nevertheless accepted, and are now used by those who ridicule him the most.
Roger Bacon belonged by right, if not by fact, to that Brotherhood which
includes all those who [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 582 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
magic
and alchemy, having a key to the real meaning of words. But see what Mr.
Crookes says of protyle, next neighbour to the unconscious Mulaprakriti of the
Occultists:--
.
. . . . "Let us start at the moment when the first element came into
existence. Before this time, matter, as we know it, was not. It is equally
impossible to conceive of matter without energy, as of energy without matter;
from one point of view both are convertible terms. Before the birth of atoms,
all those forms of energy, which become evident when matter acts upon matter,
could not have existed* -- they were locked up in the protyle as latent
potentialities only. Coincident with the creation of atoms, all those
attributes and properties, which form the means of discriminating one chemical
element from another, start into existence fully endowed with energy."
(Presidential Address, p. 16.)
With
every respect due to the great knowledge of the lecturer, the Occultist would
put it otherwise. They would say that no atom is ever "created," for
the atoms are eternal within the bosom of the One Atom, -- "the atom of
atoms" -- viewed during Manvantara as the Jagad-Yoni the material
causative womb of the world. Pradhana (unmodified matter), that which is the
first form of Prakriti, or material visible, as well as invisible nature, and
Purusha, spirit, are eternally one; and they are Nirupadhi, (without
adventitious qualities or attributes) only during Pralaya, and when beyond any
of the planes of consciousness of existence. The atom, as known to modern
science, is inseparable from Purusha, which is spirit, but is now called
"Energy" in Science. The protyle atom has not been comminuted or
subtilized: it has simply passed into that plane, which is no plane, but the
eternal state of everything beyond the planes of illusion. Both Purusha and
Pradhana are immutable and unconsumable, or Aparinamin and Avyaya, in eternity;
and both during the Mayavic periods may be referred to as Vyaya and Parinamin,
or that which can expand, pass away and disappear, and is
"modifiable." In this sense Purusha, must of course, be held distinct
in our conceptions from Parabrahmam. Nevertheless that, which is called
"energy" or "force" in Science and has been explained as a
dual Force by Metcalfe, is never, in fact, and cannot be energy alone; for it
is the substance of the world, its soul, the all-permeant "Sarvaga,"
in conjunction with Kala "time." The three are the trinity in one,
during Manvantara, the all-potential Unity, which acts on the plane of illusion
(Maya) as three distinct things. In Orphic
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] study the occult sciences. Living in the
thirteenth century, almost a contemporary, therefore, of Albertus Magnus and
Thomas Aquinas, his discoveries -- such as gunpowder and optical glasses, and
his mechanical achievements -- were considered by everyone as so many miracles.
He was accused of having made a compact with the Evil One."
*
Just so; "those forms of energy . . . which become evident . . ." in
the laboratory of the chemist and physicist; but there are other forms of
energy wedded to other forms of matter, -- which are supersensuous, yet known
to the adepts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 583 ALL-POTENTIAL UNITY.
philosophy
in Greece they were called Phanes, Chaos, and Chronos -- the triad of the
Occult philosophers of that period.
But
see how closely Mr. Crookes brushes by the "Unknowable," and what
"potentialities" there are for the acceptance of Occult truths in his
discoveries. He continues, speaking of the evolution of atoms:--
".
. . . Let us pause at the end of the first complete vibration and examine the
result. We have already found the elements of water, ammonia, carbonic acid,
the atmosphere, plant and animal life, phosphorus for the brain, salt for the
seas, clay for the solid earth . . . phosphates and silicates sufficient for a
world and inhabitants not so very different from what we enjoy at the present
day. True the human inhabitants would have to live in a state of more than
Arcadian simplicity, and the absence of calcic phosphate would be awkward as
far as the bone is concerned* . . . At the lower end of our curve . . . we see
a great hiatus . . . This oasis, and the blanks which precede and follow it,
may be referred with much probability to the particular way in which our Earth
developed into a member of our solar system. If this be so, it may be that on
our Earth only these blanks occur, and not generally throughout the
universe."
This
justifies several assertions in the Occult works.
Firstly,
"that neither stars nor the sun can be said to be constituted of those
terrestrial elements with which the chemist is familiar, though they are all
present in the sun's outward robes -- and a host more of elements so far
unknown to science."
Secondly,
that our globe has its own special laboratory on the far-away outskirts of its
atmosphere, crossing which, every atom and molecule change and differentiate
from their primordial nature.
And
Thirdly, that though no element present on our earth could ever be possibly
found wanting in the sun, there are many others which have either not reached,
or not as yet been discovered on, our globe. "Some may be missing in
certain stars and heavenly bodies in the process of formation; or, though
present in them, these elements, on account of their present state, may not
respond as yet to the usual scientific tests."** Mr. Crookes speaks of an
element of still lower atomic weight than hydrogen, an element purely
hypothetical as far as our earth is concerned . . . though existing in
abundance in the chromosphere of the Sun -- the helium. Occult Science adds
that not one of the elements regarded by chemistry as such really deserves the
name.
Again
we find Mr. Crookes speaking with approbation of "Dr. Carnelly's weighty
argument in favour of the compound nature of the so-called elements, from their
analogy to the compound radicles! " Hitherto,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is just the existence of such worlds in other planes of consciousness that
is claimed by the Occultist. The secret science teaches that the primitive race
was boneless. (See Book II.); and that there are (to us) invisible worlds,
peopled as our own, besides the populations of Dhyan Chohans.
**
"Five Years of Theosophy," p. 258 et seq.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 584 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
alchemy
alone succeeded within the historical periods, and in the so-called civilized
countries, in obtaining a real element, or a particle of homogeneous matter,
the Mysterium Magnum of Paracelsus. But then it was before Lord Bacon's day.*
".
. . Let us now turn to the upper portion of the scheme. With hydrogen of atomic
weight = 1, there is little room for other elements, save, perhaps, for
hypothetical Helium. But what if we get 'through the looking-glass,' and cross
the zero line in search of new principles -- what shall we find on the other
side of zero? Dr. Carnelly asks for an element of negative atomic weight; here
is ample room and verge enough for a shadow series of such unsubstantialities.
Helmholtz says that electricity is probably as atomic as matter; is electricity
one of the negative elements, and the luminiferous ether another? Matter, as we
now know it, does not here exist; the forms of energy which are apparent in the
motions of matter are as yet only latent possibilities. A substance of negative
weight is not inconceivable.** But can we form a clear conception of a body
which combines with other bodies in proportions expressible by negative
qualities?"***
"A
genesis of the elements such as is here sketched out would not be confined to
our little solar system, but would probably follow the same general sequence of
events in every centre of energy now visible as a star."
"Before
the birth of atoms to gravitate towards one another, no pressure could be
exercised; but at the outskirts of the fire-mist sphere, within which all is
protyle -- at the shell on which the tremendous forces involved in the birth of
a chemical element exert full sway -- the fierce heat would be accompanied by
gravitation sufficient to keep the newly-born elements from flying off into
space. As temperature increases, expansion and molecular motion increase,
molecules tend to fly asunder, and their chemical affinities become deadened;
but the enormous pressure of the gravitation of the mass of atomic matter,
outside what I may for brevity call the birth-shell, would counteract the
action of heat."
"Beyond
the birth-shell would be a space in which no chemical action could take place,
owing to the temperature there being above what is called the
dissociation-point for compounds. In this space the lion and the lamb would lie
down together; phosphorus and oxygen would mix without union; hydrogen and
chlorine would show no tendency to closer bonds; and even fluorine, that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says Mr. Crookes in the same address: "The first riddle which we encounter
in chemistry is: 'What are the elements?' Of the attempts hitherto made to
define or explain an element, none satisfy the demands of the human intellect.
The text books tell us that an element is 'a body which has not been decomposed
''that it is 'a something to which we can add, but from which we can take
nothing,' or 'a body which increases in weight with every chemical change.'
Such definitions are doubly unsatisfactory: they are provisional, and may cease
to-morrow to be applicable in any given case. They take their stand, not on any
attribute of the things to be defined, but on the limitations of human power:
they are confessions of intellectual impotence."
**
And the lecturer quotes Sir George Airy, who says (in Faraday's Life and
Letters Vol. II., p. 354), "I can easily conceive that there are plenty of
bodies about us not subject to this intermutual action, and therefore not
subject to the law of gravitation."
***
The Vedantic philosophy conceives of such; but then it is not physics, but
metaphysics, called by Mr. Tyndall "poetry" and "fiction."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 585 THE "SEVENTH" IN CHEMISTRY.
energetic
gas which chemists have only isolated within the last month or two, would float
about free and uncombined."
"Outside
this space of free atomic matter would be another shell, in which the formed
chemical elements would have cooled down to the combination point, and the
sequence of events so graphically described by Mr. Mattieu Williams in
"The Fuel of the Sun" would now take place, culminating in the solid
earth and the commencement of geological time" (p. 19).
This
is, in a strictly scientific, but beautiful language, the description of the
evolution of the differentiated Universe in the secret teachings. The learned
gentleman closes his address in words, every sentence of which is like a flash
of light from beyond the dark veil of materiality, hitherto thrown upon the
exact sciences, and a step forward towards the Sanctum Sanctorum of the Occult.
(Vide § XV., "Gods, Monads, and Atoms.") Thus he says:--
"We
have glanced at the difficulty of defining an element; we have noticed, too,
the revolt of many leading physicists and chemists against the ordinary
acceptation of the term element; we have weighed the improbability of their
eternal existence,* or their origination by chance. As a remaining alternative,
we have suggested their origin by a process of evolution like that of the
heavenly bodies according to Laplace, and the plants and animals of our globe
according to Lamarck, Darwin, and Wallace.** In the general array of the
elements, as known to us, we have seen a striking approximation to that of the
organic world.*** In lack of direct evidence of the decomposition of any
element, we have sought and found indirect evidence . . . . We have next
glanced at the view of the genesis of the elements; and lastly we have reviewed
a scheme of their origin suggested by Professor Reynold's method of
illustrating the periodic classification**** . . . Summing up all the above
considerations we cannot,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the form they are now, we conceive?
**
And to Kapila and Manu -- especially and originally.
***
Here is a scientific corroboration of the eternal law of correspondences and
analogy.
****
This method of illustrating the periodic law in the classification of elements
is, in the words of Mr. Crookes, proposed by Professor Emerson Reynolds, of
Dublin University, who . . . . "points out that in each period, the
general properties of the elements vary from one to another, with approximate
regularity until we reach the seventh member, which is in more or less striking
contrast with the first element of the same period, as well as with the first
of the next. Thus chlorine, the seventh member of Mendeleef's third period,
contrasts sharply with both sodium, the first member of the same series, and
with potassium, the first member of the next series; whilst on the other hand,
sodium and potassium are closely analogous. The six elements, whose atomic
weights intervene between sodium and potassium, vary in properties, step by
step, until chlorine, the contrast to sodium, is reached. But from chlorine to
potassium, the analogue of sodium, there is a change in properties per saltum.
. . . . If we thus recognise a contrast in properties -- more or less decided
-- between the first and the last members of each series, we can scarcely help
admitting the existence of a point of mean variation within each system. In
general the fourth element of each series possesses the property we might
expect a transition-element to exhibit. . . . . Thus for the purpose of graphic
translation, Professor Reynolds considers that the fourth member of a period --
silicon, for example -- may be placed at the apex of a symmetrical [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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indeed,
venture to assert positively that our so-called elements have been evolved from
one primordial matter; but we may contend that the balance of evidence, I
think, fairly weighs in favour of this speculation."
Thus
inductive Science, in its Branches of Astronomy, Physics, and Chemistry, while
advancing timidly towards the conquest of Nature's secrets in her final effects
on our terrestrial plane, recedes to the days of Anaxagoras and the Chaldees in
its discoveries of (a) the origin of our phenomenal world, and (b) the modes of
formation of the bodies that compose the universe. And having to turn back for
their cosmogonical hypotheses to the beliefs of the earliest philosophers, and
the systems of the latter -- systems that were all based on the teachings of a
universal secret doctrine with regard to the primeval matter with its
properties, functions, and laws, -- have we not the right to hope that the day
is not far off when Science will show a better appreciation of the wisdom of
the ancients than it has hitherto done?
No
doubt Occult philosophy could learn a good deal from exact modern science; but
the latter, on the other hand, might profit by ancient learning in more than
one way, and chiefly in Cosmogony. For
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] curve, which shall represent for that particular
period, the direction in which the properties of the series of elements vary
with rising atomic weights.
Now,
the writer humbly confesses complete ignorance of modern chemistry and its
mysteries. But she is pretty well acquainted with the Occult doctrine with
regard to correspondences of types and antitypes in nature, and perfect analogy
as a fundamental law in Occultism. Hence she ventures a remark which will
strike every Occultist, however it may be derided by orthodox Science. This
method of illustrating the periodic law in the behaviour of elements, whether
or not still a hypothesis in chemistry, is a law in Occult Sciences. Every
well-read Occultist knows that the seventh and fourth members -- whether in a
septenary chain of worlds, the septenary hierarchy of angels, or in the
constitution of man, animal, plant, or mineral atom -- that the seventh and
fourth members, we say, in the geometrically and mathematically uniform workings
of the immutable laws of Nature, always play a distinct and specific part in
the septenary system. From the stars twinkling high in heaven, to the sparks
flying asunder from the rude fire built by the savage in his forest; from the
hierarchies and the essential constitution of the Dhyan Chohans -- organized
for diviner apprehensions and a loftier range of perception than the greatest
Western psychologist ever dreamed of, down to Nature's classification of
species among the humblest insects; finally from worlds to atoms, everything in
the universe, from great to small, proceeds in its spiritual and physical
evolution, cyclically and septennially, showing its seventh and fourth number
(the latter the turning point) behaving in the same way as shown in that
periodic law of atoms. Nature never proceeds per saltum. Therefore, when Mr.
Crookes remarks to this that he does not "wish to infer that the gaps in
Mendeleef's table, and in this graphic representation of it (the diagram
showing the evolution of atoms) necessarily mean that there are elements
actually existing to fill up the gaps; these gaps may only mean that at the
birth of the elements there was an easy potentiality of the formation of an
element which would fit into the place" -- an Occultist would respectfully
remark to him that the latter hypothesis can only hold good, if the septenary
arrangement of atoms is not interfered with. This is the one law, and an
infallible method that must always lead to success, one who follows it.
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[[Vol.
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instance,
the mystical signification, alchemical and transcendental, of the many
imponderable substances that fill interplanetary space, and which, interpenetrating
each, are the direct cause, at the lower end, of the production of natural
phenomena manifesting through vibration (so-called). The knowledge of the real
(not the hypothetical) nature of Ether, or rather of the Akasa, and other
mysteries, in short, can alone lead to the knowledge of Forces. It is that
substance against which the materialistic school of the physicists rebels with
such fury, especially in France,* and which exact Science has to advocate
notwithstanding. They cannot make away with it without incurring the risk, like
a modern Samson, of pulling down the pillars of the Temple of Science, and
getting buried under its roof.
The
theories built upon the rejection of Force outside and independent of Matter
pure and simple, have been all shown fallacious. They do not, and cannot, cover
the ground, and many of the scientific data are thus proved unscientific.
"Ether produced Sound" is said in the Puranas, and the statement is
laughed at. It is the vibrations in the air, we are corrected. And what is air?
Could it exist if there were no etheric medium in Space to buoy up its
molecules? The case stands simply thus. Materialism cannot admit the existence
of anything outside matter, because with the acceptance of an imponderable
Force -- the source and head of all the physical Forces -- other intelligent
Forces would have to be admitted virtually, and that would lead Science very
far. For it would have to accept as a sequel the presence in Man of a still
more spiritual power -- entirely independent, for once, of any kind of matter
physicists know anything about. Hence, apart from an hypothetical ether of
Space and gross physical bodies, the whole Sidereal and unseen Space is, in the
sight of the materialists, one boundless void in nature -- blind,
unintelligent, useless.
And
now the next question is: What is that Cosmic Substance, and how far can one go
to suspect its nature or to wrench from it its secrets, and thus feel justified
in giving it a NAME? How far, especially, has modern Science gone in the
direction of those secrets, and what it is doing to solve them. The latest
hobby of Science, the "Nebular Theory," may afford us some answer to
this question. Let us then examine the credentials of the NEBULAR THEORY.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A group of electricians has just protested against the new theory of Clausius,
the famous professor of the University of Bonn. The character of the protest is
shown in the signature, which has "Jules Bourdin, in the name of the group
of Electricians, which had the honour of being introduced to Professor Clausius
in 1881, and whose war-cry (cri de ralliement) is A bas l'Ether" -- down
with ether, even; they want Universal Void, you see!
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[[Vol.
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XIII.
SCIENTIFIC
AND ESOTERIC EVIDENCE FOR, AND OBJECTIONS TO, THE MODERN NEBULAR THEORY.
OF
late Esoteric Cosmogony has been frequently opposed by the phantom of this theory
and its ensuing hypotheses. "Can this most scientific teaching be denied
by your adepts?" it is asked. "Not entirely," is the reply,
"but the admissions of the men of Science themselves kill it; and there
remains nothing for the adepts to deny."
To
make of Science an integral whole necessitates, indeed, the study of spiritual
and psychic, as well as physical Nature. Otherwise it will ever be like the
anatomy of man, discussed of old by the profane from the point of view of his
shell-side and in ignorance of the interior work. Even Plato, the greatest
philosopher of his country, became guilty, before his initiation, of such
statements as that liquids pass into the stomach through the lungs. Without
metaphysics, as Mr. H. J. Slack says, real science is inadmissible.
The
nebulae exist; yet the nebular theory is wrong. A nebula exists in a state of
entire elemental dissociation. It is gaseous and -- something else besides,
which can hardly be connected with gases, as known to physical science; and it
is self-luminous. But that is all. The sixty-two "coincidences"
enumerated by Professor Stephen Alexander,* confirming the nebular theory, may
all be explained by esoteric science; though, as this is not an astronomical
work, the refutations are not attempted at present. Laplace and Faye come
nearer to the correct theory than any; but of the speculations of Laplace there
remains little in the present theory except its general features. Nevertheless,
"there is in Laplace's theory," says John Stuart Mill, "nothing
hypothetical; it is an example of legitimate reasoning from present effect to
its past cause; it assumes nothing more than that objects which really exist,
obey the laws which are known to be obeyed by all terrestrial objects
resembling them." (System of Logic, p. 229).
This
from such an eminent logician as Mill was, would be valuable, if it could only
be proved that "terrestrial objects resembling . . ." celestial
objects at such a distance as the nebulae are -- resemble those objects in
reality, not alone in appearance.
Another
of the fallacies from the Occult stand-point, which are embodied in the modern
theory as it now stands, is the hypothesis that the planets were all detached
from the Sun; that they are bone of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Smithsonian Contributions," xxi., Art. 1, pp. 79-97.
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[[Vol.
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his
bone, and flesh of his flesh; whereas, the Sun and planets are only co-uterine
brothers, having had the same nebular origin, only in a different mode from
that postulated by modern astronomy.
The
many objections raised against the homogeneity of original diffuse matter, on
the ground of the uniformity in the composition of the fixed stars, by some
opponents of the modern nebular theory, do not affect the question of that
homogeneity at all, but only the said theory. Our solar nebula may not be
completely homogeneous, or, rather, it may fail to reveal itself as such to the
astronomers, and yet be de facto homogeneous. The stars do differ in their
constituent materials and even exhibit elements quite unknown on earth;
nevertheless, this does not affect the point that primeval matter -- i.e., as
it appeared even in its first differentiation from its laya condition* -- is
yet to this day homogeneous, at immense distances, in the depths of infinitude,
and likewise at points not far removed from the outskirts of our solar system.
Finally,
there does not exist one single fact brought forward by the learned objectors
against the "nebular theory," (false as it is, and hence, illogically
enough, fatal to the hypothesis of the homogeneity of matter,) that can
withstand criticism. One error leads into another. A false premise will
naturally lead to a false conclusion, although an inadmissible inference does
not necessarily affect the validity of the major proposition of the syllogism.
Thus, one may leave every side-issue and inference from the evidence of
spectra, and lines, as simply provisional for the present, and abandon all
matters of detail to physical science. The duty of the Occultist lies with the
Soul and Spirit of Cosmic Space, not merely with its illusive appearance and
behaviour. That of official physical science is to analyze and study its shell
-- the Ultima Thule of the Universe and man, in the opinion of Materialism.
With
the latter, Occultism has nought to do. It is only with the theories of such
men of learning as Kepler, Kant, Oersted, and Sir W. Herschell, who believed in
a Spiritual world, that Occult Cosmogony might treat, and attempt a
satisfactory compromise. But the views of those physicists differed vastly from
the latest modern speculations. Kant and Herschell had in their mind's eye
speculations upon the origin and the final destiny, as well as the present
aspect, of the Universe, from a far more philosophical and psychic standpoint;
whereas modern Cosmology and Astronomy now repudiate anything like research
into the mysteries of being. The result is what might be expected: complete
failure and inextricable contradictions in the thousand and one varieties of
so-called scientific theories, and in this theory as in all others.
The
nebular hypothesis, involving the theory of the existence of a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Beyond the zero-line of action.
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[[Vol.
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primeval
matter, diffused in a nebulous condition, is of no modern date in astronomy as
everyone knows. Anaximenes, of the Ionian school, had already taught that the
sidereal bodies were formed through the progressive condensation of a
primordial pregenetic matter, which had almost a negative weight, and was
spread out through Space in an extremely sublimated condition.
Tycho
Brahe, who viewed the Milky Way as an ethereal substance, thought the new star
that appeared in Cassiopoeia, in 1572, had been formed out of that matter.
("Progymnasmata" p. 795.) Kepler believed the star of 1606 had been
likewise formed out of the ethereal substance that fills the universe ("De
stella nova in pede Serpentarii," p. 115). He attributed to that same
ether the apparition of a luminous ring around the moon, during the total
eclipse of the sun observed at Naples in 1605. ("Hypotheses
Cosmogoniques," C. Wolf.) Still later, in 1714, -- the existence of a
self-luminous matter was recognised by Halley ("Philosophical Transactions").
Finally, the journal of this name published in 1811 the famous hypothesis on
the transformation of the nebulae into stars, by the eminent astronomer, Sir W.
Herschell (See "Philosophical Transactions," of 1811, p. 269, et
seq.), after which the nebular theory was accepted by the Royal Academies.
In
"Five years of Theosophy," on p. 245, an article headed "Do the
Adepts deny the Nebular Theory?" may be read. The answer there given is
"No; they do not deny its general propositions, nor the approximative
truth of the scientific hypotheses. They only deny the completeness of the
present, as well as the entire error of the many so-called "exploded"
old theories, which, during the last century, have followed each other in such
rapid succession."
This
was proclaimed at the time "an evasive answer." Such disrespect to
official science, it was argued, must be justified by the presentation, to
replace the orthodox speculation, of another theory more complete than theirs,
and having a firmer ground to stand upon. To this there is but one reply; it is
useless to give out isolated theories with regard to things embodied in a whole
and consecutive system, which, when separated from the main body of the
teaching, would necessarily lose their vital coherence and thus do no good when
studied independently. To be able to appreciate and accept the occult views on
the nebular theory, one has to study the whole esoteric cosmogonical system.
And the time has hardly arrived for the astronomers to be asked to accept Fohat
and the divine Builders. Even the undeniably correct surmises of Sir W.
Herschell], that had nothing "supernatural" in them, about the sun
being called "globe of fire" (perhaps) metaphorically, and his early
speculations about the nature of that which is now called the Nasmyth
willow-leaf theory -- caused that most eminent of all astro-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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nomers
to be smiled at by other, far less eminent colleagues, who saw and now see in
his ideas only "imaginative and fanciful theories." Before the whole
esoteric system could be given out and appreciated by the astronomers, they
would have to return to some of those "antiquated ideas," not only to
those of Herschell, but to the dreams of the oldest Hindu astronomers, and to
abandon their own theories, none the less "fanciful" because they
have appeared in one case nearly 80 years and in the other many thousands of
years later. Foremost of all they would have to repudiate the ideas on the
Sun's solidity and incandescence; the sun "glowing" most undeniably,
but not "burning." Then it is stated, with regard to Sir W.
Herschell's view that those "objects," as he called the "willow
leaves," are the immediate sources of the solar light and heat. And though
the esoteric teaching does not regard these as he did -- namely, organisms as
partaking of the nature of life," for the Solar "Beings" will
hardly place themselves within telescopic focus -- yet it asserts that the
whole Universe is full of such "organisms," conscious and active
according to the proximity or distance of their planes to, or from, our plane
of consciousness; and that finally the great astronomer was right in saying
that "we do not know that vital action is competent to develop at once
heat, light, and electricity" while speculating on those supposed
"organisms." For, at the risk of being laughed at by the whole world
of physicists, the Occultists maintain that all the "Forces" of the
Scientists have their origin in the Vital Principle, the ONE LIFE collectively
of our Solar system -- that "life" being a portion, or rather one of
the aspects of the One Universal LIFE.
We
may, therefore, as in the article under consideration, wherein, on the
authority of the Adepts, it was maintained that it is "sufficient to make
a resume of what the solar physicists do not know," -- we may, we
maintain, define our position with regard to the modern nebular theory and its
evident incorrectness, by simply pointing out facts diametrically opposed to it
in its present form. And to begin with, what does it teach?
Summarizing
the aforesaid hypotheses, it becomes plain that Laplace's theory -- now made
quite unrecognisable, moreover -- was an unfortunate one. He postulates in the
first place Cosmic matter, existing in a state of diffuse nebulosity "so
fine that its presence could hardly have been suspected." No attempt is
made by him to penetrate into the arcana of being, except as regards the
immediate evolution of our small solar system.
Consequently,
whether one accepts or rejects his theory in its bearing upon the immediate
cosmological problems presented for solution, he can only be said to have
thrown back the mystery a little further. To the eternal query -- "Whence
matter itself; whence the evolutionary impetus
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[[Vol.
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determining
its cyclic aggregations and dissolutions; whence the exquisite symmetry and
order into which the primeval atoms arrange and group themselves?" -- no
answer is attempted by Laplace. All we are confronted with, is a sketch of the
probable broad principles on which the actual process is assumed to be based.
Well, and what is this now celebrated note on the said process? What has he
given so wonderfully new and original, that its ground-work, at any rate,
should have served as a basis for the modern nebular theory? This is what one
gathers from various astronomical works.
Laplace
thought that, consequent on the condensation of the atoms of the primeval
nebula, according to the "Law" of gravity, the now gaseous, or
perhaps, partially liquid mass, acquired a rotatory motion. As the velocity of
this rotation increased, it assumed the form of a thin disc; finally, the
centrifugal force overpowering that of cohesion, huge rings were detached from
the edge of the whirling incandescent masses, contracting necessarily by
gravitation (as accepted) into spheroidal bodies, which would necessarily still
continue to preserve the same orbit occupied previously by the outer zone from
which they were separated. ("Laplace conceived that the external and
internal zones of the ring would rotate with the same angular velocity, which
would be the case with a solid ring; but the principle of equal areas requires
the inner zones to rotate more rapidly than the outer.")* The velocity of
the outer edge of each nascent planet, he said, exceeding that of the inner,
there results a rotation on its axis. The more dense bodies would be thrown off
last; and finally, during the preliminary state of their formation, the
newly-segregated orbs in their turn throw off one or more satellites . . . In
formulating the history of the rupture and planetation of rings, Laplace says:
"Almost
always each ring of vapours must have broken up into numerous masses, which,
moving with a nearly uniform velocity, must have continued to circulate at the
same distance around the Sun. These masses must have taken a spheroidal form
with a motion of rotation in the same direction as their revolution, since the
inner molecules (those nearer to the Sun) would have less actual velocity than
the exterior ones. They must then have formed as many planets in a state of
vapour. But, if one of them was sufficiently powerful to unite successively, by
its attraction, all the others around its centre, the ring of vapours must have
been thus transformed into a single spheroidal mass of vapours circulating
around the Sun with a rotation in the same direction as its revolution. The
latter case has been the more common, but the solar system presents us the
first case, in the four small planets which move between Jupiter and
Mars."
While
few will be found to deny "the magnificent audacity of this
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"World-Life." Prof. Winchell points to a good many mistakes of
Laplace in his work; but as a geologist he is not infallible himself in his
"astronomical speculations."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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hypothesis,"
it is impossible not to recognise the insurmountable difficulties with which it
is attended. Why, for instance, do we find that the satellites of Neptune and
Uranus display a retrograde motion; that, in spite of its closer proximity to
the Sun, Venus is less dense than the Earth? Similarly, the more distant Uranus
is more dense than Saturn? How is it that so many variations in the inclination
of their axes and orbits are present in the supposed progeny of the central
orb; that such startling variations in the size of the planets is noticeable;
that the Satellites of Jupiter are more dense by .288 than their primary --
that the phenomena of meteoric and cometic systems still remain unaccounted
for? To quote the words of a Master: "They (the Occultists) find that the
centrifugal theory of Western birth is unable to cover all the ground. That,
unaided, it can neither account for every oblate spheroid, nor explain away
such evident difficulties as are presented by the relative density of some
planets. How, indeed, can any calculation of centrifugal force explain to us,
for instance, why Mercury, whose rotation is, we are told, only about one-third
that of the Earth, and its density only about one-fourth greater than the
Earth, should have a polar compression more than ten times as great as the
latter? And again, why Jupiter, whose equatorial rotation is said to be
'twenty-seven times greater, and its density only about one-fifth that of the
earth' should have its polar compression seventeen times greater than that of
the earth? Or why Saturn, with an equatorial velocity fifty-five times greater
than Mercury for centripetal force to contend with, should have its polar
compression only three times greater than Mercury's? To crown the above
contradictions, we are asked to believe in the Central Forces, as taught by
Modern Science, even when told that the equatorial matter of the Sun, with more
than four times the centrifugal velocity of the Earth's equatorial surface, and
only about one-fourth part of the gravitation of the equatorial matter, has not
manifested any tendency to bulge at the Solar equator, nor shown the least
flattening of the poles of the Solar axis. In other and clearer words, the Sun,
with only one fourth of our Earth's density for the centrifugal force to work
upon, has no polar compression at all! We find this objection made by more than
one astronomer, yet never explained away satisfactorily so far as the 'Adepts'
are aware."
"Therefore,
do they (the Adepts) say, that the great men of science of the West, knowing .
. . . . next to nothing either about cometary matter, centrifugal and
centripetal forces, the nature of the nebulae, or the physical constitution of
the Sun, the Stars, or even the Moon, are imprudent to speak as confidently as
they do about the 'central mass of the Sun' whirling out into space planets,
comets, and what not . . . ." "We maintain that it (the Sun) evolves
out only the life-principle, the
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[[Vol.
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Soul
of those bodies, giving and receiving it back, in our solar system, as the
'Universal Life-Giver' . . . . in infinitude and Eternity; that the solar
system is as much the microcosm of the ONE Macrocosm as man is the former when
compared with his own little Solar Cosmos."*
The
essential faculty possessed by all the cosmic and terrestrial elements, of
generating within themselves a regular and harmonious series of results, a
concatenation of causes and effects, is an irrefutable proof that they are
either animated by an extra or intra INTELLIGENCE, or conceal such within or
behind the manifested veil. Occultism does not deny the certainty of the
mechanical origin of the Universe; it only claims the absolute necessity of
mechanicians of some sort behind those Elements (or within) -- a dogma with us.
It is not the fortuitous assistance of the atoms of Lucretius, who himself knew
better, that built the Kosmos and all in it. Nature herself contradicts such a
theory. Celestial space, containing matter so attenuated as is Ether, cannot be
called on, with or without attraction, to explain the common motion of the
sidereal hosts. Although the perfect accord of their mutual revolution
indicates clearly the presence of a mechanical cause in Nature, Newton, who of
all men had best right to trust to his deductions and views, was nevertheless
forced to abandon the idea of ever explaining, by the laws of known Nature and
its Material forces, the original impulse given to the millions of orbs. He
recognised fully the limits that separate the action of natural Forces from
that of the INTELLIGENCES that set the immutable laws into order and action.
And if a NEWTON had to renounce such hope, which of the modern materialistic
pigmies has the right of saying: "I know better"?
To
become complete and comprehensible, a cosmogonical theory has to start with a
primordial Substance diffused throughout boundless Space, of an intellectual
and divine Nature. That substance must be the Soul and Spirit, the Synthesis
and Seventh Principle of the manifested Kosmos, and, to serve as a spiritual
Upadhi to this, there must be the sixth, its vehicle -- primordial physical
matter, so to speak, though its nature must escape for ever our limited normal
senses. It is easy for an astronomer, if endowed with an imaginative faculty,
to build a theory of the emergence of the universe out of chaos, by simply
applying to it the principles of mechanics. But such a universe will always
prove, with respect to its scientific human creator, a Frankenstein's monster;
it will lead him into endless perplexities. The application of the mechanical
laws only can never carry the speculator beyond the objective world; nor will
it unveil to men the origin and final destiny of Kosmos. This is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Five Years of Theosophy," pp. 249-50. Art. "Do the Adepts deny
the Nebular Theory?"
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[[Vol.
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whither
the nebular theory has led Science. In sober fact and truth this theory is twin
sister to that of Ether, and both are the offsprings of necessity; one as
indispensable to account for the transmission of light, as the other to explain
the problem of the origin of the solar systems. The question with them is, how
the same homogeneous matter* could, obeying the laws of Newton, give birth to
bodies -- sun, planets, and their satellites -- subject to conditions of
identity of motion and formed of such heterogeneous elements.
Has
the nebular theory helped to solve the problem, even if applied solely to
bodies considered as inanimate and material? We say most decidedly not. What
progress has it made since 1811, when Sir W. Herschell's paper, first
presenting facts based on observation and showing the existence of nebular
matter, made the "Sons" of the Royal Society "shout for
joy"? Since then a still greater discovery has permitted, through spectrum
analysis, the verification and corroboration of Sir W. Herschell's conjecture.
Laplace demanded some kind of primitive "world stuff " to prove the
idea of progressive world-evolution and growth. Here it is, as offered two
millenniums ago.
The
"world stuff," now nebulae, was known from the highest antiquity.
Anaxagoras taught that, having differentiated, the subsequent commixture of
heterogeneous substances remained motionless and unorganized, until finally
"the Mind" -- the collective body of Dhyan Chohans, we say -- began
to work upon and communicated to it motion and order (Aristotle's
"Physica," viii, 1.) The theory is now taken up in its first portion,
that of any "Mind" interfering with it being rejected. Spectrum
analysis reveals the existence of nebulae formed entirely of gases and luminous
vapours. Is this the primitive nebular matter? The spectra reveal, it is said,
the physical conditions of the matter which emits cosmic light. The spectra of
the resolvable and the irresolvable nebulae are shown to be entirely different,
the spectra of the latter showing their physical state to be that of glowing
gas or vapour. The bright lines of one nebula reveal the existence of hydrogen
in it, and of other material substances known and unknown. The same in the
atmospheres of the Sun and stars. This leads to the direct inference that a
star is formed by the condensation of a nebula; hence that even the metals
themselves on earth are
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Had astronomers held simply, in their present state of knowledge, to the
hypothesis of Laplace, which was simply the formation of the planetary system,
it might in time have resulted in something like an approximate truth. But the
two parts of the general problem, that of the formation of the universe, or the
formation of the suns and stars from the primitive matter, and then the
development of the planets around their sun, rest on quite different facts in nature
and are even so viewed by Science itself. They are at the opposite poles of
being.
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[[Vol.
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formed
owing to the condensation of hydrogen or some other primitive matter, some
ancestral cousin to "helium," perhaps, or some yet unknown stuff?
This does not clash with the occult teachings. And this is the problem that
chemistry is trying to solve; and it must succeed sooner or later in the task,
accepting nolens volens, when it does, the esoteric teaching. But when this
does happen, it will kill the nebular theory as it now stands.
Meanwhile
Astronomy cannot accept in any way, if it is to be regarded as an exact
science, the present theory of the filiation of stars -- even if occultism does
so in its own way, as it explains this filiation differently -- because
astronomy has not one single physical datum to show for it. Astronomy could
anticipate Chemistry in proving the existence of the fact, if it could show a
planetary nebula exhibiting a spectrum of three or four bright lines, gradually
condensing and transforming into a star, with a spectrum all covered with a
number of dark lines. But "the question of the variability of the nebula,
even as to their form, is yet one of the mysteries of Astronomy. The data of
observation possessed so far are of too recent an origin, too uncertain to
permit us to affirm anything." (Cosmogonical Hypotheses of Wolf.)
Since
the discovery of the spectroscope, its magic power has revealed to its adepts
only one single transformation of a star of this kind; and even that one showed
directly the reverse of what is needed as proof in favour of the nebular
theory; namely -- a star transforming itself into a planetary nebula. As told
in The Observatory (Vol. I., p. 185), the temporary star which appeared in the
constellation Cygnus, in November, 1876, discovered by J. F. J. Schmidt,
exhibited a spectrum broken by very brilliant lines. Gradually, the continuous
spectrum and most of the lines disappeared, leaving finally one single
brilliant line, which appeared to coincide with the green line of the nebula.
Though
this metamorphosis is not irreconcileable with the hypothesis of the nebular
origin of the stars, nevertheless this single solitary case rests on no
observation whatever, least of all on direct observation. The occurrence may
have been due to several other causes. Since astronomers are inclined to think
our planets are tending toward precipitation on the Sun, why should not that
star have blazed out owing to a collision of such precipitated planets, or, as
many suggest, the appulse of a comet? Anyhow, the only known instance of a star
transformation since 1811 is not favourable to the nebular theory. Moreover, on
the question of this theory, as in all others, astronomers disagree.
In
our own age, it was Buffon, before Laplace ever thought of it, who, very much
struck by the identity of motion in the planets, was the first to propose the
hypothesis of the planets and their satellites originating in
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[[Vol.
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the
bosom of the Sun. Forthwith, and for the purpose, he invented a special comet, supposed
to have torn out, by a powerful oblique blow, the quantity of matter necessary
to their formation. Laplace gave its dues to the "comet" in his
"Exposition du Systeme du Monde." (Note VII.) But the idea was seized
and even improved upon by a conception of the alternate evolution from the
Sun's central mass of planets apparently without weight or influence on the
motion of the visible planets -- and as evidently without any more existence
than the likeness of Moses in the moon.
But
the modern theory is also a variation on the systems elaborated by Kant and
Laplace. The idea of both was that, at the origin of things, all that matter
which now enters into the composition of the planetary bodies was spread over
all the space comprised in the solar system -- and even beyond. It was a nebula
of extremely small density, whose condensation gradually gave birth, by a
mechanism that has hitherto never been explained, to the various bodies of our
systems. This is the original nebular theory, an incomplete yet faithful
repetition -- a short chapter out of the large volume of universal esoteric
cosmogony -- of the teachings in the Secret Doctrine. And both systems, Kant's
and Laplace's, differ greatly from the modern theory, redundant with
conflicting sub-theories and fanciful hypotheses.
"The
essence of cometary matter and of that which composes the stars is totally
different from any of the chemical or physical characteristics with which
Western Science is now acquainted. While the spectroscope has shown the probable
similarity (owing to the chemical action of terrestrial light upon the
intercepted rays) of earthly and sidereal substance, the chemical actions,
peculiar to the variously progressed orbs of space, have not been detected, nor
proven to be identical with those observed on our own planet" -- say the
Teachers (op. cit.). Mr. Crookes says almost the same in the fragment quoted
from his lecture, "Elements and Meta-Elements."
"At
the utmost," observes C. Wolf,* "could the nebular hypothesis show in
its favour, with W. Herschell, the existence of planetary nebulae in various
degrees of condensation, and of spiral nebulae, with nuclei of condensation on
the branches and centre.** But, in fact, the knowledge of the bond that unites
the nebulae to the stars is yet denied to us; and lacking as we do direct
observation, we are even debarred from establishing it even on the analogy of
chemical composition."
It
is evident that, even if the men of science, leaving aside the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Member of the Institute, Astronomer of the Observatory, Paris,
"Cosmogonical Hypotheses."
**
But the spectra of these nebulae have never yet been ascertained. When they are
found with bright lines, then only may they be cited.
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[[Vol.
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difficulty
arising for them out of such undeniable variety and heterogeneity of matter in
the constitution of nebulae, did admit, with the ancients, that the origin of
all the visible and invisible heavenly bodies must be sought for in one
primordial homogeneous world-stuff, in a kind of PRE-protyle,* -- it is evident
that this would not put an end to their perplexities. Unless they admit also
that our actual visible Universe is merely the Sthula-Sharira, the gross body,
of the sevenfold Kosmos, they will have to face another problem; especially if
they risk maintaining that its now visible bodies are the result of the
condensation of that one and single primordial matter. For mere observation
shows them that the actions which produced the actual Universe are far more
complex than could ever be embraced in that theory.
First
of all, there are two distinct classes of irresolvable nebulae, -- as Science
itself teaches.
The
telescope is unable to distinguish between the two, but the spectroscope can,
and notices, therefore, an essential difference between their physical
constitutions.**
"Some
of these," Wolf tells us, "have a spectrum of three or four bright
lines, others a continuous spectrum. The first are gaseous, the others formed
of a pulverulent matter. The former must constitute a veritable atmosphere: it
is among these that the solar nebula of Laplace has to be placed. The latter
form an ensemble of particles that may be considered as independent, and the
rotation of which obeys the laws of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Crookes' "Protyle" must not be regarded as the primary stuff, out
of which the Dhyan Chohans, in accordance with the immutable laws of nature,
wove our solar system. This protyle cannot even be the first prima-materia of
Kant, which that great mind saw used up in the formation of the worlds, and
thus existing no longer in a diffused state. It is a MEDIATE phase in the
progressive differentiation of cosmic substance from its normal
undifferentiated state. Protyle is then the aspect assumed by matter in its
middle passage into full objectivity.
**
"The question of the resolvability of the nebulae has been often presented
in too affirmative a manner and quite contrary to the ideas expressed by the
illustrious experimenter with the spectra of these constellations -- Mr.
Huggins. Every nebula whose spectrum contains only bright lines is gaseous, it
is said, and hence is irresolvable; every nebula with a continuous spectrum
must end by resolving into stars with an instrument of sufficient power. This
assumption is contrary at once to the results obtained, and to spectroscopic theory.
The Lyra nebula, the Dumb-bell nebula, the central region of the nebula of
Orion, appear resolvable, and show a spectrum of bright lines; the nebula of
Canis Venatici is not resolvable, and gives a continuous spectrum. Because,
indeed, the spectroscope informs us of the physical state of the constituent
matter of the stars, but affords us no notions of their modes of aggregation. A
nebula formed of gaseous globes (or even of nuclei, faintly luminous,
surrounded by a powerful atmosphere) would give a spectrum of lines and be
still resolvable; such seems to be the state of Huggins' region in the Orion
nebula. A nebula formed of solid or fluidic particles in a state of
incandescence, a true cloud, will give a continuous spectrum but will be
irresolvable." (C. Wolf, Cosmogonical Hypotheses.)
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[[Vol.
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internal
weight: such are the nebulae adopted by Kant and Faye. Observation allows us to
place the one as the other at the very origin of the planetary world. But when
we try to go beyond and ascend to the primitive chaos which has produced the
totality of the heavenly bodies, we have first to account for the actual
existence of these two classes of nebulae. If the primitive chaos were a cold
luminous gas,* one could understand how the contraction resulting from
attraction could have heated it and made it luminous. We have to explain the
condensation of this gas to the state of incandescent particles, the presence
of which is revealed to us in certain nebulae by the spectroscope. If the
original chaos was composed of such particles, how did certain of their
portions pass into the gaseous state, while others have preserved their
primitive condition? . . . ."
Such
is the synopsis of the objections and difficulties to the acceptance of the
nebular theory brought forward by the French savant, who concludes his
interesting chapter by declaring that:--
"The
first part of the Cosmogonical problem, -- what is the primitive matter of
chaos; and how did that matter give birth to the sun and stars? -- thus remains
to this day in THE DOMAIN OF ROMANCE AND OF MERE IMAGINATION."**
If
this is the last word of Science upon that subject, whither then should one turn
in order to learn what the nebular theory is supposed to teach? What, in fact,
is this theory? What it is, no one seems to know for a certainty. What it is
not -- we learn from the erudite author of the "World-Life." He tells
us that:--
(I.)
It "is not a theory of the evolution of the Universe . . . but only and
primarily a genetic explanation of the phenomena of the solar system, and
accessorily a co-ordination of the principal phenomena in the stellar and
nebular firmament, as far as human vision has been able to penetrate."
(II.)
"That it does not regard the Comets as involved in that particular
evolution which has produced the solar system." (Esoteric doctrine does.)
(It
does, because it, too, recognises the comets as forms of cosmic existence co-ordinated
with earlier stages of nebular evolution; and it actually assigns to them
chiefly the formation of all worlds.)
(III.)
"That it does not deny an antecedent history of the luminous fire
mist" -- (the secondary stage of evolution in the Secret Doctrine) . . . .
"and makes no claim to having reached an absolute beginning." And
even
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Stanza III. about "Light, or the cold Flame," and Commentary
Number 8, where it is explained that the "mother" (Chaos) is a cold
Fire, a cool Radiance, colourless, formless, devoid of every quality.
"Motion is the One Eternal is, and contains the potentialities of every
quality in the Manvantaric Worlds," it is said.
**
Hypotheses Cosmogoniques, C. Wolf, 1886.
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[[Vol.
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it
allows that this "fire mist may have previously existed in a cold,
nonluminous and invisible condition" . . . .
(IV.)
"And that finally: it does not profess to discover the ORIGIN of things,
but only a stadium in material history" . . . . leaving "the
philosopher and theologian as free as they ever were to seek for the origin of
the modes of being."*
But
this is not all. Even the greatest philosopher of England -- Mr. Herbert
Spencer -- arrayed himself against the fantastic theory by saying that (a)
"The problem of existence is not resolved" by it; (b) the nebular
hypothesis "throws no light upon the origin of diffused matter," and
(c) that "the nebular hypothesis (as it now stands) implies a First
Cause."**
The
latter, we are afraid, is more than our modern physicists have bargained for.
Thus, it seems that the poor "hypothesis" can hardly expect to find
help or corroboration even in the world of the metaphysicians.
Considering
all this, the Occultists believe they have a right to present their philosophy,
however misunderstood and ostracised it may be at present. And they maintain
that this failure of the scientists to discover the truth is entirely due to
their materialism and contempt for transcendental sciences. Yet although the
scientific minds in our century are as far from the true and correct doctrine
of Evolution as ever, there may be still some hope left for the future, as we
find another great scientist giving us a faint glimmer of it.
In
an article in Popular Science Review (Vol. XIV., p. 252) on "Recent
Researches in Minute Life," we find Mr. H. J. Slack, F.C.S., Sec. R.M.S.,
saying: "There is an evident convergence of all sciences, from physics to
chemistry and physiology, toward some doctrine of evolution and development, of
which the facts of Darwinism will form part, but what ultimate aspect this
doctrine will take, there is little, if any, evidence to show, and perhaps it
will not be shaped by the human mind until metaphysical as well as physical
inquiries are much more advanced."
This
is a happy forecast indeed. The day may come, then, when the "Natural
Selection," as taught by Mr. Darwin and Mr. Herbert Spencer, will form
only a part, in its ultimate modification, of our Eastern doctrine of
Evolution, which will be Manu and Kapila esoterically explained.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"World-Life," p. 196.
**
Westminster Review, XX., July 27, 1868.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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XIV.
FORCES
-- MODES OF MOTION OR INTELLIGENCES?
THIS
is, then, the last word of physical science up to the present year, 1888.
Mechanical laws will never be able to prove the homogeneity of primeval matter,
except inferentially and as a desperate necessity, when there will remain no
other issue -- as in the case of Ether. Modern Science is secure only in its
own domain and region; within the physical boundaries of our solar system,
beyond which everything, every particle of matter, is different from the matter
it knows: which matter exists in states of which Science can form no idea. That
matter, which is truly homogeneous, is beyond human perceptions, if perception
is tied down merely to the five senses. We feel its effects through those
INTELLIGENCES which are the results of its primeval differentiation, whom we
name Dhyan-Chohans; called in the Hermetic works the "Seven
Governors," those to whom Pymander, the "Thought Divine," refers
as the Building Powers, and whom Asklepios calls the "Supernal Gods."
That matter -- the real primordial substance, the noumenon of all the
"matter" we know of, -- even some of the astronomers have been led to
believe in, and to despair of the possibility of ever accounting for rotation,
gravitation, and the origin of any mechanical physical laws -- unless these
Intelligences be admitted by Science. In the abovequoted work upon astronomy,
by Wolf,* the author endorses fully the theory of Kant, and the latter, if not
in its general aspect, at any rate in some of its features, reminds one
strongly of certain esoteric teachings. Here we have the world's system reborn
from its ashes, through a nebula; the emanation from the bodies, dead and
dissolved in Space -- resultant of the incandescence of the solar centre
reanimated by the combustible matter of the planets. In this theory, generated
and developed in the brain of a young man hardly twenty-five years of age, who
had never left his native place, a small town of Northern Prussia (Konigsberg)
one can hardly fail to recognise either an inspiring external power, or the
reincarnation which the Occultists see in it. It fills a gap which Newton, with
all his genius, failed to bridge. And surely it is our primeval matter, Akasa,
that Kant had in view, when proposing to solve Newton's difficulty and his
failure to explain, by the natural forces, the primitive impulse imparted to
the planets, by the postulation of a universally pervading primordial
substance. For, as he remarks in chapter viii., if it is once admitted that the
perfect harmony of the stars and planets and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"LES HYPOTHESES COSMOGONIQUES. Examen des Theories Scientifiques modernes
sur l'Origine des Mondes, suivi de la Traduction de la Theorie du Ciel de
Kant."
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[[Vol.
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the
coincidence of their orbital planes prove the existence of a natural cause,
which would thus be the primal cause, "that cause cannot really be the
matter which fills to-day the heavenly spaces." It must be that which
filled space -- was space -- originally, whose motion in differentiated matter
was the origin of the actual movements of the sidereal bodies; and which,
"in condensing itself in those very bodies, thus abandoned the space that
is found void to-day." In other words, it is that same matter of which are
now composed the planets, comets, and the Sun himself, which, having in the
origin formed itself into those bodies, has preserved its inherent quality of
motion; which quality, now centred in their nuclei, directs all motion. A very
slight alteration of words is needed, and a few additions, to make of this our
Esoteric Doctrine.
The
latter teaches that it is this original, primordial prima materia, divine and
intelligent, the direct emanation of the Universal Mind -- the Daiviprakriti
(the divine light emanating from the Logos*) -- which formed the nuclei of all
the "self-moving" orbs in Kosmos. It is the informing, ever-present
moving-power and life-principle, the vital soul of the suns, moons, planets,
and even of our Earth. The former latent: the last one active -- the invisible
Ruler and guide of the gross body attached to, and connected with, its Soul,
which is the spiritual emanation, after all, of these respective planetary Spirits.
Another
quite occult doctrine is the theory of Kant, that the matter of which the
inhabitants and the animals of other planets are formed is of a lighter and
more subtle nature and of a more perfect conformation in proportion to their
distance from the Sun. The latter is too full of Vital Electricity, of the
physical, life-giving principle. Therefore, the men on Mars are more ethereal
than we are, while those of Venus are more gross, though far more intelligent,
if less spiritual.
The
last doctrine is not quite ours -- yet those Kantian theories are as
metaphysical, and as transcendental as any occult doctrines; and more than one
man of Science would, if he but dared speak his mind, accept them as Wolf does.
From this Kantian mind and soul of the Suns and Stars to the MAHAT (mind) and
Prakriti of the Puranas, there is but a step. After all, the admission of this
by Science would be only the admission of a natural cause, whether it would or
would not stretch its belief to such metaphysical heights. But then Mahat, the
MIND, is a "God," and physiology admits "mind" only as a
temporary function of the material brain, and no more.
The
Satan of Materialism now laughs at all alike, and denies the visible as well as
the invisible. Seeing in light, heat, electricity, and even in the phenomenon
of life, only properties inherent in matter, it
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Which "Light" we call Fohat.
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[[Vol.
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laughs
whenever life is called VITAL PRINCIPLE, and derides the idea of its being
independent of and distinct from the organism.
But
here again scientific opinions differ as in everything else, and there are
several men of science who accept views very similar to ours. Consider, for
instance, what Dr. Richardson, F.R.S. (elsewhere quoted at length) says of that
"Vital principle," which he calls "nervous ether"
("Popular Science Review," Vol. 10):--
"I
speak only of a veritable material agent, refined, it may be, to the world at
large, but actual and substantial: an agent having quality of weight and of
volume, an agent susceptible of chemical combination, and thereby of change of
physical state and condition, an agent passive in its action, moved always,
that is to say, by influences apart from itself,* obeying other influences, an
agent possessing no initiative power, no vis or energia naturae,** but still
playing a most important, if not a primary part in the production of the
phenomena resulting from the action of the energeia upon visible matter"
(p. 379).
As
Biology and Physiology now deny, in toto, the existence of a "vital principle,"
this extract, together with de Quatrefages' admission, is a clear confirmation
that there are men of science who take the same views about "things
occult" as theosophists and occultists do. These recognise a distinct
vital principle independent of the organism -- material, of course, as physical
force cannot be divorced from matter, but of a substance existing in a state
unknown to Science. Life for them is something more than the mere interaction
of molecules and atoms. There is a vital principle without which no molecular
combinations could ever have resulted in a living organism, least of all in the
so-called "inorganic" matter of our plane of consciousness.
By
"molecular combinations" is meant, of course, those of the matter of
our present illusive perceptions, which matter energises only on this, our
plane. And this is the chief point at issue.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is a mistake, which implies a material agent, distinct from the influences
which move it, i.e. blind matter and perhaps "God" again, whereas
this ONE Life is the very God and Gods "Itself."
**
The same error.
***
"Is the Jiva a myth, as science says, or is it not?" ask some
Theosophists, wavering between materialistic and idealistic Science. The
difficulty of really grasping esoteric problems concerning the "ultimate
state of matter" is again the old crux of the objective and the
subjective. What is matter? Is the matter of our present objective
consciousness anything but our SENSATIONS? True, the sensations we receive come
from without, but can we really (except in terms of phenomena) speak of the
"gross matter" of this plane as an entity apart from and independent
of us? To all such arguments Occultism answers: True, in reality matter is not
independent of, or existent outside, our perceptions. Man is an illusion:
granted. But the existence and actuality of other, still more illusive, but not
less actual, entities than we are, is not a claim which is lessened, but rather
strengthened by this doctrine of Vedantic and even Kantian Idealism.
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[[Vol.
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Thus
the Occultists are not alone in their beliefs. Nor are they so foolish, after
all, in rejecting even the "gravity" of modern Science along with
other physical laws, and in accepting instead attraction and repulsion. They
see, moreover, in these two opposite Forces only the two aspects of the
universal unit, called "MANIFESTING MIND"; in which aspects,
Occultism, through its great Seers, perceives an innumerable Host of operative
Beings: Cosmic Dhyan-Chohans, Entities, whose essence, in its dual nature, is
the Cause of all terrestrial phenomena. For that essence is co-substantial with
the universal Electric Ocean, which is LIFE; and being dual, as said --
positive and negative -- it is the emanations of that duality that act now on
earth under the name of "modes of motion"; even Force having now
become objectionable as a word, for fear it should lead someone, even in
thought, to separate it from matter! It is, as Occultism says, the dual effects
of that dual essence, which have now been called centripetal and centrifugal
forces, negative and positive poles, or polarity, heat and cold, light and
darkness, etc., etc.
And
it is maintained that even the Greek and Roman Catholic Christians, are wiser
in believing, as they do -- even if blindly connecting and tracing them all to
an anthropomorphic god -- in Angels, Archangels, Archons, Seraphs, and Morning
Stars: in all those theological Deliciae humani generis, in short, that rule
the cosmic elements, than Science is, in disbelieving in them altogether, and
advocating its mechanical Forces. For these act very often with more than human
intelligence and pertinency. Nevertheless, that intelligence is denied and
attributed to blind chance. But, as De Maistre was right in calling the law of
gravitation merely a word which replaced "the thing unknown"
(Soirees), so are we right in applying the same remark to all the other Forces
of Science. And if it is objected that the Count was an ardent Roman Catholic,
then we may cite Le Couturier, as ardent a materialist, who said the same
thing, as also did Herschell and many others. (Vide Musee des Sciences, August,
1856.)
From
Gods to men, from Worlds to atoms, from a star to a rush-light, from the Sun to
the vital heat of the meanest organic being -- the world of Form and Existence
is an immense chain, whose links are all connected. The law of Analogy is the
first key to the world-problem, and these links have to be studied coordinately
in their occult relations to each other.
When,
therefore, the Secret Doctrine -- postulating that conditioned or limited space
(location) has no real being except in this world of illusion, or, in other
words, in our perceptive faculties -- teaches that every one of the higher, as
of the lower worlds, is interblended with our own objective world; that
millions of things and beings are, in point of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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localization,
around and in us, as we are around, with, and in them; it is no metaphysical figure
of speech, but a sober fact in Nature, however incomprehensible to our senses.
But
one has to understand the phraseology of Occultism before criticising what it
asserts. For example, the Doctrine refuses (as Science does, in one sense) to
use the words "above" and "below," "higher" and
"lower," in reference to invisible spheres, as being without meaning.
Even the terms "East" and "West" are merely conventional,
necessary only to aid our human perceptions. For, though the Earth has its two
fixed points in the poles, North and South, yet both East and West are variable
relatively to our own position on the Earth's surface, and in consequence of
its rotation from West to East. Hence, when " other worlds" are
mentioned -- whether better or worse, more spiritual or still more material,
though both invisible -- the Occultist does not locate these spheres either
outside or inside our Earth, as the theologians and the poets do; for their
location is nowhere in the space known to, and conceived by, the profane. They
are, as it were, blended with our world interpenetrating it and interpenetrated
by it. There are millions and millions of worlds and firmaments visible to us;
there still greater numbers beyond those visible to the telescopes, and many of
the latter kind do not belong to our objective sphere of existence. Although as
invisible as if they were millions of miles beyond our solar system, they are
yet with us, near us, within our own world, as objective and material to their
respective inhabitants as ours is to us. But, again, the relation of these
worlds to ours is not that of a series of egg-shaped boxes enclosed one within
the other, like the toys called Chinese nests; each is entirely under its own
special laws and conditions, having no direct relation to our sphere. The
inhabitants of these, as already said, may be, for all we know, or feel,
passing through and around us as if through empty space, their very habitations
and countries being interblended with ours, though not disturbing our vision, because
we have not yet the faculties necessary for discerning them. Yet by their
spiritual sight the Adepts, and even some seers and sensitives, are always able
to discern, whether in a greater or smaller degree, the presence and close
proximity to us of Beings pertaining to other spheres of life. Those of the
(spiritually) higher worlds, communicate only with those terrestrial mortals
who ascend to them, through individual efforts, on to the higher plane they are
occupying. . . .
"THE
SONS OF Bhumi (EARTH) REGARD THE SONS OF Deva-lokas (ANGEL-SPHERES) AS THEIR
GODS; AND THE SONS OF LOWER KINGDOMS LOOK UP TO THE MEN OF Bhumi, AS TO THEIR
devas (GODS); MEN REMAINING UNAWARE OF IT IN THEIR BLINDNESS. . . . THEY (men)
TREMBLE
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[[Vol.
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BEFORE
THEM WHILE USING THEM (for magical purposes). . . . THE FIRST RACE OF MEN WERE
THE "Mind-born sons" OF THE FORMER. THEY (the pitris and devas) ARE
OUR PROGENITORS. . . . (Book II. of Commentary on the Book of DZYAN.)
"Educated
people," so-called, deride the idea of Sylphs, Salamanders, Undines, and
Gnomes; the men of science regard as an insult any mention of such
superstitions; and with a contempt of logic and common good sense, that is
often the prerogative of "accepted authority," they allow those, whom
it is their duty to instruct, to labour under the absurd impression that in the
whole Kosmos, or at any rate in our own atmosphere, there are no other conscious,
intelligent beings, save ourselves.* Any other humanity (composed of distinct
human beings) than a mankind with two legs, two arms, and a head with man's
features on it, would not be called human; though the etvmology of the word
would seem to have little to do with the general appearance of a creature.
Thus, while Science sternly rejects even the possibility of there being such
(to us, generally) invisible creatures, Society, while believing in it all
secretly, is made to deride the idea openly. It hails with mirth such works as
the Count de Gabalis, and fails to understand that open satire is the securest
mask.
Nevertheless,
such invisible worlds do exist. Inhabited as thickly as our own is, they are
scattered throughout apparent Space in immense number; some far more material
than our own world, others gradually etherealizing until they become formless
and are as "Breaths." That our physical eye does not see them, is no
reason to disbelieve in them; physicists can see neither their ether, atoms,
nor "modes of motion," or Forces. Yet they accept and teach them.
If
we find, even in the natural world with which we are acquainted, matter
affording a partial analogy in the difficult conception of such invisible
worlds, there seems little difficulty in recognizing the possibility of such a
presence. The tail of a comet, which, though attracting our attention by virtue
of its luminosity, yet does not disturb or impede our vision of objects, which
we perceive through and beyond it, affords the first stepping-stone toward a
proof of the same. The tail of a comet passes rapidly across our horizon, and
we should neither feel it, nor be cognizant of its passage, but for the
brilliant coruscation, often perceived only by a few interested in the
phenomenon, while everyone else remains ignorant of its presence and passage
through, or across, a portion of our globe. This tail may, or may not, be an
integral portion of the being of the comet, but its tenuity sub-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Even the question of the plurality of worlds inhabited by sentient creatures is
rejected or approached with the greatest caution! And yet see what the great
astronomer, Camille Flammarion, says in his "Pluralite des Mondes."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 607 PLURALITY OF WORLDS.
serves
our purpose as an illustration. Indeed, it is no question of superstition, but
simply a result of transcendental science, and of logic still more, to admit
the existence of worlds formed of even far more attenuated matter than the tail
of a comet. By denying such a possibility, Science has played for the last
century into the hands of neither philosophy nor true religion, but simply into
those of theology. To be able to dispute the better the plurality of even
material worlds, a belief thought by many churchmen incompatible with the
teachings and doctrines of the Bible,* Maxwell had to calumniate the memory of
Newton, and try to convince his public that the principles contained in the
Newtonian philosophy are those "which lie at the foundation of all
atheistical systems." (Vide Vol. II., "Plurality of Worlds.")
"Dr.
Whewell disputed the plurality of worlds by appeal to scientific
evidence," writes Professor Winchell.** And if even the habitability of
physical worlds, of planets, and distant stars which shine in myriads over our
heads is so disputed, how little chance is there for the acceptance of
invisible worlds within the apparently transparent space of our own!
But,
if we can conceive of a world composed (for our senses) of matter still more
attenuated than the tail of a comet, hence of inhabitants in it who are as
ethereal, in proportion to their globe, as we are in comparison with our rocky,
hard-crusted earth, no wonder if we do not perceive them, nor sense their
presence or even existence. Only, in what is the idea contrary to science?
Cannot men and animals, plants and rocks, be supposed to be endowed with quite
a different set of senses from those we possess? Cannot their organisms be
born, developed, and exist, under other laws of being than those that rule our
little world? Is it absolutely necessary that every corporeal being should be
clothed in "coats of skin" like those that Adam and Eve were provided
with in the legend of Genesis? Corporeality, we are told, however, by more than
one man of science, "may exist under very divergent conditions."***
Do not we know through the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nevertheless, it will be shown on the testimony of the Bible itself, and of
such good Christian theologians as Cardinal Wiseman, that this plurality is
taught in both the Old and the New Testaments.
**
See "The Plurality of the Worlds," wherein the list of many men of
Science, who wrote to prove the theory, is given.
***
Professor A. Winchell -- arguing upon the plurality of the worlds -- makes the
following remarks: "It is not at all improbable that substances of a
refractory nature might be so mixed with other substances, known or unknown to
us, as to be capable of enduring vastly greater vicissitudes of heat and cold
than is possible with terrestrial organisms. The tissues of terrestrial animals
are simply suited to terrestrial conditions. Yet even here we find different
types and species of animals adapted to the trials of extremely dissimilar
situations. . . . . . That an animal should be a quadruped or a [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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discoveries
of that very all-denying science that we are surrounded by myriads of invisible
lives? If these microbes, bacteria and the tutti quanti of the infinitesimally
small, are invisible to us by virtue of their minuteness, cannot there be, at
the other pole of it, beings as invisible owing to the quality of their texture
or matter -- to its tenuity, in fact? Conversely, as to the effects of cometary
matter, have we not another example of a half visible form of life and matter?
The ray of sunlight entering our apartment, reveals in its passage myriads of
tiny beings living their little life and ceasing to be, independent and
heedless of whether they are perceived or not by our grosser materiality. And
so again, of the microbes and bacteria and such-like unseen beings in other
elements. We passed them by, during those long centuries of dreary ignorance,
after the lamp of knowledge in the heathen and highly philosophical systems had
ceased to throw its bright light on the ages of intolerance and bigotry during
early Christianity; and we would fain pass them by again now.
And
yet these lives surrounded us then as they do now. They have worked on,
obedient to their own laws, and it is only as they were gradually revealed by
Science that we have begun to take cognisance of them, as of the effects
produced by them.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] biped is something not depending on the
necessities of organization, or instinct, or intelligence. That an animal
should possess just five senses is not a necessity of percipient existence.
There may be animals on the earth with neither smell nor taste. There may be
beings on other worlds, and even on this, who possess more numerous senses than
we. The possibility of this is apparent when we consider the high probability
that other properties and other modes of existence lie among the resources of
the Kosmos, and even of terrestrial matter. There are animals which subsist
where rational man would perish -- in the soil, in the river, and the sea"
. . . (and why not human beings of different organizations, in such case?) . .
. "Nor is incorporated rational existence conditioned on warm blood, nor
on any temperature which does not change the forms of matter of which the
organism may be composed. There may be intelligences corporealized after some
concept not involving the processes of injection, assimilation, and
reproduction. Such bodies would not require daily food and warmth. They might
be lost in the abysses of the ocean, or laid up on a stormy cliff through the
tempests of an Arctic winter, or plunged in a volcano for a hundred years, and
yet retain consciousness and thought. It is conceivable. Why might not psychic
natures be enshrined in indestructible flint and platinum? These substances are
no further from the nature of intelligence than carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and
lime. But, not to carry the thought to such an extreme (?), might not high
intelligences be embodied in frames as indifferent to external conditions as
the sage of the western plains, or the lichens of Labrador, the rotifers that
remain dried for years, or the spores of bacteria which pass living through
boiling water. . . . These suggestions are made simply to remind the reader how
little can be argued respecting the necessary conditions of intelligent,
organized existence, from the standard of corporeal existence found upon the
earth. Intelligence is, from its nature, as universal and as uniform as the
laws of the Universe. Bodies are merely the local fitting of intelligence to
particular modifications of universal matter or Force." (World-Life, or
Comparative Geology, pp. 496-498 et seq.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 609 THE GEOLOGY OF ENOCH.
How
long has it taken the world, as it is now, to become what it is? If it can be
said of cosmic dust that some of it comes to the present day "which had
never belonged to the earth before" ("World-Life"), how much
more logical to believe -- as the Occultists do -- that through the countless
ages and millions of years that have rolled away, since that dust aggregated
and formed the globe we live in around its nucleus of intelligent primeval
substance -- many humanities, differing from our present mankind, as greatly as
the one which will evolve millions of years hence will differ from our races,
appeared but to disappear from the face of the earth, as our own will. Those
primitive and far-distant humanities, having, as geologists think, left no
tangible relics of themselves, are denied. All trace of them is swept away, and
therefore they have never existed. Yet their relics -- a very few of them,
truly -- are to be found, and they have to be discovered by geological
research. Though, even if they were never to be met with, there is no reason to
say that no men could have ever lived in those geological times, to which the
period of their presence on earth is assigned. For their organisms needed no
warm blood, no atmosphere, no feeding; the author of "World-Life" is
right, and it is no such great extreme to believe even as we do, that as there
may be, on scientific hypotheses, "psychic natures enshrined in
indestructible flint and platinum" to this day, so there were psychic
natures enshrined in forms of equal indestructible primeval matter the real
forefathers of our fifth race.
When
we speak, therefore, as in Book II., of men who inhabited this globe 18,000,000
years back, we have in the mind neither the men of our present races, nor the
present atmospheric laws, thermal conditions, etc. The Earth and mankind, like
the Sun, Moon, and planets, have all their growth, changes, developments, and
gradual evolution in their life-periods; they are born, become infants, then
children, adolescents, grown-up bodies, grow old, and finally die. Why should
not Mankind be also under this universal law? Says Uriel to Enoch:
"Behold, I have showed thee all things. Thou seest the Sun, Moon, and
those which conduct the stars of heaven, which cause all their operations,
seasons, and arrivals to return. . . . In the days of sinners the years shall
be shortened . . . everything done on Earth shall be subverted . . . the moon
shall change its laws" . . . etc. (Ch. lxxix.)
The
"days of Sinners" meant the days when matter would be in its full
sway on Earth, and man would have reached the apex of physical development in stature
and animality. That came to pass during the period of the Atlanteans, about the
middle point of their Race (the 4th), which was drowned as prophesied by Uriel.
Since then man began decreasing in physical stature, strength, and years, as
will be shown in
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Book
II. But as we are in the mid-point of our sub-race of the Fifth Root Race --
the acme of materiality in each -- therefore the animal propensities, though
more refined, are not the less developed for that: and they are so chiefly in
civilized countries.
-------
§
XV.
GODS,
MONADS, AND ATOMS.
SOME
years ago we remarked* that "the Esoteric Doctrine may well be called the
'thread-doctrine,' since, like Sutratman, in the Vedanta philosophy,** it
passes through and strings together all the ancient philosophical religious
systems, and reconciles and explains them all." We say now it does more.
It not only reconciles the various and apparently conflicting systems, but it
checks the discoveries of modern exact science, and shows some of them to be
necessarily correct, since they are found corroborated in the ancient records.
All this will, no doubt, be regarded as terribly impertinent and disrespectful,
a veritable crime of lese-Science; nevertheless, it is a fact.
Science
is, undeniably, ultra-materialistic in our days; but it finds, in one sense,
its justification. Nature behaving in actu ever esoterically, and being, as the
Kabalists say, in abscondito, can only be judged by the profane through her
appearance, and that appearance is always deceitful on the physical plane. On
the other hand, the naturalists refuse to blend physics with metaphysics, the
body with its informing soul and spirit, which they prefer ignoring. This is a
matter of choice with some, while the minority strive very sensibly to enlarge
the domain of physical science by trespassing on the forbidden grounds of
metaphysics, so distasteful to some materialists. These scientists are wise in
their generation. For all their wonderful discoveries would go for nothing, and
remain for ever headless bodies, unless they lift the veil of matter and strain
their eyes to see beyond. Now that they have studied nature in the length,
breadth, and thickness of her physical frame, it is time to remove the skeleton
to the second plane and search within the unknown depths for the living and
real entity, for its SUB-stance -- the noumenon of evanescent matter.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Septenary Principle," art. in "Five Years of
Theosophy," p. 197.
**
The Atman or Spirit (the Spiritual SELF) passing like a thread through the five
subtle bodies (or principles, Koshas) is called "thread-soul," or
Sutratman in Vedantic philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 611 WHICH OF THE TWO IS BLIND?
It
is only by acting on such lines that some of the truths, now called
"exploded superstitions," will be discovered to be facts and the
relics of ancient knowledge and wisdom.
One
of such "degrading" beliefs -- in the opinion of the all-denying
sceptic -- is found in the idea that Kosmos, besides its objective planetary
inhabitants, its humanities in other inhabited worlds, is full of invisible,
intelligent Existences. The so-called Arch-Angels, Angels and Spirits, of the
West, copies of their prototypes, the Dhyan-Chohans, the Devas and Pitris, of
the East, are no real Beings but fictions. On this point Materialistic Science
is inexorable. To support its position, it upsets its own axiomatic law of
uniformity in the laws of nature, that of continuity, and all the logical
sequence of analogies in the evolution of being. The masses of the profane are
asked, and made, to believe that the accumulated testimony of History, which
shows even the Atheists of old -- such as Epicurus and Democritus -- believing
in gods, was false; and that philosophers like Socrates and Plato, asserting
their existence, were mistaken enthusiasts and fools. If we hold our opinions
merely on historical grounds, on the authority of legions of the most eminent
Sages, Neo-Platonists, Mystics of all the ages, from Pythagoras down to the
eminent Scientists and Professors of the present century, who, if they reject
"gods," believe in "spirits," shall we consider such
authorities as weak-minded and foolish as any Roman Catholic peasant, who
believes in and prays to his once human Saint, or the Archangel, St. Michael?
But is there no difference between the belief of the peasant and that of the
Western heirs to the Rosicrucians and Alchemists of the Middle Ages? Is it the
Van Helmonts, the Khunraths, the Paracelsuses and Agrippas, from Roger Bacon
down to St. Germain, who were all blind enthusiasts, hysteriacs or cheats, or
is it the handful of modern sceptics -- the "leaders of thought" --
who are struck with the cecity of negation? The latter, we opine. It would be a
miracle indeed, quite an abnormal fact in the realm of probabilities and logic,
were that handful of negators to be the sole custodians of truth, while the
million-strong hosts of believers in gods, angels, and spirits -- in Europe and
America alone -- namely, Greek and Latin Christians, Theosophists,
Spiritualists, Mystics, etc., etc., should be no better than deluded fanatics
and hallucinated mediums, and often no higher than the victims of deceivers and
impostors! However varying in their external presentations and dogmas, beliefs
in the Hosts of invisible Intelligences of various grades have all the same
foundation. Truth and error are mixed in all. The exact extent, depth, breadth,
and length of the mysteries of Nature are to be found only in Eastern esoteric
sciences. So vast and so profound are these that hardly a few, a very few of
the highest Initiates -- those whose very existence is known but to a small
number of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Adepts
-- are capable of assimilating the knowledge. Yet it is all there, and one by
one facts and processes in Nature's workshops are permitted to find their way
into the exact Sciences, while mysterious help is given to rare individuals in
unravelling its arcana. It is at the close of great Cycles, in connection with
racial development, that such events generally take place. We are at the very
close of the cycle of 5,000 years of the present Aryan Kaliyuga; and between
this time and 1897 there will be a large rent made in the Veil of Nature, and
materialistic science will receive a death-blow.
Without
throwing any discredit upon time-honoured beliefs, in whatever direction, we
are forced to draw a marked line between blind faith, evolved by theologies,
and knowledge due to the independent researches of long generations of adepts;
between, in short, faith and philosophy. There have been -- in all ages --
undeniably learned and good men who, having been reared in sectarian beliefs,
died in their crystallized convictions. For Protestants, the garden of Eden is
the primeval point of departure in the drama of Humanity, and the solemn
tragedy on the summit of Calvary, the prelude to the hoped-for Millennium. For
Roman Catholics, Satan is at the foundation of Kosmos, Christ in its centre,
and Antichrist at its apex. For both, the Hierarchy of Being begins and ends
within the narrow frames of their respective theologies: one self-created
personal God and an Empyrean ringing with the Hallelujas of created angels; the
rest, false gods, Satan and fiends.
Theophilosophy
proceeds on broader lines. From the very beginning of AEons -- in time and
space in our Round and Globe -- the Mysteries of Nature (at any rate, those
which it is lawful for our races to know) were recorded by the pupils of those
same now invisible "heavenly men," in geometrical figures and
symbols. The keys thereto passed from one generation of "wise men" to
the other. Some of the symbols, thus passed from the east to the west, were
brought therefrom by Pythagoras, who was not the inventor of his famous
"Triangle." The latter figure, along with the plane cube and circle,
are more eloquent and scientific descriptions of the order of the evolution of
the Universe, spiritual and psychic, as well as physical, than volumes of
descriptive Cosmogonies and revealed "Geneses." The ten points
inscribed within that "Pythagorean triangle" are worth all the
theogonies and angelologies ever emanated from the theological brain. For he
who interprets them -- on their very face, and in the order given -- will find
in these seventeen points (the seven Mathematical Points hidden) the
uninterrupted series of the genealogies from the first Heavenly to terrestrial
man. And, as they give the order of Beings, so they reveal the order in which
were evolved the Kosmos, our earth, and the primordial elements by
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 613 THE MATHEMATICAL POINT.
which
the latter was generated. Begotten in the invisible Depths, and in the womb of
the same "Mother" as its fellow-globes -- he who will master the
mysteries of our Earth, will have mastered those of all others.
Whatever
ignorance, pride or fanaticism may suggest to the contrary, Esoteric Cosmology
can be shown inseparably connected with both philosophy and modern science. The
gods of the ancients, the monads -- from Pythagoras down to Leibnitz -- and the
atoms of the present materialistic schools (as borrowed by them from the
theories of the old Greek Atomists) are only a compound unit, or a graduated
unity like the human frame, which begins with body and ends with spirit. In the
occult sciences they can be studied separately, but never mastered unless
viewed in their mutual correlations during their life-cycle, and as a Universal
Unity during Pralayas.
La
Pluche shows sincerity, but gives a poor idea of his philosophical capacities
when declaring his personal views on the Monad or the Mathematical Point.
"A point," he says, "is enough to put all the schools in the world
in a combustion. But what need has man to know that point, since the creation
of such a small being is beyond his power? A fortiori, philosophy acts against
probability when, from that point which absorbs and disconcerts all her
meditations, she presumes to pass on to the generation of the world. . .
."
Philosophy,
however, could never have formed its conception of a logical, universal, and
absolute Deity if it had no Mathematical Point within the Circle to base its
speculations upon. It is only the manifested Point, lost to our senses after
its pregenetic appearance in the infinitude and incognizability of the Circle,
that made a reconciliation between philosophy and theology possible -- on
condition that the latter should abandon its crude materialistic dogmas. And it
is because it has so unwisely rejected the Pythagorean Monad and geometrical
figures, that Christian theology has evolved its self-created human and
personal God, the monstrous Head from whence flow in two streams the dogmas of
Salvation and Damnation. This is so true that even those clergymen who would be
philosophers and who were masons, have, in their arbitrary interpretations,
fathered upon the ancient sages the queer idea that "the Monad represented
(with them) the throne of the Omnipotent Deity, placed in the centre of the
Empyrean to indicate T.G.A.O.T.U."* -- read "the Great Architect of
the Universe." A curious explanation this, more Masonic than strictly
Pythagorean.
Nor
did the "hierogram within a Circle, or equilateral Triangle,"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Science of Numbers," by the Rev. G. Oliver (p. 36).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ever
mean "the exemplification of the unity of the divine Essence"; for
this was exemplified by the plane of the boundless Circle. What it really meant
was the triune co-equal Nature of the first differentiated Substance, or the
con-substantiality of the (manifested) Spirit, matter and the Universe -- their
"Son," who proceeds from the Point (the real, esoteric LOGOS) or the
Pythagorean MONAD. For the Greek Monas signifies "Unity" in its
primary sense. Those unable to seize the difference between the monad -- the
Universal Unit -- and the Monads or the manifested Unity, as also between the
ever-hidden and the revealed LOGOS or the Word, ought never to meddle in
philosophy, let alone the Esoteric Sciences. It is needless to remind the
educated reader of Kant's Thesis to demonstrate his second Antinomy.* Those who
have read and understood it will see clearly the line we draw between the
absolutely Ideal Universe and the invisible though manifested Kosmos. Our Gods
and Monads are not the Elements of extension itself, but only those of the
invisible reality which is the basis of the manifested Kosmos. Neither esoteric
philosophy, nor Kant, nor Leibnitz would ever admit that extension can be
composed of simple or unextended parts. But theologian-philosophers will not
grasp this. The Circle and the Point, which latter retires into and merges with
the former, after having emanated the first three points and connected them
with lines, thus forming the first noumenal basis of the Second Triangle in the
Manifested World, have ever been an insuperable obstacle to theological flights
into dogmatic Empyreans. On the authority of this Archaic Symbol, a male,
personal god, the Creator and Father of all, becomes a third-rate emanation,
the Sephiroth standing fourth in descent, and on the left hand of En-Soph (see
the Kabalistic Tree of Life). Hence, the Monad is degraded into a Vehicle -- a
"throne"!
The
Monad -- only the emanation and reflection of the Point (Logos) in the
phenomenal World -- becomes, as the apex of the manifested equilateral
triangle, the "Father." The left side or line is the Duad, the
"Mother," regarded as the evil, counteracting principle (Plutarch, De
Placitis Placitorum); the right side represents the Son ("his Mother's
husband" in every Cosmogony, as one with the apex); at the basic line is
the Universal plane of productive Nature, unifying on the phenomenal plane
Father-Mother-Son, as these were unified in the apex, in the supersensuous
World.** By mystic transmutation they became the Quaternary -- the triangle became
the TETRAKTIS.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Kant's Critique de la Raison pure (Barni's transl., Vol. II., p. 54).
**
In the Greek and Latin churches -- which regard marriage as one of the
sacraments -- the officiating priest during the marriage ceremony represents
the apex of the triangle; the bride its left feminine side and the bridegroom
the right one, while the horizontal line is symbolised by the row of witness,
the bridesmaids and best-men. But behind [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 615 SPACE, FORCE AND MATTER.
This
transcendental application of geometry to Cosmic and divine theogony -- the
Alpha and the Omega of mystical conception -- became dwarfed after Pythagoras
by Aristotle. By omitting the Point and the Circle, and taking no account of
the apex, he reduced the metaphysical value of the idea, and thus limited the
doctrine of magnitude to a simple TRIAD -- the line, the surface, and the body.
His modern heirs, who play at Idealism, have interpreted these three
geometrical figures as Space, Force, and Matter -- "the potencies of an
interacting Unity."* Materialistic Science, perceiving but the basic line
of the manifested "triangle" -- the plane of matter -- translates it
practically as (Father)-MATTER, (Mother)-MATTER, and (Son)-MATTER, and
theoretically as Matter, Force, and Correlation.
But
to the average physicist, as remarked by a Kabalist, "Space, Force,
Matter, are, what signs in algebra are to the mathematician, merely
conventional symbols;" or "Force as force, and Matter as matter, are
as absolutely unknowable as is the assumed empty space in which they are held
to interact." As symbols representing abstractions, "the physicist
bases reasoned hypotheses of the origin of things . . . . and sees three needs
in what he terms creation: (a) a place wherein to create; (b) a medium by which
to create; (c) a material from which to create. And in giving a logical
expression to this hypothesis through the terms space, force, matter, he
believes he has proved the existence of that which each of these represents as
he conceives it to be."**
The
physicist who regards Space merely as a representation of our mind, or
extension unrelated to things in it, which Locke defined as capable of neither
resistance nor motion; the paradoxical materialist, who would have a void
there, where he can see no matter, would reject with the utmost contempt the
proposition that "Space is a substantial though (apparently) an absolutely
unknowable living Entity." (New Aspects, p. 9.) Such is, nevertheless, the
Kabalistic teaching, and it is that of Archaic philosophy. Space is the real
world, while our world is an artificial one. It is the One Unity throughout its
infinitude: in its bottomless depths as on its illusive surface; a surface
studded with countless phenomenal Universes, systems and mirage-like worlds.
Nevertheless, to the Eastern Occultist, who is an objective Idealist at the bottom,
in the real world, which is a Unity of Forces, there is "a connection of
all matter in the plenum," as Leibnitz would say. This is symbolized in
the Pythagorean Triangle.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] the priest there is the altar with its
mysterious containments and symbolic meaning, inside of which no one but the
consecrated priests ought to enter. In the early days of Christianity the
marriage ceremony was a mystery and a true symbol. Now, however, even the
churches have lost the true meaning of this symbolism.
*
See Von Hartmann's and Herbert Spencer's works.
**
"New Aspects of Life," by Henry Pratt, M.D.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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It
consists of ten points inscribed pyramid-like (from one to the last four)
within its three lines, and it symbolizes the Universe in the famous Pythagorean
Decad. The upper single dot is a Monad, and represents a Unit-Point, which is
the Unity from whence all proceeds, and all is of the same essence with it.
While the ten dots within the triangle represent the phenomenal world, the
three sides of the equilateral triangle which enclose the pyramid of dots are
the barriers of noumenal Matter, or Substance, that separate it from the world
of Thought. "Pythagoras considered a point to correspond in proportion to
unity; a line to 2; a superficies to 3; a solid to 4; and he defined a point as
a Monad having position, and the beginning of all things; a line was thought to
correspond with duality, because it was produced by the first motion from
indivisible nature, and formed the junction of two points. A superficies was
compared to the number three because it is the first of all causes that are
found in figures; for a circle, which is the principal of all round figures,
comprises a triad, in centre -- space -- circumference. But a triangle, which
is the first of all rectilineal figures, is included in a ternary, and receives
its form according to that number; and was considered by the Pythagoreans to be
the creator of all sublunary things. The four points at the base of the
Pythagorean triangle correspond with a solid or cube, which combines the
principles of length, breadth, and thickness, for no solid can have less than
four extreme boundary points." (Pythag. Triangle, p. 19.)
It
is argued that "the human mind cannot conceive an indivisible unit short
of the annihilation of the idea with its subject." This is an error, as
the Pythagoreans have proved, and a number of Seers before them, although there
is a special training for it, and although the profane mind can hardly grasp
it. But there are such things as metamathematics and metageometry. Even
mathematics pure and simple proceed from the Universal to the particular, from
the mathematical, hence indivisible Point, to solid figures. The teaching
originated in India, and was taught in Europe by Pythagoras, who, throwing a
veil over the Circle and the Point -- which no living man can define except as
incomprehensible abstractions -- laid the origin of the differentiated Cosmic
matter in the basic or horizontal line of the Triangle. Thus the latter became
the earliest of geometrical figures. The author of "New Aspects of
Life" and of the Kabalistic Mysteries -- objects to the objectivization,
so to speak, of the Pythagorean conception and use of the equilateral triangle,
and calls it a misnomer. His argument that a solid equilateral body --
"one whose base, and each of its sides, form equal triangles -- must have
four co-equal sides or surfaces, while a triangular plane will as necessarily
possess five," demonstrates on the contrary the grandeur of the conception
in all its esoteric application to the idea of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
pregenesis, and the genesis of Kosmos. Granted, that an ideal triangle,
depicted by mathematical, imaginary lines "can have no sides at all, being
simply a phantom of the mind (if sides be imputed to which, they must be the
sides of the object it constructively represents)." But in such case most
of the scientific hypotheses are no better than "phantoms of the
mind"; they are unverifiable, except on inference, and have been adopted
merely to answer scientific necessities. Furthermore, the ideal triangle --
"as the abstract idea of a triangular body, and, therefore, as the type of
an abstract idea" -- accomplished and carried out to perfection the double
symbolism intended. As an emblem applicable to the objective idea, the simple
triangle became a solid. When repeated in stone on the four cardinal points, it
assumed the shape of the Pyramid -- the symbol of the phenomenal merging into
the noumenal Universe of thought -- at the apex of the four triangles; and, as
an "imaginary figure constructed of three mathematical lines," it
symbolized the subjective spheres -- those lines "enclosing a mathematical
space -- which is equal to nothing enclosing nothing." Because, to the
senses and the untrained consciousness of profane and scientist, everything
beyond the line of differentiated matter -- i.e., outside of, and beyond the
realm of even the most spiritual substance -- has to remain for ever equal to
nothing. It is the AIN-SOPH -- the No-THING.
Yet
these "phantoms of the mind" are in truth no greater abstractions
than the abstract ideas in general upon evolution and physical development --
e.g., Gravity, Matter, Force, etc. -- on which the exact sciences are based.
Our most eminent chemists and physicists are earnestly pursuing the not
hopeless attempt of finally tracing to its hiding-place the protyle, or the
basic line of the Pythagorean triangle. The latter is, as said, the grandest
conception imaginable, as it symbolizes both the ideal and the visible
universes.* For if "the possible unit is only a possibility as an
actuality of nature, as an individual of any kind," and as every individual
natural object is capable of division, and by division loses its unity, or
ceases to be a unit,** it is so only in the realm of exact sciences in a world
as deceptive as it is illusive. In the realm of the Esoteric sciences the unit
divided ad infinitum, instead of losing its unity, approaches with every
division the planes of the only eternal REALITY. The eye of the SEER can follow
and behold it in all its pregenetic glory. This same idea of the reality of the
subjective, and the unreality of the objective universes, is found at the
bottom of the Pythagorean and Platonic teachings -- limited to the Elect alone;
for
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the world of Form, having found its expression in the Pyramids, Symbolism has
in them both a triangle and a square, with their four co-equal triangles or
surfaces, the four basic points, and the fifth -- the apex.
**
"New Aspects of Life."
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[[Vol.
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Porphyry,
speaking of the Monad and the Duad, says that the former only was considered
substantial and real, "that most simple Being, the cause of all unity and
the measure of all things."
But
the Duad, although the origin of Evil, or Matter -- thence unreal in philosophy
-- is still Substance during Manvantara, and is often called the third monad,
in Occultism, and the connecting line as between two Points, . . . or Numbers
which proceeded from THAT, "which was before all Numbers," as
expressed by Rabbi Barahiel. And from this Duad proceeded all the Scintillas of
the three upper and the four lower worlds or planes -- which are in constant
interaction and correspondence. This is a teaching which the Kabala has in
common with Eastern Occultism. For in the occult philosophy there are the
"ONE Cause" and the "Primal Cause," which latter thus
becomes, paradoxically, the second, as clearly expressed by the author of the
"Qabbalah, from the philosophical writings of Ibn Gabirol," --
"in the treatment of the Primal cause, two things must be considered, the
Primal Cause per se, and the relation and connection of the Primal Cause with
the visible and unseen universe." Thus he shows the early Hebrews
following in the steps of the Oriental philosophy -- Chaldean, Persian, Hindu,
Arabic, etc. Their Primal Cause was designated at first "by the triadic
Shaddai, the (triune) Almighty, subsequently by the Tetragrammaton, YHVH,
symbol of the Past, Present, and Future," and, let us add, of the eternal IS,
or the I AM. Moreover, in the Kabala the name YHVH (or Jehovah) expresses a He
and a She, male and female, two in one, or Hokhmah and Binah, and his, or
rather their Shekinah or synthesizing spirit (grace), which makes again of the
Duad a Triad. This is demonstrated in the Jewish Liturgy for Pentecost, and the
prayer, "In the name of Unity, of the Holy and Blessed Hu (He), and His
Shekinah, the Hidden and Concealed Hu, blessed be YHVH (the Quaternary) for
ever." "Ha is said to be masculine and YAH feminine, together they
make the [[hebrew]] i.e., one YHVH. One, but of a male-female nature. The
Shekinah is always considered in the Qabbalah as feminine" (p. 175). And
so it is considered in the exoteric Puranas, for Shekinah is no more than Sakti
-- the female double or lining of any god, in such case. And so it was with the
early Christians whose Holy Spirit was feminine, as Sophia was with the
Gnostics. But in the transcendental Chaldean Kabala or "Book of
Numbers," "Shekinah" is sexless, and the purest abstraction, a
State, like Nirvana, not subject or object or anything except an absolute
PRESENCE.
Thus
it is only in the anthropomorphised systems (such as the Kabala has now greatly
become) that Shekinah-Sakti is feminine. As such she becomes the Duad of Pythagoras,
the two straight lines of the symbol that can never meet, which therefore form
no geometrical figure and are
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
symbol of matter. Out of this Duad, when united in one basic line of the
triangle on the lower plane (the upper Triangle of the Sephirothal Tree),
emerge the Elohim, or Deity in Cosmic Nature, with the true Kabalists the
lowest designation, translated in the Bible "God" (see the same work
and page).* Out of these issue the Scintillas.
The
Scintillas are the "Souls," and these Souls appear in the three-fold
form of Monads (units), atoms and gods -- according to our teaching.
"Every atom becomes a visible complex unit (a molecule), and once
attracted into the sphere of terrestrial activity, the Monadic Essence, passing
through the mineral, vegetable, and animal kingdoms, becomes man." (Esot.
Catechism.) Again, "God, Monad, and Atom are the correspondences of Spirit,
Mind, and Body (Atma, Manas and Sthula Sarira) in man." In their septenary
aggregation they are the "Heavenly Man" (see Kabala for the latter
term); thus, terrestrial man is the provisional reflection of the Heavenly. . .
. . "The Monads (Jivas) are the Souls of the Atoms, both are the fabric in
which the Chohans (Dhyanis, gods) cloth themselves when a form is needed."
(Esot. Cat.)
This
relates to Cosmic and sub-planetary Monads, not to the Super-Cosmic Monas (the
Pythagorean Monad) as called, in its synthetic character, by the Pantheistical
Peripatetics. The Monads of the present dissertation are treated from the
standpoint of their individuality, as atomic Souls, before these atoms descend
into pure terrestrial form. For this descent into concrete matter marks the
medial point of their own individual pilgrimage. Here, losing in the mineral
kingdom their individuality, they begin to ascend through the seven states of
terrestrial evolution to that point where a correspondence is firmly
established between the human and Deva (divine) consciousness. At present,
however, we are not concerned with their terrestrial metamorphoses and
tribulations, but with their life and behaviour in Space, on planes wherein the
eye of the most intuitional chemist and physicist cannot reach them -- unless,
indeed, he develops in himself highly clairvoyant faculties.
It
is well known that Leibnitz came several times very near the truth, but defined
monadic evolution incorrectly, which is not to be wondered at, since he was not
an INITIATE, nor even a Mystic, only a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Such recent works as the Qabbalah of Mr. Isaac Myer and of Mr. S. L. MacGregor
Mathers, fully justify our attitude towards the Jehovistic Deity. It is not the
transcendental, philosophical, and highly metaphysical abstraction of the
original Kabalistic thought -- Ain-Soph-Shekinah-Adam-Kadmon, and all that
follows -- that we oppose, but the crystallization of all these into the highly
unphilosophical, repulsive, and anthropomorphic Jehovah, the androgynous and
finite deity for which eternity, omnipotence, and omniscience are claimed. We
do not war against the IDEAL REALITY, but the hideous theological Shadow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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very
intuitional philosopher. Yet no psycho-physicist ever came nearer than he has
to the esoteric general outline of evolution. This evolution -- viewed from its
several standpoints -- i.e., as the universal and the individualized Monad; and
the chief aspects of the Evolving Energy, after differentiation -- the purely
Spiritual, the Intellectual, the Psychic and the Physical -- may be thus
formulated as an invariable law; a descent of Spirit into Matter, equivalent to
an ascent in physical evolution; a re-ascent from the depths of materiality
towards its status quo ante, with a corresponding dissipation of concrete form
and substance up to the LAYA state, or what Science calls "the
zero-point," and beyond.
These
states -- once the spirit of Esoteric philosophy is grasped -- become
absolutely necessary from simple logical and analogical considerations.
Physical Science having now ascertained, through its department of Chemistry, the
invariable law of this evolution of atoms -- from their "protylean"
state down to that of a physical and then a chemical particle (or molecule) --
cannot well reject the same as a general law. And once it is forced by its
enemies -- Metaphysics and Psychology* -- out of its alleged impregnable
strongholds, it will find it more difficult than it now appears to refuse room
in the Spaces of SPACE to Planetary Spirits (gods), Elementals, and even the
Elementary Spooks or Ghosts, and others. Already Figuier and Paul D'Assier, two
Positivists and Materialists, have succumbed before this logical necessity.
Other and still greater Scientists will follow in that "intellectual
FALL." They will be driven out of their position not by spiritual,
theosophical, or any other physical or even mental phenomena, but simply by the
enormous gaps and chasms that open daily and will still be opening before them,
as one discovery follows the other, until they are finally knocked off their
feet by the ninth wave of simple common sense.
Here
is an example: Prof. W. Crookes' latest discovery of what he has named protyle.
In the "Notes on the Bhagavat Gita," by one of the best
metaphysicians and Vedantic scholars in India,** the lecturer, referring
cautiously to "things occult" in that great Indian esoteric work,
makes a remark as suggestive as it is strictly correct. ". . . Into the
details of the evolution of the solar system itself," he says, "it is
not necessary for me to enter. You may gather some idea as to the way in which
the various elements start into existence from these THREE principles into
which MULAPRAKRITI is differentiated (the Pythagorean triangle), by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Let not the word "psychology" cause the reader to carry his thought
by an association of ideas to modern "Psychologists," so-called,
whose idealism is another name for uncompromising materialism, and whose
pretended Monism is no better than a mask to conceal the void of final
annihilation -- even of consciousness. Here Spiritual psychology is meant.
**
T. Subba Row, see Theosophist for Feb., 1887.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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examining
the lecture delivered by Professor Crookes a short time ago upon the so-called
elements of modern chemistry. This lecture will give you some idea of the way
in which these Elements spring from Vishwanara,* the most objective of these
three principles, which seems to stand in the place of the protyle mentioned in
that lecture. Except in a few particulars, this lecture seems to give the
outlines of the theory of physical evolution on the plane of Vishwanara, and
is, so far as I know, the nearest approach made by modern investigators TO THE
REAL OCCULT THEORY on the subject."
These
words will be re-echoed and approved by every Eastern Occultist. Much from the
lectures by Prof. Crookes has already been quoted in § XII. of these Addenda.
Since then, there has been another lecture delivered, as remarkable as the
first one, on the "Genesis of the Elements,"** and also a third one.
Here we have almost a corroboration of the teachings of Esoteric philosophy
concerning the mode of primeval evolution. It is, indeed, as near an approach,
made by a great scholar and specialist in chemistry,*** to the Secret Doctrine,
as could be made apart from the application of the monads and atoms to the
dogmas of pure transcendental metaphysics, and their connection and correlation
with "Gods and intelligent Conscious Monads." But Chemistry is now on
its ascending plane, thanks to one of its highest European representatives. It
is impossible for it to go back to that day when materialism regarded its
sub-elements as absolutely simple and homogeneous bodies, which it had raised,
in its blindness, to the rank of elements. The mask has been snatched off by
too clever a hand for there to be any fear of a new disguise. And after years
of pseudology, of bastard molecules parading under the name of elements, behind
and beyond which there could be nought but void, a great professor of chemistry
asks once more: "What are these elements, whence do they come, what is
their signification? . . . . These elements perplex us in our researches, baffle
us in our speculations, and haunt us in our very dreams. They stretch like an
unknown sea before us mocking -- mystifying, and murmuring strange revelations
and possibilities." (Gen. of Elem., p. 1.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Vishwanara is not merely the manifested objective world, but the one
physical basis (the horizontal line of the triangle) from which the whole
objective world starts into existence." And this is the Cosmic Duad, the
androgynous Substance. Beyond only, is the true Protyle.
**
By W. Crookes, F.R.S., V.P.C.S., delivered at the Royal Institution, London, on
Friday, February 18th, 1887.
***
How true it is will be fully demonstrated only on that day when his discovery
of radiant matter will have resulted in a further elucidation with regard to
the true source of light, and revolutionized all the present speculations.
Further familiarity with the northern streamers of the aurora borealis may help
the recognition of this truth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Those
who are heirs to primeval revelations have taught these
"possibilities" in every century, but have never found a fair
hearing. The truths inspired to Kepler, Leibnitz, Gassendi, Swedenborg, etc.,
were ever alloyed with their own speculations in one or another predetermined
direction --hence distorted. But now one of the great truths has dawned upon an
eminent professor of modern exact science, and he fearlessly proclaims as a
fundamental axiom that Science has not made itself acquainted, so far, with
real simple elements. For Prof. Crookes tells his audience:
"If
I venture to say that our commonly received elements are NOT simple and
primordial, that they have not arisen by chance or have not been created in a
desultory and mechanical manner, but have been evolved from simpler matters --
or perhaps, indeed, from one sole kind of matter -- I do but give formal
utterance to an idea which has been, so to speak, for some time 'in the air' of
science. Chemists, physicists, philosophers of the highest merit, declare
explicitly their belief that the seventy (or thereabouts) elements of our
text-books are not the pillars of Hercules which we must never hope to pass."
. . . "Philosophers in the present as in the past -- men who certainly
have not worked in the laboratory -- have reached the same view from another
side." Thus Mr. Herbert Spencer records his conviction that 'the chemical
atoms are produced from the true or physical atoms by processes of evolution
under conditions which chemistry has not yet been able to produce.' . . .
"And the poet has forestalled the philosopher. Milton ('Paradise Lost,'
Book V.) makes the Archangel Raphael say to Adam, instinct with the
evolutionary idea, that the Almighty had created
.
. . 'One first matter, all
Indued
with various forms, various degrees
Of
substance.' "
Nevertheless,
the idea would have remained crystallized "in the air of Science,"
and never have descended into the thick atmosphere of materialism and profane
mortals for years to come, perhaps, had not Professor Crookes bravely and
fearlessly reduced it to its simple elements, and thus publicly forced it on
Scientific notice. "An idea," says Plutarch, "is a being incorporeal,
which has no subsistence by itself, but gives figure and form unto shapeless
matter, and becomes the cause of the manifestation." (De Placit. Philos.)
The revolution produced in old chemistry by Avogadro was the first page in the
Volume of New Chemistry. Mr. Crookes has now turned the second page, and is
boldly pointing to what may be the last. For once protyle accepted and
recognized -- as invisible Ether was, both being logical and scientific
necessities -- Chemistry will have virtually ceased to live: it will reappear
in its reincarnation as New Alchemy, or METACHEMISTRY. The discoverer of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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radiant
matter will have vindicated in time the Archaic Aryan works on Occultism and
even the Vedas and Puranas. For what are the manifested "Mother," the
"Father-Son-Husband" (Aditi and Daksha, a form of Brahma, as
Creators) and the "Son," -- the three "First-born" -- but
simply Hydrogen, Oxygen, and that which in its terrestrial manifestation is
called nitrogen. Even the exoteric descriptions of the "First Born"
triad give all the characteristics of these three gases. Priestley, the
"discoverer" of Oxygen, or that which was known in the highest
antiquity!
Yet
all the ancient, mediaeval, and modern poets and philosophers have been
anticipated even in the exoteric Hindu books. Descartes' plenum of matter
differentiated into particles; Leibnitz's Ethereal Fluid and Kant's
"primitive fluid" dissolved into its elements; Kepler's Solar Vortex
and Systemic Vortices; in short, from the Elemental Vortices inaugurated by the
universal mind -- through Anaxagoras, down to Galileo, Torricelli, and
Swedenborg, and after them to the latest speculations by European mystics --
all this is found in the Hindu hymns and Mantras to the "Gods, Monads, and
Atoms," in their fulness, for they are inseparable. In esoteric teachings,
the most transcendental conceptions of the universe and its mysteries, as the
most (seemingly) materialistic speculations are found reconciled, because those
sciences embrace the whole scope of evolution from Spirit to matter. As
declared by an American Theosophist, "The Monads (of Leibnitz) may from
one point of view be called force, from another matter. To occult Science,
force and matter are only two sides of the same SUBSTANCE."
("Path," No. 10, p. 297.)
Let
the reader remember these "Monads" of Leibnitz, every one of which is
a living mirror of the universe, every monad reflecting every other, and
compare this view and definition with certain Sanskrit stanzas (Slokas)
translated by Sir William Jones, in which it is said that the creative source
of the Divine Mind, . . . "Hidden in a veil of thick darkness, formed
mirrors of the atoms of the world, and cast reflection from its own face on
every atom. . . . ."
When,
therefore, Professor Crookes declares that "If we can show how the
so-called chemical elements might have been generated we shall be able to fill
up a formidable gap in our knowledge of the universe, . . ." the answer is
ready. The theoretical knowledge is contained in the esoteric meaning of every
Hindu cosmogony in the Puranas; the practical demonstration thereof -- is in
the hands of those who will not be recognised in this century, save by the very
few. The scientific possibilities of various discoveries, that must inexorably
lead exact Science into the acceptation of Eastern Occult views, which contain
all the requisite material for the filling of those "gaps," are, so
far, at the mercy of modern materialism. It is only by working in the direction
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[[Vol.
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taken
by Professor Crookes that there is any hope for the recognition of a few,
hitherto Occult, truths.
Meanwhile,
one thirsting to have a glimpse at a practical diagram of the evolution of
primordial matter, which, separating and differentiating under the impulse of
cyclic law, divides itself into a septenary gradation of SUBSTANCE (from a
general view), can do no better than examine the plates attached to Mr.
Crookes' lecture: "Genesis of the Elements," and ponder well over
some passages of the text. In one place (p. 11) he says:--
".
. . . Our notions of a chemical element have expanded. Hitherto the molecule
has been regarded as an aggregate of two or more atoms, and no account has been
taken of the architectural design on which these atoms have been joined. We may
consider that the structure of a chemical element is more complicated than has
hitherto been supposed. Between the molecules we are accustomed to deal with in
chemical reactions and ultimate atoms as first created, come smaller molecules
or aggregates of physical atoms; then sub-molecules differ one from the other,
according to the position they occupied in the yttrium edifice."
"Perhaps
this hypothesis can be simplified if we imagine yttrium to be represented by a
five-shilling piece. By chemical fractionation I have divided it into five
separate shillings, and find that these shillings are not counterparts, but
like the carbon atoms in the benzol ring, have the impress of their position,
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, stamped on them. . . . If I throw my shillings into the
melting-pot or dissolve them chemically, the mint stamp disappears and they all
turn out to be silver." . . .
This
will be the case with all the atoms and molecules when they have separated from
their compound forms and bodies -- when pralaya sets in. Reverse the case, and
imagine the dawn of a new manvantara. The pure "silver" of the
absorbed material will once more separate into SUBSTANCE, which will generate
"Divine Essences" whose "principles"* are the primary
elements, the sub-elements, the physical energies and subjective and objective
matter; or, as these are epitomised -- GODS, MONADS, and ATOMS. If leaving for
one moment the metaphysical or transcendental side of the question, -- dropping
out of the present consideration the supersensuous and intelligent beings and
entities believed in by the Kabalists and Christians -- we turn to the atomical
theory of evolution, the occult teachings are still found corroborated by exact
Science and its confessions, as far, at least, as regards the supposed
"simple" elements, now suddenly
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Corresponding on the cosmic scale with the Spirit, Soul-mind, Life, and the
three Vehicles -- the astral, the Mayavic and the physical bodies (of mankind)
whatever division is made.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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degraded
into poor and distant relatives -- not even second cousins to the latter. For
we are told by Prof. Crookes that:
"Hitherto,
it has been considered that if the atomic weight of a metal, determined by
different observers, setting out from different compounds, was always found to
be constant . . . then such metal must rightly take rank among the simple or
elementary bodies. We learn . . . that this is no longer the case. Again, we
have here wheels within wheels. Gadolinium is not an element but a compound. .
. We have shown that yttrium is a complex of five or more new constituents. And
who shall venture to gainsay that each of these constituents, if attacked in
some different manner, and if the result were submitted to a test more delicate
and searching than the radiant-matter test, might not be still further
divisible? Where, then, is the actual ultimate element? As we advance it recedes
like the tantalizing mirage lakes and groves seen by the tired and thirsty
traveller in the desert. Are we in our quest for truth to be thus deluded and
baulked? The very idea of an element, as something absolutely primary and
ultimate, seems to be growing less and less distinct. . ." (p. 16).
On
page 429 of Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., we said that "the mystery of first
creation, which was ever the despair of Science, is unfathomable unless they
(the Scientists) accept the doctrine of Hermes. They will have to follow in the
footsteps of the Hermetists." Our prophecy begins to assert itself.
But
between Hermes and Huxley there is a middle course and point. Let the men of
Science only throw a bridge half-way, and think seriously over the theories of
Leibnitz. We have shown our theories with regard to atomic evolution -- their
last formation into compound chemical molecules being produced within our
terrestrial workshops in the earth's atmosphere and not elsewhere -- as
strangely agreeing with the evolution of atoms shown on Mr. Crookes' plates.
Several times already it was stated in this volume that Martanda (the Sun) had
evolved and aggregated, together with his smaller seven Brothers, from his
Mother's (Aditi's) bosom, that bosom being prima MATER-ia -- the lecturer's
primordial protyle. Esoteric doctrines teach the existence of "an
antecedent form of energy having periodic cycles of ebb and swell, rest and
activity" (p. 21) -- and behold a great scholar in Science now asking the
world to accept this as one of the postulates. We have shown the
"Mother," fiery and hot, becoming gradually cool and radiant, and
that same Scientist claims as his second postulate, a scientific necessity, it
would seem -- "an internal action akin to cooling, operating slowly in the
protyle." Occult Science teaches that "Mother" lies stretched in
infinity (during Pralaya) as the great Deep, the "dry Waters of
Space," according to the quaint expression in the Catechism, and becomes
wet
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[[Vol.
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only
after the separation and the moving over its face of Narayana, the "Spirit
which is invisible Flame, which never burns, but sets on fire all that it
touches, and gives it life and generation."* And now Science tells us that
"the first-born element . . . most nearly allied to protyle" . . .
would be "hydrogen . . . which for some time would be the only existing
form of matter" in the Universe. What says Old Science? It answers: just so;
but we would call hydrogen and oxygen (which instils the fire of life into the
"Mother" by incubation) in the pregenetic and even pre-geological
ages -- the Spirit, the noumenon of that which becomes in its grossest form
oxygen and hydrogen and nitrogen on Earth -- nitrogen being of no divine
origin, but merely an earth-born cement to unite other gases and fluids, and
serve as a sponge to carry in itself the breath of LIFE -- pure air.** Before
these gases and fluids become what they are in our atmosphere, they are
interstellar Ether; still earlier and on a deeper plane -- something else, and
so on in infinitum. The eminent and learned gentleman must pardon an Occultist
for quoting him at such length; but such is the penalty of a Fellow of the
Royal Society who approaches so near the precincts of the Sacred Adytum of
Occult mysteries as virtually to overstep the forbidden boundaries.
But
it is time to leave modern physical science and turn to the psychological and
metaphysical side of the question. We would only remark that to the "two
very reasonable postulates" required by the eminent lecturer, "to get
a glimpse of some few of the secrets so darkly hidden" behind "the
door of the Unknown" -- a third should be added*** -- lest no battering at
it should avail; the postulate that Leibnitz, in his speculations, stood on a
firm groundwork of fact and truth. The admirable and thoughtful synopsis of
these speculations -- as given by John Theodore Merz in his
"Leibnitz" -- shows how nearly he has brushed the hidden secrets of
esoteric Theogony in his Monadologie. And yet that philosopher has hardly risen
in his speculations above the first planes, the lower principles of the Cosmic
Great Body. His theory soars to no loftier heights than those of the manifested
life, self-consciousness and intelligence, leaving the regions of the earlier
post-genetic mysteries untouched, as his ethereal fluid is post-planetary.
But
this third postulate will hardly be accepted by the modern men
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Lord is a consuming fire." . . . "In him was life, and the
life was the light of men."
**
Which if separated ALCHEMICALLY would yield the Spirit of Life, and its Elixir.
***
Foremost of all, the postulate that there is no such thing in Nature as
inorganic substances or bodies. Stones, minerals, rocks, and even chemical
"atoms" are simply organic units in profound lethargy. Their coma has
an end and their inertia becomes activity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
Science; and, like Descartes, they will prefer keeping to the properties of
external things, which, like extension, are incapable of explaining the
phenomenon of motion, rather than accept the latter as an independent Force.
They will never become anti-Cartesian in this generation; nor will they admit
that "this property of inertia is not a purely geometrical property, that
it points to the existence of something in external bodies which is not
extension merely." This is Leibnitz's idea as analyzed by Mertz, who adds
that he called this something Force, and maintained that external things were
endowed with Force, and that in order to be the bearers of this force they must
have a substance, for they are not lifeless and inert masses, but the centres
and bearers of form, a purely esoteric claim, since force was with Leibnitz an
active principle, the division between mind and matter disappearing by this
conclusion. But --
"The
mathematical and dynamical inquiries of Leibnitz would not have led to the same
result in the mind of a purely scientific inquirer. But Leibnitz was not a
scientific man in the modern sense of the word. Had he been so, he might have
worked out the conception of energy, defined mathematically the ideas of force
and mechanical work, and arrived at the conclusion that even for purely
scientific purposes it is desirable to look upon force, not as a primary
quantity, but as a quantity derived from some other value."
But,
luckily for truth --
"Leibnitz
was a philosopher; and as such he had certain primary principles, which biassed
him in favour of certain conclusions, and his discovery that external things
were substances endowed with force was at once used for the purpose of applying
these principles. One of these principles was the law of continuity, the
conviction that all the world was connected, that there were no gaps and chasms
which could not be bridged over. The contrast of extended thinking substances was
unbearable to him. The definition of the extended substances had already become
untenable: it was natural that a similar inquiry was made into the definition
of mind, the thinking substance. . ."
The
divisions made by Leibnitz, however incomplete and faulty from the standpoint
of Occultism, show a spirit of metaphysical intuition to which no man of
science, not Descartes -- not even Kant -- has ever reached. With him there
existed ever an infinite gradation of thought. Only a small portion of the contents
of our thoughts, he said, rises into the clearness of apperception, "into
the light of perfect consciousness." Many remain in a confused or obscure
state, in the state of "perceptions;" but they are there; . . .
Descartes denied soul to the animal, Leibnitz endowed, as the Occultists do,
"the whole creation with mental life, this being, according to him,
capable of infinite gradations." And
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[[Vol.
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this,
as Mertz justly observes, "at once widened the realm of mental life,
destroying the contrast of animate and inanimate matter; it did yet more -- it
reacted on the conception of matter, of the extended substance. For it became
evident that external or material things presented the property of extension to
our senses only, not to our thinking faculties. The mathematician, in order to
calculate geometrical figures, had been obliged to divide them into an infinite
number of infinitely small parts, and the physicist saw no limit to the
divisibility of matter into atoms. The bulk through which external things
seemed to fill space was a property which they acquired only through the
coarseness of our senses. . . . Leibnitz followed these arguments to some extent,
but he could not rest content in assuming that matter was composed of a finite
number of very small parts. His mathematical mind forced him to carry out the
argument in infinitum. And what became of the atoms then? They lost their
extension and they retained only their property of resistance; they were the
centres of force. They were reduced to mathematical points . . . but if their
extension in space was nothing, so much fuller was their inner life. Assuming
that inner existence, such as that of the human mind, is a new dimension, not a
geometrical but a metaphysical dimension . . . having reduced the geometrical
extension of the atoms to nothing, Leibnitz endowed them with an infinite
extension in the direction of their metaphysical dimension. After having lost
sight of them in the world of space, the mind has, as it were, to dive into a
metaphysical world to find and grasp the real essence of what appears in space
merely as a mathematical point. . . . As a cone stands on its point, or a
perpendicular straight line cuts a horizontal plane only in one mathematical
point, but may extend infinitely in height and depth, so the essences of things
real have only a punctual existence in this physical world of space; but have
an infinite depth of inner life in the metaphysical world of thought . . .
" (p. 144).
This
is the spirit, the very root of occult doctrine and thought. The
"Spirit-Matter" and "Matter-Spirit" extend infinitely in
depth, and like "the essence of things" of Leibnitz, our essence of
things real is at the seventh depth; while the unreal and gross matter of
Science and the external world, is at the lowest end of our perceptive senses.
The Occultist knows the worth or worthlessness of the latter.
The
student must now be shown the fundamental distinction between the system of
Leibnitz* and that of occult philosophy, on the question of the Monads, and
this may be done with his Monadology before us. It may be correctly stated that
were Leibnitz' and Spinoza's systems
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The real spelling of the name -- as spelt by himself -- is Leibniz. He was of
Slavonian descent though a German by birth.
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[[Vol.
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reconciled,
the essence and Spirit of esoteric philosophy would be made to appear. From the
shock of the two -- as opposed to the Cartesian system -- emerge the truths of
the Archaic doctrine. Both opposed the metaphysics of Descartes. His idea of
the contrast of two substances -- Extension and Thought -- radically differing
from each other and mutually irreducible, was too arbitrary and too
unphilosophical for them. Thus Leibnitz made of the two Cartesian substances
two attributes of one universal unity, in which he saw God. Spinoza recognised
but one universal indivisible substance and absolute ALL, like Parabrahmam.
Leibnitz, on the contrary perceived the existence of a plurality of substances.
There was but ONE for Spinoza; for Leibnitz an infinitude of Beings, from, and
in, the One. Hence, though both admitted but one real Entity, while Spinoza
made it impersonal and indivisible, Leibnitz divided his personal Deity into a
number of divine and semi-divine Beings. Spinoza was a subjective, Leibnitz an
objective Pantheist, yet both were great philosophers in their intuitive
perceptions.
Now,
if these two teachings were blended together and each corrected by the other,
-- and foremost of all the One Reality weeded of its personality -- there would
remain as sum total a true spirit of esoteric philosophy in them; the
impersonal, attributeless, absolute divine essence which is no
"Being," but the root of all being. Draw a deep line in your thought
between that ever-incognizable essence, and the, as invisible, yet
comprehensible Presence (Mulaprakriti), or Schekinah, from beyond and through
which vibrates the Sound of the Verbum, and from which evolve the numberless
hierarchies of intelligent Egos, of conscious as of semi-conscious, perceptive
and apperceptive Beings, whose essence is spiritual Force, whose Substance is
the Elements and whose Bodies (when needed) are the atoms -- and our doctrine
is there. For, says Leibnitz, "the primitive Element of every material
body being Force, which has none of the characteristics of (objective) matter
-- it can be conceived but can never be the object of any imaginative
representation." That which was for him the primordial and ultimate
element in every body and object was thus not the material atoms, or molecules,
necessarily more or less extended, as those of Epicurus and Gassendi, but, as
Mertz shows, immaterial and metaphysical atoms, 'mathematical points'; or real
souls, -- as explained by Henri Lachelier (Professeur agrege de Philosophie),
his French biographer. "That which exists outside of us in an absolute
manner, are Souls whose essence is force," (Monadologie, Introd.).
Thus,
reality in the manifested world is composed of a unity of units, so to say, immaterial
(from our stand-point) and infinite. This Leibnitz calls "Monads,"
Eastern philosophy "Jivas" -- and Occultism gives it, with the
Kabalists and all the Christians, a variety of names.
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[[Vol.
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They
are with us, as with Leibnitz -- "the expression of the universe,"*
and every physical point is but the phenomenal expression of the noumenal,
metaphysical point. His distinction between perception and apperception, is the
philosophical though dim expression of the Esoteric teachings. His
"reduced universes," of which "there are as many as there are
Monads" -- is the chaotic representation of our Septenary System with its
divisions and sub-divisions.
As
to the relation his Monads bear to our Dhyan-Chohans, Cosmic Spirits, Devas and
Elementals, we may reproduce briefly the opinion of a learned and thoughtful
theosophist, Mr. H. A. Bjerregaard, on the subject. In an excellent paper
"On the Elementals, the Elementary Spirits, and the relationship between
them and Human Beings," read by him before the "Aryan Theosophical
Society of New York" (see PATH, Nos. 10 and 11, of Jan. and Feb. 1887),
Mr. Bjerregaard formulates distinctly his opinion. . . . . "To Spinoza,
substance is dead and inactive, but to Leibnitz's penetrating mind everything
is living activity and active energy. In holding this view, he comes infinitely
nearer the Orient than any other thinker of his day, or after him. His
discovery that an active energy forms the essence of Substance is a principle
that places him in direct relationship to the Seers of the East."
And
the lecturer proceeds to show that to Leibnitz atoms and elements are centres
of force, or rather "spiritual beings whose very nature is to act,"
for the elementary particles are not acting mechanically, but from an internal
principle. They are incorporeal spiritual units ("substantial,"
however, but not immaterial in our sense) inaccessible to all changes from
without, and indestructible by any external force. Leibnitz's monads, adds the
lecturer, "differ from atoms in the following particulars, which are very
important for us to remember, otherwise we shall not be able to see the
difference between elementals and mere matter." . . . . "Atoms are
not distinguished from each other, they are qualitatively alike; but one monad
differs from every other monad qualitatively; and every one is a peculiar world
to itself. Not so with atoms; they are absolutely alike quantitatively and qualitatively,
and possess no individuality of their own.** Again, the atoms (molecules,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Leibnitz's Dynamism," says Professor Lachelier, "would offer
but little difficulty if, with him, the Monad had remained a simple atom of
blind force. But . . . ." One perfectly understands the perplexity of
modern materialism!
**
Leibnitz was an absolute Idealist in maintaining that "material atoms are
contrary to reason" (Systeme nouveau, Erdmann, p. 126. col. 2). For him
matter was a simple representation of the monad, whether human or atomic.
Monads, he thought (as we do), are everywhere. Thus the human soul is a monad,
and every cell in the human body has its monad, as every cell in animal, vegetable,
and even in the (so-called) inorganic bodies. His atoms are the molecules of
modern Science, and his monads those simple [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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rather)
of materialistic philosophy can be considered as extended and divisible, while
the monads are mere mathematical points and indivisible. Finally, and this is a
point where these monads of Leibnitz closely resemble the elementals of mystic
philosophy -- these monads are representative Beings. Every monad reflects
every other. Every monad is a living mirror of the Universe within its own
sphere. And mark this, for upon it depends the power possessed by these monads,
and upon this depends the work they can do for us; in mirroring the world, the
monads are not mere passive reflective agents, but spontaneously self-active;
they produce the images spontaneously, as the soul does a dream. In every
monad, therefore, the adept may read everything, even the future. Every monad
or Elemental is a looking-glass that can speak. . ."
It
is at this point that Leibnitz's philosophy breaks down. There is no provision
made, nor any distinction established, between the "Elemental" monad
and that of a high Planetary Spirit, or even the human monad or Soul. He even
goes so far as to sometimes doubt whether "God has ever made anything but
Monads or substances without extension." (Examen des Principes du P.
Malebranche.) He draws a distinction between Monads and Atoms,* because, as he
repeatedly states, "bodies with all their qualities are only phenomenal,
like the rainbow. . . . Corpora omnia cum omnibus qualitatibus suis non sunt
aliud quam phenomena bene fundata, ut Iris" (Letter to Father Desbosses,
Correspondence, letter xviii.) -- but soon after he finds a provision for this
in a substantial correspondence, a certain metaphysical bond between the monads
-- vinculum substantiale. Esoteric philosophy, teaching an objective Idealism
-- though it regards the objective Universe and all in it as Maya, temporary
illusion -- draws a practical distinction between collective illusion,
Mahamaya, from the purely metaphysical stand-point, and the objective relations
in it between various conscious Egos so long as this illusion lasts. The adept,
therefore, may read the future in an Elemental Monad, but he has to draw for
this object a great number of them, as each monad represents only a portion of
the Kingdom it belongs to. "It is not in the object, but in the modification
of the cognition of the object that the Monads are limited. They all go
confusedly to the infinite, to the all, but they are all limited and
distinguished by the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] atoms that materialistic Science takes on faith,
though it will never succeed in interviewing them -- except in imagination. But
Leibnitz is rather contradictory in his views about Monads. He speaks of his
Metaphysical Points and Formal Atoms, at one time as realities, occupying
space; at another as pure Spiritual ideas; then again endows them with
objectivity and aggregates and positions in their co-relations.
*
The atoms of Leibnitz have, in truth, nothing but the name in common with the
atoms of the Greek Materialists, or even the molecules of modern Science. He
calls them formal atoms, and compares them to the substantial forms of
Aristotle. (See Systeme Nouveau, § 3.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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degrees
of distinct perceptions." (§ 60, Monadologie.)* And as Leibnitz explains,
"All the portions of the Universe are distinctly represented in the
Monads, but some are reflected in one monad, some in another;" but a
number of monads could represent simultaneously the thoughts of the two
millions of inhabitants of Paris.
But
what say the Occult Sciences to this, and what do they add?
They
say that what is called collectively Monads by Leibnitz -- roughly viewed, and
leaving every subdivision out of calculation, for the present** -- may be
separated into three distinct Hosts, which, counted from the highest planes,
are, firstly, "gods," or conscious, spiritual Egos; the intelligent
architects, who work after the plan in the Divine Mind. Then come the
Elementals, or Monads, who form collectively and unconsciously the grand
Universal Mirrors of everything connected with their respective realms. Lastly,
the atoms, or material molecules, which are informed in their turn by their
apperceptive monads, just as every cell in a human body is so informed. (See
the closing pages of Book I.) There are shoals of such informed atoms which, in
their turn, inform the molecules; an infinitude of monads, or Elementals
proper, and countless spiritual Forces -- Monadless, for they are pure
incorporealities,*** except under certain laws, when they assume a form -- not
necessarily human. Whence the substance that clothes them -- the apparent
organism they evolve around their centres? The Formless ("Arupa")
Radiations, existing in the harmony of Universal Will, and being what we term
the collective or the aggregate of Cosmic Will on the plane of the subjective
Universe, unite together an infinitude of monads -- each the mirror of its own
Universe -- and thus individualize
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Leibnitz, like Aristotle, calls the created or emanated monads (the Elementals issued
from Cosmic Spirits or Gods) -- Entelechies, [[Entelecheia]] -- and
"incorporeal automata." (§ 18, Monadologie.)
**
These three "rough divisions" correspond to spirit, mind (or soul),
and body, in the human constitution.
***
Brother C. H. A. Bjerregaard, in his lecture (already mentioned), warns his
audience not to regard the Sephiroth too much as individualities, but to avoid
at the same time seeing in them abstractions. "We shall never arrive at
the truth," he says, "much less the power of associating with those
celestials, until we return to the simplicity and fearlessness of the primitive
ages, when men mixed freely with the gods, and the gods descended among men and
guided them in truth and holiness" (No. 10, Path) . . . . "There are
several designations for 'angels' in the Bible which clearly show that beings
like the Elementals of the Kabala and the monads of Leibnitz, must be
understood by that term rather than that which is commonly understood. They are
called 'morning stars,' 'flaming fires,' 'the mighty ones,' and St. Paul sees
them in his cosmogonic vision as 'Principalities and Powers.' Such names as
these preclude the idea of personality, and we find ourselves compelled to
think of them as impersonal Existences . . . as an influence, a spiritual
substance, or conscious Force." (Path, No. 11, p. 322.)
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[[Vol.
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for
the time being an independent mind, omniscient and universal; and by the same
process of magnetic aggregation they create for themselves objective, visible
bodies, out of the interstellar atoms. For atoms and Monads, associated or
dissociated, simple or complex, are, from the moment of the first
differentiation, but the principles, corporeal, psychic and Spiritual, of the
"Gods," -- themselves the Radiations of primordial nature. Thus, to
the eye of the Seer, the higher Planetary Powers appear under two aspects: the
subjective -- as influences, and the objective -- as mystic FORMS, which, under
Karmic law, become a Presence, Spirit and Matter being One, as repeatedly
stated. Spirit is matter on the seventh plane; matter is Spirit -- on the
lowest point of its cyclic activity; and both -- are MAYA.
Atoms
are called "Vibrations" in Occultism; also "Sound" --
collectively. This does not interfere with Mr. Tyndall's scientific discovery.
He traced, on the lower rung of the ladder of monadic being, the whole course
of the atmospheric vibrations -- and this constitutes the objective part of the
process in nature. He has traced and recorded the rapidity of their motion and
transmission; the force of their impact; their setting up vibrations in the
tympanum and their transmission of these to the stolithes, etc., etc., till the
vibration of the auditory nerve commences -- and a new phenomenon now takes
place: the subjective side of the process or the sensation of Sound. Does he
perceive or see it? No; for his speciality is to discover the behaviour of
matter. But why should not a psychic see it, a spiritual seer, whose inner Eye
is opened, and who can see through the veil of matter? The waves and
undulations of Science are all produced by atoms propelling their molecules
into activity from within. Atoms fill the immensity of Space, and by their
continuous vibration are that MOTION which keeps the wheels of Life perpetually
going. It is that inner work that produces the natural phenomena called the
correlation of Forces. Only, at the origin of every such "force,"
there stands the conscious guiding noumenon thereof -- Angel or God, Spirit or
Demon -- ruling powers, yet the same.
As
described by Seers -- those who can see the motion of the interstellar shoals,
and follow them in their evolution clairvoyantly -- they are dazzling, like
specks of virgin snow in radiant sunlight. Their velocity is swifter than
thought, quicker than any mortal physical eye could follow, and, as well as can
be judged from the tremendous rapidity of their course, the motion is circular.
. . . . Standing on an open plain, on a mountain summit especially, and gazing
into the vast vault above and the spacial infinitudes around, the whole
atmosphere seems ablaze with them, the air soaked through with these dazzling
coruscations. At times, the intensity of their motion produces flashes
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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like
the Northern lights during the Aurora Borealis. The sight is so marvellous, that,
as the Seer gazes into this inner world, and feels the scintillating points
shoot past him, he is filled with awe at the thought of other, still greater
mysteries, that lie beyond, and within, this radiant ocean. . . . .
However
imperfect and incomplete this explanation on "Gods, Monads and
Atoms," it is hoped that some students and theosophists, at least, will
feel that there may be indeed a close relation between materialistic Science,
and Occultism, which is the complement and missing soul of the former.
-------
XVI.
CYCLIC
EVOLUTION AND KARMA.
IT
is the Spiritual evolution of the inner, immortal man that forms the
fundamental tenet in the Occult Sciences. To realize even distantly such a
process, the student has to believe (a) in the ONE Universal Life, independent
of matter (or what Science regards as matter); and (b) in the individual
intelligences that animate the various manifestations of this Principle. Mr.
Huxley does not believe in "Vital Force," others do. Dr. J. H.
Hutchinson Sterling's work "Concerning Protoplasm" has made no small
havoc of this dogmatic negation. Professor Beale's decision is also in favour
of a Vital Principle; and Dr. B. W. Richardson's lectures on the "Nervous
Ether," have been sufficiently quoted from. Thus, opinions are divided.
The
ONE LIFE is closely related to the one law which governs the World of Being --
KARMA. Exoterically, this is simply and literally "action," or rather
an "effect-producing cause." Esoterically it is quite a different
thing in its far-fetching moral effects. It is the unerring LAW OF RETRIBUTION.
To say to those ignorant of the real significance, characteristics and awful
importance of this eternal immutable law, that no theological definition of a
personal deity can give an idea of this impersonal, yet ever present and active
Principle, is to speak in vain. Nor can it be called Providence. For
Providence, with the Theists (the Christian Protestants, at any rate), rejoices
in a personal male gender, while with the Roman Catholics it is a female
potency, "Divine Providence tempers His blessings to secure their better
effects," Wogan tells us. Indeed "He" tempers them, which Karma
-- a sexless principle -- does not.
Throughout
the first two Parts, it was shown that, at the first flutter
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[[Vol.
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of
renascent life, Svabhavat, "the mutable radiance of the Immutable Darkness
unconscious in Eternity," passes, at every new rebirth of Kosmos, from an
inactive state into one of intense activity; that it differentiates, and then
begins its work through that differentiation. This work is KARMA.
The
Cycles are also subservient to the effects produced by this activity. "The
one 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 . . . . follow, one the right, the other the left path, separate
till the end of the Kalpa, and yet are in close embrace. What unites them?
KARMA." The atoms emanated from the Central Point emanate in their turn
new centres of energy, which, under the potential breath of Fohat, begin their
work from within without, and multiply other minor centres. These, in the
course of evolution and involution, form in their turn the roots or developing
causes of new effects, from worlds and "man-bearing" globes, down to
the genera, species, and classes of all the seven kingdoms* (of which we know
only four). For "the blessed workers have received the Thyan-kam, in the
eternity" (Book of "The Aphorisms of Tson-ka-pa").
"Thyan-kam"
is the power or knowledge of guiding the impulses of cosmic energy in the right
direction.
The
true Buddhist, recognising no "personal god," nor any
"Father" and "Creator of Heaven and Earth," still believes
in an absolute consciousness, "Adi-Buddhi"; and the Buddhist
philosopher knows that there are Planetary Spirits, the "Dhyan Chohans."
But though he admits of "spiritual lives," yet, as they are temporary
in eternity, even they, according to his philosophy, are "the maya of the
day," the illusion of a "day of Brahma," a short manvantara of
4,320,000,000 years. The "Yin-Sin" is not for the speculations of
men, for the Lord Buddha has strongly prohibited all such inquiry. If the Dhyan
Chohans and all the invisible Beings -- the Seven Centres and their direct
Emanations, the minor centres of Energy -- are the direct reflex of the ONE Light,
yet men are far removed from these, since the whole of the visible Kosmos
consists of "self-produced beings, the creatures of Karma." Thus
regarding a personal God "as only a gigantic shadow thrown upon the void
of space by the imagination of ignorant men,"** they teach that only
"two things are (objectively) eternal, namely Akasa and Nirvana"; and
that these are ONE in reality, and but a maya when divided. "Buddhists
deny creation and cannot conceive of a Creator." "Everything has come
out of Akasa (or Svabhavat
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide Stanza VI. (Book I.) and Commentary.
**
Buddhist Catechism, by H. S. Olcott, President of the Theosophical Society.
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[[Vol.
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on
our earth) in obedience to a law of motion inherent in it, and after a certain
existence passes away. Nothing ever came out of nothing." (Buddhist
Catechism.)
If
a Vedantic Brahmin of the Adwaita Sect, when asked whether he believes in the
existence of God, is always likely to answer, as Jacolliot was answered --
"I am myself 'God';" a Buddhist (a Sinhalese especially) would simply
laugh, and say in reply, "There is no God; no Creation." Yet the root
philosophy of both Adwaita and Buddhist scholars is identical, and both have
the same respect for animal life, for both believe that every creature on
earth, however small and humble, "is an immortal portion of the immortal
matter" -- for matter with them has quite another significance than it has
with either Christian or materialist -- and that every creature is subject to
Karma.
The
answer of the Brahmin is one which would suggest itself to every ancient
philosopher, Kabalist, and Gnostic of the early days. It contains the very
spirit of the Delphic and Kabalistic commandments, for esoteric philosophy
solved, ages ago, the problem of what man was, is, and will be; of man's
origin, life-cycle -- interminable in its duration of successive incarnations
or rebirths -- and finally of his absorption into the source from which he
started.
But
it is not physical Science that we can ever ask to read man for us, as the
riddle of the Past, or that of the Future; since no philosopher is able to tell
us even what man is, as he is known both to physiology and psychology. In doubt
whether man was "a god or beast," he is now connected with the latter
and derived from an animal. No doubt that the care of analyzing and classifying
the human being as a terrestrial animal may be left to Science, which
occultists -- of all men -- regard with veneration and respect. They recognize
its ground and the wonderful work done by it, the progress achieved in
physiology, and even -- to a degree -- in biology. But man's inner, spiritual,
psychic, or even moral, nature cannot be left to the tender mercies of an
ingrained materialism; for not even the higher psychological philosophy of the
West is able, in its present incompleteness and tendency towards a decided
agnosticism, to do justice to the inner; especially to his higher capacities
and perceptions, and those states of consciousness, across the road to which
such authorities as Mill draw a strong line, saying "So far, and no
farther shalt thou go."
No
Occultist would deny that man -- no less than the elephant and the microbe, the
crocodile and the lizard, the blade of grass or the crystal -- is, in his
physical formation, the simple product of the evolutionary forces of nature
through a numberless series of transformations; but he puts the case
differently.
It
is not against zoological and anthropological discoveries, based on
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[[Vol.
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the
fossils of man and animal, that every mystic and believer in a divine soul
inwardly revolts, but only against the uncalled-for conclusions built on
preconceived theories and made to fit in with certain prejudices. Their
premises may or may not be always true; and as some of these theories live but
a short life, the deductions therefrom must ever be one-sided with
materialistic evolutionists. Yet it is on the strength of such very ephemeral
authority, that most of the men of science frequently receive undue honours
where they deserve them the least.*
To
make the working of Karma, in the periodical renovations of the Universe, more
evident and intelligible to the student when he arrives at the origin and
evolution of man, he has now to examine with us the esoteric bearing of the
Karmic Cycles upon Universal Ethics. The question is, do those mysterious
divisions of time, called Yugas and Kalpas by the Hindus, and so very
graphically -- [[Kuklos]] -- "cycle," ring or circle, by the Greeks,
have any bearing upon, or any direct connection with, human life? Even exoteric
philosophy explains that these perpetual circles of time are ever returning on
themselves, periodically, and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We refer those who would regard the statement as an impertinence or irreverence
against accepted Science, to Mr. James Hutchinson Stirling's work concerning
"Protoplasm," which is a defence of a vital Principle versus the
Molecularists -- Huxley, Tyndall, Vogt, and Co. -- and request them to examine
whether it is true or not to say that the scientific premises may not be always
correct, but that they are accepted, nevertheless, to fill up a gap or a hole
in some beloved materialistic hobby. Speaking of protoplasm and the organs of
man, as "viewed by Mr. Huxley," the author says: "Probably then,
in regard to any continuity in protoplasm of power, of form, or of substance,
we have seen lacunae enow. Nay, Mr. Huxley himself can be adduced in evidence
on the same side. Not rarely do we find in his essay admissions of PROBABILITY,
where it is CERTAINTY that is alone in place. He says, for example: 'It is more
than probable that when the vegetable world is thoroughly explored we shall
find all plants in possession of the same powers.' When a conclusion is
decidedly announced, it is rather disappointing to be told, as here, that the
premisses are still to collect' (!!) . . . . . Again, here is a passage in
which he is seen to cut his own 'basis' from beneath his own feet. After
telling us that all forms of protoplasm consist of carbon, hydrogen, oxygen and
nitrogen 'in very complex union,' he continues: 'To this complex combination,
the nature of which has never been determined with exactness (!!), the name of
protein has been applied.' This, plainly, is an identification, on Mr. Huxley's
own part, of protoplasm and protein; and what is said of one, being necessarily
true of the other, it follows that he admits the nature of protoplasm never to
have been determined with exactness, and that even in his eyes the lis is still
sub judice. This admission is strengthened by the words, too, 'If we use this
term -- protein -- with such caution as may properly arise out of our
comparative ignorance of the things for which it stands . . . etc., etc. (p. 33
and 34, in reply to Mr. Huxley in "Yeast").
This
is the eminent Huxley, the king of physiology and biology, who is proven
playing at blind man's buff with premisses and facts. What may not the
"smaller fry" of science do after this!
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[[Vol.
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intelligently
in Space and Eternity. There are "Cycles of matter"* and there are
"Cycles of Spiritual evolution." Racial, national, and individual
cycles. May not esoteric speculation allow us a still deeper insight into the
workings of these?
This
idea is beautifully expressed in a very clever scientific work:--
"The
possibility of rising to a comprehension of a system of co-ordination so far
outreaching in time and space all reach of human observations, is a
circumstance which signalizes the power of man to transcend the limitations of
changing and inconsistent matter, and assert his superiority over all unstable and
perishable forms of being. There is a method in the succession of events, and
in the relation of co-existent things, which the mind of man seizes hold of;
and by means of this as a clue, he runs back or forward over aeons of material
history of which human experience can never testify. Events germinate and
unfold. They have a past which is connected with their present, and we feel a
well-justified confidence that a future is appointed which will be similarly
connected with the present and the past. This continuity and unity of history
repeat themselves before our eyes in all conceivable stages of progress. The
phenomena furnish us the grounds for the generalization of two laws which are
truly principles of scientific divination, by which alone the human mind
penetrates the sealed records of the past and the unopened pages of the future.
The first of these is the law of evolution, or, to phrase it for our purpose,
the law of correlated successiveness or organized history in the individual,
illustrated in the changing phases of every single maturing system of results.
. . . These thoughts summon into our immediate presence the measureless past
and the measureless future of material history. They seem almost to open vistas
through infinity, and to endow the human intellect with an existence and a
vision exempt from the limitations of time and space and finite causation, and
lift it up toward a sublime apprehension of the Supreme Intelligence whose
dwelling place is Eternity." ("World-Life," p. 535 and 548.)
According
to the teachings, Maya, or the illusive appearance of the marshalling of events
and actions on this earth, changes, varying with nations and places. But the
chief features of one's life are always in accordance with the
"Constellation" one is born under, or, we should say, with the
characteristics of its animating principle or the deity that presides over it,
whether we call it a Dhyan Chohan, as in Asia, or an Archangel, as with the
Greek and Latin churches. In ancient Symbolism it was always the SUN (though
the Spiritual, not the visible, Sun was meant), that was supposed to send forth
the chief Saviours and Avatars. Hence the connecting link between the Buddhas,
the Avatars, and so many other incarnations of the highest SEVEN. The closer
the approach to one's Prototype, "in Heaven," the better for the
mortal whose personality was chosen, by his own personal deity (the seventh
principle), as its terrestrial abode. For, with every effort of will toward
purification and unity
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Cycles of Matter," a name given by Professor Winchell to an
Essay of his written in 1860.
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[[Vol.
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with
that "Self-god," one of the lower rays breaks and the spiritual
entity of man is drawn higher and ever higher to the ray that supersedes the
first, until, from ray to ray, the inner man is drawn into the one and highest
beam of the Parent-SUN. Thus, "the events of humanity do run coordinately
with the number forms," since the single units of that humanity proceed
one and all from the same source -- the central and its shadow, the visible
SUN. For the equinoxes and solstices, the periods and various phases of the
Solar course, astronomically and numerically expressed, are only the concrete
symbols of the eternally living verity, though they do seem abstract ideas to
uninitiated mortals. And this explains the extraordinary numerical coincidences
with geometrical relations, as shown by several authors.
Yes;
"our destiny is written in the stars!" Only, the closer the union
between the mortal reflection MAN and his celestial PROTOTYPE, the less
dangerous the external conditions and subsequent reincarnations -- which
neither Buddhas nor Christs can escape. This is not superstition, least of all
is it Fatalism. The latter implies a blind course of some still blinder power,
and man is a free agent during his stay on earth. He cannot escape his ruling
Destiny, but he has the choice of two paths that lead him in that direction,
and he can reach the goal of misery -- if such is decreed to him, either in the
snowy white robes of the Martyr, or in the soiled garments of a volunteer in
the iniquitous course; for, there are external and internal conditions which
affect the determination of our will upon our actions, and it is in our power
to follow either of the two. Those who believe in Karma have to believe in
destiny, which, from birth to death, every man is weaving thread by thread
around himself, as a spider does his cobweb; and this destiny is guided either
by the heavenly voice of the invisible prototype outside of us, or by our more
intimate astral, or inner man, who is but too often the evil genius of the embodied
entity called man. Both these lead on the outward man, but one of them must
prevail; and from the very beginning of the invisible affray the stern and
implacable law of compensation steps in and takes its course, faithfully
following the fluctuations. When the last strand is woven, and man is seemingly
enwrapped in the net-work of his own doing, then he finds himself completely
under the empire of this self-made destiny. It then either fixes him like the
inert shell against the immovable rock, or carries him away like a feather in a
whirlwind raised by his own actions, and this is -- KARMA.
A
materialist, treating upon the periodical creations of our globe, has expressed
it in one sentence. "The whole past of the Earth is nothing but an
unfolded present." This was Buchner, who little suspected that he was
repeating an axiom of the Occultists. It is quite true also, as Burmeister
(quoted in "Force and matter") remarks, that
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[[Vol.
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"the
historical investigation of the development of the Earth has proved that now
and then rest upon the same base; that the past has been developed in the same manner
as the present rolls on; and that the Forces which were in action ever remained
the same."
The
"Forces" -- their noumena rather -- are the same, of course;
therefore, the phenomenal Forces must be the same also. But how can any one
feel so sure that the attributes of matter have not altered under the hand of
Protean Evolution? How can any materialist assert with such confidence, as is
done by Rossmassler, that "this eternal conformity in the essence of
phenomena renders it certain that fire and water possessed at all times the
same powers and ever will possess them?" Who are they "that darken
counsel with words without knowledge," and where were the Huxleys and
Buchners when the foundations of the earth were laid by the great Law? It is a
fundamental principle of the Occult philosophy, this same homogeneity of matter
and immutability of natural laws, which are so much insisted upon by
materialism; but that unity rests upon the inseparability of Spirit from
matter, and, if the two are once divorced, the whole Kosmos would fall back
into chaos and non-being. Therefore, it is absolutely false, and but an
additional demonstration of the great conceit of our age, to assert (as men of
science do) that all the great geological changes and terrible convulsions have
been produced by ordinary and known physical forces. For these forces were but
the tools and final means for the accomplishment of certain purposes, acting
periodically, and apparently mechanically, through an inward impulse mixed up
with, but beyond their material nature. There is a purpose in every important
act of Nature, whose acts are all cyclic and periodical. But spiritual Forces
having been usually confused with the purely physical, the former are denied
by, and therefore, have to remain unknown to Science, because left unexamined.*
"The
history of the World begins with its general aim," says Hegel; "the
realization of the Idea of Spirit -- only in an implicit form (an sich), that
is, as Nature; a hidden, most profoundly hidden unconscious instinct, and the
whole process of History . . . is directed to rendering this unconscious
impulse a conscious one. Thus appearing in the form of merely natural
existence, natural will -- that which has been called the subjective side --
physical craving, instinct, passion, private interest, as also opinion and
subjective conception -- spontaneously present themselves at the very
commencement. This vast congeries of volitions, interests and activities
constitute the instruments and means of the WORLD
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Men of science will say: We deny, because nothing of the kind has ever come
within the scope of our experience. But, as argued by Charles Richet, the
physiologist: "So be it, but have you at least demonstrated the contrary?
. . . Do not, at any rate, deny a priori. Actual Science is not sufficiently
advanced to give you such right." ("La suggestion mentale et le
calcul des probabilites.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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SPIRIT
for attaining its object; bringing it to consciousness and realising it. And
this aim is none other than finding itself -- coming to itself -- and
contemplating itself in concrete actuality. But that those manifestations of
vitality on the part of individuals and peoples, in which they seek and satisfy
their own purposes, are at the same time the means and instruments of a higher
power, of a higher and broader purpose of which they know nothing -- which they
realise unconsciously -- might be made a matter of question; rather has been
questioned . . . on this point I announced my view at the very outset, and
asserted our hypothesis . . . and our belief that Reason governs the World and
has consequently governed its history. In relation to this independently
universal and substantial existence -- all else is subordinate, subservient to
it, and the means for its development."*
No
metaphysician or theosophist could demur to these truths, which are all
embodied in esoteric teachings. There is a predestination in the geological
life of our globe, as in the history, past and future, of races and nations.
This is closely connected with what we call Karma and Western Pantheists,
"Nemesis" and "Cycles." The law of evolution is now
carrying us along the ascending arc of our cycle, when the effects will be once
more re-merged into, and re-become the (now neutralized) causes, and all things
affected by the former will have regained their original harmony. This will be
the cycle of our special "Round," a moment in the duration of the
great cycle, or the Mahayuga.
The
fine philosophical remarks of Hegel are found to have their application in the
teachings of Occult Science, which shows nature ever acting with a given
purpose, whose results are always dual. This was stated in our first Occult
volumes, in Isis Unveiled, p. 268, Vol. II., in the following words:--
As
our planet revolves once every year around the sun, and at the same time turns
once in every twenty-four hours upon its own axis, thus traversing minor
circles within a larger one, so is the work of the smaller cyclic periods
accomplished and recommenced, within the Great Saros.
The
revolution of the physical world, according to the ancient doctrine, is
attended by a like revolution in the world of intellect -- the spiritual
evolution of the world proceeding in cycles, like the physical one.
Thus
we see in history a regular alternation of ebb and flow in the tide of human
progress. The great kingdoms and empires of the world, after reaching the
culmination of their greatness, descend again, in accordance with the same law
by which they ascended; till, having reached the lowest point, humanity
reasserts itself and mounts up once more, the height of its attainment being,
by this law of ascending progression by cycles, somewhat higher than the point
from which it had before descended.
But
these cycles -- wheels within wheels, so comprehensively and ingeniously
symbolized by the various Manus and Rishis in India, and by the Kabiri in the
West** -- do not affect all mankind at one and the same
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"On World History" in "Philosophy of History," p. 26.
(Sibree's Eng. Transl.).
**
This symbolism does not prevent these now seemingly mythic personages from
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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time
-- as explained in the Racial division of Cycles (See sub-section 6.) Hence, as
we see, the difficulty of comprehending, and discriminating between them, with
regard to their physical and spiritual effects, without having thoroughly
mastered their relations with, and action upon the respective positions of
nations and races, in their destiny and evolution. This system cannot be
comprehended if the spiritual action of these periods -- pre-ordained, so to
say, by Karmic law --is separated from their physical course. The calculations
of the best astrologers would fail, or at any rate remain imperfect, unless
this dual action is thoroughly taken into consideration and dealt with upon
these lines. And this mastery can be achieved only through INITIATION.
The
Grand Cycle includes the progress of mankind from the appearance of primordial
man of ethereal form. It runs through the inner cycles of his (man's)
progressive evolution from the ethereal down to the semi-ethereal and purely
physical: down to the redemption of man from his coat of skin and matter, after
which it continues running its course downward and then upward again, to meet
at the culmination of a Round, when the manvantaric "Serpent swallows its
tail" and seven minor cycles are passed. These are the great Racial Cycles
which affect equally all the nations and tribes included in that special Race;
but there are minor and national as well as tribal cycles within those, which
run independently of each other. They are called in the Eastern esotericism the
Karmic cycles. In the West, since Pagan Wisdom has been repudiated as having
grown from and been developed by the dark powers supposed to be at constant war
and in opposition to the little tribal Jehovah -- the full and awful
significance of the Greek NEMESIS (or Karma) has been entirely forgotten.
Otherwise Christians would have better realized the profound truth that Nemesis
is without attributes; that while the dreaded goddess is absolute and immutable
as a Principle, it is we ourselves -- nations and individuals -- who propel her
to action and give the impulse to its direction. KARMA-NEMESIS is the creator
of nations and mortals, but once created, it is they who make of her either a
fury or a rewarding Angel. Yea --
"Wise
are they who worship Nemesis"*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] having ruled the earth once upon a time under
the human form of actual living, though truly divine and god-like man. The
opinion of Colonel Vallancey (and also of Count de Gobelin) that the names of
the Kabiri appear to be all allegorical, and to have signified no more (?) than
an almanac of the vicissitudes of the seasons -- calculated for the operations
of agriculture" (Collect. de Reb. Hibern., No. 13, Praef. Sect. 5) is as
absurd as his assertion that OEon, Kronos, Saturn and Dagon are all one,
namely, the "patriarch Adam." The Kabiri were the instructors of
mankind in agriculture, because they were the regents over the seasons and
Cosmic cycles. Hence it was they who regulated, as planetary Spirits or
"Angels" (messengers), the mysteries of the art of agriculture.
*
Who dread Karma-Nemesis would be better.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 643 KARMA-NEMESIS.
--
as the chorus tells Prometheus. And as unwise they, who believe that the
goddess may be propitiated by whatever sacrifices and prayers, or have her
wheel diverted from the path it has once taken. "The triform Fates and
ever mindful Furies" are her attributes only on earth, and begotten by
ourselves. There is no return from the paths she cycles over; yet those paths
are of our own making, for it is we, collectively or individually, who prepare
them. Karma-Nemesis is the synonym of PROVIDENCE, minus design, goodness, and
every other finite attribute and qualification, so unphilosophically attributed
to the latter. An Occultist or a philosopher will not speak of the goodness or
cruelty of Providence; but, identifying it with Karma-Nemesis, he will teach
that nevertheless it guards the good and watches over them in this, as in
future lives; and that it punishes the evil-doer -- aye, even to his seventh
rebirth. So long, in short, as the effect of his having thrown into
perturbation even the smallest atom in the Infinite World of harmony, has not
been finally readjusted. For the only decree of Karma -- an eternal and
immutable decree -- is absolute Harmony in the world of matter as it is in the
world of Spirit. It is not, therefore, Karma that rewards or punishes, but it
is we, who reward or punish ourselves according to whether we work with,
through and along with nature, abiding by the laws on which that Harmony
depends, or -- break them.
Nor
would the ways of Karma be inscrutable were men to work in union and harmony,
instead of disunion and strife. For our ignorance of those ways -- which one
portion of mankind calls the ways of Providence, dark and intricate; while
another sees in them the action of blind Fatalism; and a third, simple chance,
with neither gods nor devils to guide them -- would surely disappear, if we
would but attribute all these to their correct cause. With right knowledge, or
at any rate with a confident conviction that our neighbours will no more work
to hurt us than we would think of harming them, the two-thirds of the World's
evil would vanish into thin air. Were no man to hurt his brother, Karma-Nemesis
would have neither cause to work for, nor weapons to act through. It is the
constant presence in our midst of every element of strife and opposition, and
the division of races, nations, tribes, societies and individuals into Cains
and Abels, wolves and lambs, that is the chief cause of the "ways of
Providence." We cut these numerous windings in our destinies daily with
our own hands, while we imagine that we are pursuing a track on the royal high
road of respectability and duty, and then complain of those ways being so
intricate and so dark. We stand bewildered before the mystery of our own
making, and the riddles of life that we will not solve, and then accuse the
great Sphinx of devouring us. But verily there is not an accident in our lives,
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[[Vol.
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not
a misshapen day, or a misfortune, that could not be traced back to our own
doings in this or in another life. If one breaks the laws of Harmony, or, as a
theosophical writer expresses it, "the laws of life," one must be
prepared to fall into the chaos one has oneself produced. For, according to the
same writer, "the only conclusion one can come to is that these laws of
life are their own avengers; and consequently that every avenging Angel is only
a typified representation of their re-action."
Therefore,
if any one is helpless before these immutable laws, it is not ourselves, the
artificers of our destinies, but rather those angels, the guardians of harmony.
Karma-Nemesis is no more than the (spiritual) dynamical effect of causes
produced and forces awakened into activity by our own actions. It is a law of
occult dynamics that "a given amount of energy expended on the spiritual
or astral plane is productive of far greater results than the same amount
expended on the physical objective plane of existence."
This
state will last till man's spiritual intuitions are fully opened, which will
not happen before we fairly cast off our thick coats of matter; until we begin
acting from within, instead of ever following impulses from without; namely,
those produced by our physical senses and gross selfish body. Until then the
only palliative to the evils of life is union and harmony -- a Brotherhood IN
ACTU, and altruism not simply in name. The suppression of one single bad cause
will suppress not one, but a variety of bad effects. And if a Brotherhood or
even a number of Brotherhoods may not be able to prevent nations from
occasionally cutting each other's throats -- still unity in thought and action,
and philosophical research into the mysteries of being, will always prevent
some, while trying to comprehend that which has hitherto remained to them a
riddle, from creating additional causes in a world already so full of woe and
evil. Knowledge of Karma gives the conviction that if --
".
. . . virtue in distress, and vice in triumph
Make
atheists of mankind,"*
it
is only because that mankind has ever shut its eyes to the great truth that man
is himself his own saviour as his own destroyer. That he need not accuse Heaven
and the gods, Fates and Providence, of the apparent injustice that reigns in
the midst of humanity. But let him rather remember and repeat this bit of
Grecian wisdom, which warns man to forbear accusing That which --
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Just,
though mysterious, leads us on unerring
Through
ways unmark'd from guilt to punishment . . ."
--
which are now the ways and the high road on which move onward the great
European nations. The Western Aryans had, every nation
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Dryden.
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[[Vol.
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and
tribe, like their Eastern brethren of the Fifth Race, their Golden and their
Iron ages, their period of comparative irresponsibility, or the Satya age of
purity, while now, several of them have reached their Iron Age, the Kali-Yuga,
an age BLACK WITH HORRORS. . . . .
It
is true, on the other hand, that the exoteric cycles of every nation have been
correctly made to be derived from, and depend on, sidereal motions. The latter
are inseparably blended with the destinies of nations and men. But in their
purely physical sense, Europe knows of no other cycles than the astronomical,
and makes its computations accordingly. Nor will it hear of any other than
imaginary circles or circuits in the starry heavens that gird them --
"With
centric and eccentric scribbled o'er
Cycle
and epicycle, orb in orb . . ."
But
with the pagans, with whom, as Coleridge has it -- ". . . . . Time, cyclical
time, was their abstraction of the Deity . ." that "Deity"
manifesting co-ordinately with, and only through Karma, and being that
KARMA-NEMESIS itself, the cycles meant something more than a mere succession of
events, or a periodical space of time of more or less prolonged duration. For
they were generally marked with recurrences of a more varied and intellectual
character than are exhibited in the periodical return of seasons or of certain
constellations. Modern wisdom is satisfied with astronomical computations and
prophecies based on unerring mathematical laws. Ancient Wisdom added to the
cold shell of astronomy the vivifying elements of its soul and spirit --
ASTROLOGY. And, as the sidereal motions do regulate and determine other events
on Earth -- besides potatoes and the periodical disease of that useful
vegetable -- (a statement which, not being amenable to scientific explanation,
is merely derided, while accepted) -- those events have to be allowed to find
themselves predetermined by even simple astronomical computations. Believers in
astrology will understand our meaning, sceptics will laugh at the belief and
mock the idea. Thus they shut their eyes, ostrich-like, to their own fate. . .
. . . .*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Not all, however, for there are men of Science awakening to truth. This is what
we read: "Whatever way we turn our eyes we encounter a mystery . . . . all
in Nature for us is the unknown. . . Yet they are numerous, those superficial minds
for whom nothing can be produced by natural forces outside of facts observed
long ago, consecrated in books and grouped more or less skilfully with the help
of theories whose ephemeral duration ought, by this time, to have demonstrated
their insufficiency, . . . . I do not pretend to contest the possibility of
invisible Beings, of a nature different from ours and susceptible of moving
matter to action. Profound philosophers have admitted it in all epochs as a
consequence of the great law of continuity which rules the Universe. That
intellectual life, which we see starting in some way from non-being (neant) and
gradually reaching man, can it stop abruptly at man to reappear only in the
infinite, in the sovereign regulator of the world? This is little probable."
Therefore . . "I [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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This
because their little historical period, so called, allows them no margin for
comparison. Sidereal heaven is before them; and though their spiritual vision
is still unopened and the atmospheric dust of terrestrial origin seals their
sight and chains it to the limits of physical systems, still they do not fail
to perceive the movements and note the behaviour of meteors and comets. They
record the periodical advents of those wanderers and "flaming
messengers," and prophesy, in consequence, earthquakes, meteoric showers,
the apparition of certain stars, comets, etc., etc. Are they soothsayers for
all that? No, they are learned astronomers.
Why,
then, should occultists and astrologers, as learned, be disbelieved, when they
prophesy the return of some cyclic event on the same mathematical principle?
Why should the claim that they know it be ridiculed? Their forefathers and
predecessors, having recorded the recurrence of such events in their time and
day, throughout a period embracing hundreds of thousands of years, the
conjunction of the same constellations must necessarily produce, if not quite
the same, at any rate, similar effects. Are the prophecies derided, because of
the claim of the hundreds of thousands of years of observation, and the
millions of years of the human races? In its turn modern Science is laughed at
for its far more modest geological and anthropological figures, by those who
hold to Biblical chronology. Thus Karma adjusts even human laughter at the
mutual expense of sects, learned societies, and individuals. Yet in the
prognostication of such future events, at any rate, all foretold on the
authority of cyclic recurrences, there is no psychic phenomenon involved. It is
neither prevision, nor prophecy; no more than is the signalling of a comet or
star, several years before its appearance. It is simply knowledge and mathematically
correct computations which enable the WISE MEN OF THE EAST to foretell, for
instance, that England is on the eve of such or another catastrophe; France,
nearing such a point of her cycle, and Europe in general threatened with, or
rather, on the eve of, a cataclysm, which her own cycle of racial Karma has led
her to. The reliability of the information depends, of course, on the
acceptation or rejection of the claim for a tremendous period of historical
observation. Eastern Initiates maintain that they have preserved records of the
racial development and of events of universal import ever since the beginning
of the Fourth Race -- that which preceded being traditional. Moreover, those
who believe in Seership and Occult
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] no more deny the existence of Spirits than I
deny soul while trying to explain certain facts without their hypothesis . .
." "The Non-Defined Forces," Historical and Experimental
Researches, p. 3. The above is written by A. de Rochas, a well-known man of
science in France, his work being one of the signs of the time. (Paris: Masson,
Boulevard St. Germain, 1887.)
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[[Vol.
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powers
will have no difficulty in crediting the general character, at least, of the
information given, even if traditional, once the latter is checked and
corrected by the corroboration of clairvoyance and esoteric knowledge. But in
the present case no such metaphysical belief is claimed as our chief
dependence, but a proof is given on what, to every Occultist, is quite
scientific evidence -- the records preserved through the Zodiac for
incalculable ages.
It
is now amply proved that even horoscopes and judiciary astrology are not quite
based on a fiction, and that stars and constellations, consequently, have an
occult and mysterious influence on, and connection with, individuals. And if
with the latter, why not with nations, races, and mankind in bulk? This, again,
is a claim made on the authority of the Zodiacal records. We shall examine
then, if you please, how far the Zodiac was known to the ancients, and how far
it is forgotten by the moderns.
-------
XVII.
"THE
ZODIAC AND ITS ANTIQUITY."
"ALL
men are apt to have a high conceit of their own understanding, and to be
tenacious of the opinions they profess," said Jordan, justly adding to
this -- "and yet almost all men are guided by the understandings of others,
not by their own; and may be said more truly to adopt, than to beget, their
opinions."
This
becomes doubly true in the matter of scientific opinions upon hypotheses
offered for consideration -- the prejudice and preconceptions of
"authorities," so called, often deciding upon questions of the most
vital importance for history. There are several such predetermined opinions
among our learned Orientalists, yet few are more unjust or illogical than the
general error with regard to the antiquity of the Zodiac. Thanks to the hobby
of some German Orientalists, English and American Sanskritists have accepted
Professor Weber's opinion that the peoples of India had no idea or knowledge of
the Zodiac prior to the Macedonian invasion, and that it is from the Greeks
that the ancient Hindus imported it into their country. We are further told, by
several other "authorities," that no Eastern nation knew of the
Zodiac before the Hellenes kindly acquainted their neighbours with their
invention. This, in the face of the Book of Job, declared, even by themselves,
to be the oldest in the Hebrew canon, certainly prior to Moses, and which
speaks of the making "of Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades (Ash, Kesil, and
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[[Vol.
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Cimah)
and the chambers of the South" (ix. 9); of Scorpio and the Mazzaroths --
the TWELVE SIGNS (xxxviii., 31, 32), which words, if they mean anything, imply
knowledge of the Zodiac even among the nomadic Arabic tribes. The Book of Job,
they say, precedes Homer and Hesiod by at least one thousand years -- the two
Greek poets having themselves flourished some eight centuries before the
Christian era (!!). One who prefers, by the bye, to believe Plato, who shows
Homer flourishing far earlier, could point to a number of Zodiacal signs
mentioned in the Iliad and the Odyssey, in the Orphic poems, and elsewhere. But
since the cock-and-bull hypothesis of some modern critics to the effect that
neither Orpheus, nor yet Homer and Hesiod, ever existed, it would seem time
lost to mention these Archaic authors at all. The Arabian Job will suffice;
unless, indeed, his volume of lamentations, along with the poems of the two
Greeks, adding to them those of Linus, should now be also declared to be the
patriotic forgery of the Jew Aristobulus. But if the Zodiac was known in the
days of Job, how could the civilized and philosophical Hindus have remained
ignorant of it?
Risking
the arrows of modern criticism -- rather blunted by misuse -- the reader may be
made acquainted with Bailly's learned opinion upon the subject. Inferred
speculations may be shown to be erroneous. Mathematical calculations stand on
more secure grounds. Taking as a starting point several astronomical references
in Job, Bailly devised a very ingenious means of proving that the earliest
founders of the science of the Zodiac belonged to an antediluvian, primitive
people. The fact that he seems willing to see in Thoth, Seth, and in Fohi (of
China), some of the Biblical patriarchs, does not interfere with the validity
of his proof as to the antiquity of the Zodiac.* Even accepting, for argument's
sake, his cautious 3700 years B.C. as the correct age of the science, this date
proves in the most irrefutable way that it was not the Greeks who invented the
Zodiac, for the simple reason that they did not yet exist as a nation
thirty-seven centuries B.C. -- not as an historical race admitted by the
critics, at any rate. Bailly then calculated the period at which the constellations
manifested the atmospheric influence called by Job "sweet influences of
the Pleiades"** (in Hebrew, Chimah, see Job xxxviii. 31); of the Cesil
(Orion); and that of the desert rains with reference to Scorpio, the eighth
constellation; and found that in presence the eternal conformity of those
divisions of the zodiac and names of the planets applied in the same order
everywhere and always; and in presence of the impossibility of attributing it
all to chance and coincidence,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Astronomie Antique.
**
The Pleiades, as all know, are the seven stars beyond the Bull, which appear at
the beginning of spring. They have a very occult meaning in the Hindu esoteric
philosophy, and are connected with sound and other mystic principles in Nature.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"which
never creates such similarities," there must be allowed for the zodiac a
great antiquity indeed. (See Astronomie Antique, pp. 63 to 74.)
Again,
if the Bible is supposed to be an authority on any matter (and there are some
who still believe so, whether from Christian or Kabalistical considerations),
then the zodiac is clearly mentioned in II Kings, xxiii. 5. Before the
"book of the law" was "found" by Hilkiah, the high priest
(xxii.), the signs of the zodiac were known and worshipped. They were held in
the same adoration as the sun and moon, since the "priests, whom the kings
of Judah had ordained to burn incense . . . unto Baal, to the sun, moon, and to
the planets, and to all the host of heaven," or the twelve signs or
constellations, as the marginal note in the English Bible explains (see II.
Kings xxiii. 5), had followed the injunction for centuries. They were stopped
in their idolatry only by King Josiah, 624 years B.C.
The
Old Testament is full of allusions to the twelve zodiacal signs, and the whole
scheme is built upon it -- heroes, personages, and events. Thus in the dream of
Joseph, who saw eleven "stars" bowing to the twelfth, which was his
"star," the zodiac is meant. The Roman Catholics have discovered in
it, moreover, a prophecy of Christ, who is that twelfth star, they say, and the
eleven apostles; the absence of the twelfth being also regarded as a prophetic
allusion to the treachery of Judas. The twelve sons of Jacob are again a
reference to the same, as justly pointed out by Villapandus (Temple de
Jerusalem, Vol. II., p. 2nd part, chap. xxx). Sir James Malcolm, in his History
of Persia (ch. vii.), shows the Dabistan echoing all such traditions about the
Zodiac. He traces the invention of it to the palmy days of the golden age of
Iran, remarking that one of the said traditions maintains that the genii of the
planets are represented under the same shapes and figures they had assumed,
when they showed themselves to several holy prophets, and have thus led to the
establishment of the rites based on the Zodiac.
Pythagoras,
and after him Philo Judaeus, held the number 12 as very sacred. "The
dodecahedron is a PERFECT number." It is the one among the signs of the
Zodiac, Philo adds, that the sun visits in twelve months, and it is to honour
that sign that Moses divided his nation into twelve tribes, established the
twelve cakes (Levit. xxiv., 5) of the shewbread, and placed twelve precious
stones around the ephod of the pontiffs. (See De Profugis.)
According
to Seneca, Berosus taught prophecy of every future event and cataclysm by the
Zodiac; and the time fixed by him for the conflagration of the world (pralaya),
and another for a deluge, is found to answer to the time given in an ancient
Egyptian papyrus. It comes at every renewal of the cycle of the sidereal year
of 25,868 years. The names of the Akkadian months were called by, and derived
from, the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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names
of the signs of the Zodiac, and the Akkadians themselves are far earlier than
the Chaldaeans. Mr. Proctor shows, in his Myths and Marvels of Astronomy, that
the ancient astronomers had acquired a system of the most accurate astronomy
2,400 years B.C.; the Hindus date their Kali Yug from a great periodical conjunction
of the planets thirty-one centuries B.C.; and, withal, it is the Greeks
belonging to the expedition of Alexander the Great, who were the instructors of
the Aryan Hindus in astronomy!
Whether
the origin of the Zodiac is Aryan or Egyptian, it is still of an immense
antiquity. Simplicius (VIth cent. A.D.) writes that he had always heard that
the Egyptians had kept astronomical observations and records for the last
630,000 years. This statement appears to frighten Mr. G. Massey, who remarks on
this in his Natural Genesis (318) that "if we read this number of years by
the month which Euxodus said the Egyptians termed a year, that would still
yield the length of two cycles of precession (or 51,736 years)." Diogenes
Laertius carried back the astronomical calculations of the Egyptians to 48,863
years before Alexander the Great (Proem, 2). Martianus Capella corroborates the
same by telling posterity that the Egyptians had secretly studied astronomy for
over 40,000 years, before they imparted their knowledge to the world (Astronomy
of the Ancients, Lewis, p. 264).
Several
valuable quotations are made in the Natural Genesis with the view of supporting
the author's theories, but they justify the teaching of the Secret Doctrine far
more. For instance, Plutarch is quoted from his Life of Sulla, saying:
"One day when the sky was serene . . . a sound was heard in it . . . of a
trumpet, so loud, shrill and mournful, that it affrighted . . . the world. The
Tuscan sages said that it portended a new race of men, and a renovation of the
world; for they affirmed that there were eight several kinds of men, all being
different in life and manners, and that Heaven had allotted each its time,
which was limited by the circuit of the great year" (25,868 years).
This
reminds one strongly of our seven races of men, and of the eighth -- the
"animal man" -- descended from the later Third Race; as also of the
successive submersions and destruction of the continents which finally disposed
of almost the entire bulk of that race.
"The
Assyrians," says Iamblichus, "have not only preserved the memorials
of seven and twenty myriads of years (270,000 years) as Hipparchus says they
have, but likewise of the whole apocatastases and periods of the seven rulers
of the world." (Proclus, in Timaeus, b. I.) This is the calculation of the
Esoteric Doctrine, as approximately as it can be. For 1,000,000 of years are
allowed for our present Root-race (the Fifth), and about 850,000 years since
the submersion of the last large island (part of the Continent), the Ruta of
the Fourth Race, or the Atlanteans;
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[[Vol.
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while
Daitya, a small island inhabited by a mixed race, was destroyed about 270,000
years ago, during the glacial period or thereabouts (vide Book II.). But the
Seven Rulers, or the seven great Dynasties of the divine kings belong to the
traditions of every great people of antiquity. Wherever twelve are mentioned,
these are invariably the 12 signs of the zodiac.
So
patent is the fact, that the Roman Catholic writers -- especially among the
French Ultramontanes -- have tacitly agreed to connect the twelve Jewish
Patriarchs with the signs of the Zodiac. This is done in a kind of prophetico-mystic
way, which would sound to pious and ignorant ears like a portentous sign, a
tacit divine recognition of the "chosen people of God," whose finger
has purposely traced in heaven, from the beginning of creation, the numbers of
these patriarchs. For instance, these writers (De Mirville among others)
recognise curiously enough all the characteristics of the 12 signs of the
Zodiac, in the words addressed by the dying Jacob to his Sons, and in his
definitions of the future of each Tribe. (Vide Genesis, ch. xlix.) Moreover,
the respective banners of the same tribes are claimed to have exhibited the
same symbols and the same names as the signs, repeated in the 12 stones of the
Urim and Thummim, and on the 12 wings of the cherub. Leaving the proof of
exactitude in the alleged correspondence to the said mystics, it is as follows:
Man, or the Aquarius, is in the sphere of Reuben, who is declared as
"unstable as water" (the Vulgate has it, to be "rushing like
water,"; Gemini, in the strong fraternal association of Simeon and Levi;
Leo, in that of Judah, "the strong Lion" of his tribe, "the
lion's whelp"; the Pisces, in Zabulon, who "shall dwell at the haven
of the sea"; Taurus, in Issachar, because he is "a strong ass couching
down," etc., and therefore associated with the stables; Virgo-Scorpio, in
Dan, who is described as "a serpent, an adder in the path that
biteth," etc.; Capricornus in Naphtali, who is "a hind (a deer) let
loose"; Cancer, in Benjamin, for he is "ravenous"; Libra, the
"Balance," in Asher, whose "bread shall be fat";
Saggitarius in Joseph, because "his bow abode in strength." To make
up for the twelfth sign, Virgo, made independent of Scorpio, is Dina, the only
daughter of Jacob. (See Genesis xlix.) Tradition shows the alleged tribes carrying
the 12 signs on their banners. But the Bible is, besides these, full of
theo-cosmological and astronomical symbols and personifications.
It
remains to wonder, and query -- if the actual, living Patriarch's destiny was
so indissolubly wound up with the Zodiac -- how it is that after the loss of
the ten tribes, ten signs out of the twelve have not also miraculously
disappeared from the sidereal fields? But this is of no great concern. Let us
rather busy ourselves with the history of the Zodiac itself.
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[[Vol.
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Now
the reader may be reminded of some opinions expressed on the subject by several
of the highest authorities in Science.
Newton
believed the invention of the Zodiac could be traced as far back as the
expedition of the Argonauts; and Dulaure fixed its origin at 6,500 years B.C.,
just 2,496 years before the creation of the World according to the Bible
chronology.
Creuzer
believes it very easy to show that most of the theogonies are intimately
connected with religious calendars, and point to the Zodiac as their prime
origin -- if not identical with the Zodiac known to us now, then something very
analogous to it. He feels certain that the Zodiac and its mystic relations are
at the bottom of all the mythologies, under one form or the other, and that it
had existed in the old form for ages before; owing to some singular
co-ordination of events, it was brought out in the present defined astronomical
garb. (Creuzer, Book III., page 930.)
Whether
"the genii of the planets" (our Dhyan Chohans of supra-mundane
spheres) showed themselves to "holy prophets" or not, as claimed in
the Dabistan, it would seem that great laymen and warriors were favoured in the
same way in days of old, when astrological magic and theophania went hand in
hand in Chaldea. For Xenophon, no ordinary man, narrates of Cyrus, that at the
moment of his death that king was giving ardent thanks to gods and heroes, for
having so often instructed him themselves about the signs in heaven, [[ev
ouraniois semeiois]] (Cyropedie, "Ant. du Zodiaque.")
Unless
the science of the zodiac is supposed to be of the highest antiquity and
universality, how account for its signs being traced in the oldest theogonies?
Laplace is said to have felt struck with amazement at the idea of the days of
Mercury (Wednesday), Venus (Friday), Jupiter (Thursday), Saturn (Saturday), and
others being related to the days of the week in the same order and with the
same names in India as in Northern Europe. "Try, if you can, with the
present system of autochthonous civilizations, so much in fashion in our day,
to explain how nations with no ancestry, no traditions or birthplace in common,
could have succeeded in inventing a kind of celestial phantasmagoria, a
veritable imbroglio of sidereal denominations, without sequence or object,
having no figurative relation with the constellations they represent, and still
less, apparently, with the phases of our terrestrial life they are made to
signify," had there not been a general intention and a universal cause and
belief, at the root of all this? (Pneumatologie, Vol. IV., p. 61.) Most truly
has Dupuis asserted the same: "Il est impossible de decouvrir le moindre
trait de ressemblance entre les parties du ciel et les figures que les
astronomes y ont arbitrairement tracees, et de l'autre cote; le hazard est
impossible," he says. (Origine des Cultes, "Zodiaque.")
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[[Vol.
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Most
certainly chance is "impossible." There is no "chance" in
Nature, wherein everything is mathematically co-ordinate and mutually related
in its units. "Chance," says Coleridge, "is but the pseudonym of
God (or Nature), for those particular cases which He does not choose to
subscribe openly with His sign manual." Replace the word "God"
by that of Karma and it will become an Eastern axiom. Therefore, the sidereal
"prophecies" of the zodiac, as they are called by Christian mystics,
never point to any one particular event, however solemn and sacred it may be
for some one portion of humanity, but to ever-recurrent, periodical laws in
nature, understood but by the Initiates of the sidereal gods themselves.
No
occultist, no astrologer of Eastern birth, will ever agree with Christian
mystics, or even with Kepler's mystical astronomy, his great science and
erudition notwithstanding; simply because, if his premises are quite correct,
his deductions therefrom are one-sided and biassed by Christian preconceptions.
Where the latter finds a prophecy directly pointing at the Saviour, other
nations see a symbol of an eternal law decreed for the actual manvantara. Why
see in the Pisces a direct reference to Christ -- one of the several
world-reformers, a Saviour but for his direct followers, but only a great and
glorious Initiate for all the rest -- when that constellation shines as a
symbol of all the past, present, and future Spiritual Saviours who dispense
light and dispel mental darkness? Christian symbologists have tried to prove
that it was that of Ephraim (Joseph's son), the elect of Jacob, that therefore,
it was at the moment of the Sun entering into the sign of the Fish (Pisces)
that "the Elect Messiah, the [[Ichthus]] of the first Christians, had to
be born. But, if Jesus of Nazareth was that Messiah -- was he really born at
that "moment," or was he made to be so born by the adaptation of
theologians, who sought only to make their preconceived ideas fit in with sidereal
facts and popular belief? Everyone knows that the real time and year of the
birth of Jesus are totally unknown. And it is the Jews, whose forefathers have
made the word Dag signify both "fish" and "Messiah," who,
during the forced development of their rabbinical language, are the first to
deny this Christian claim. And what of the further facts that Brahmins also
connect their "Messiah," the eternal Avatar Vishnu, with a fish and
the Deluge, and that the Babylonians made of their Dag-On, equally a fish and a
Messiah, the Man-Fish and Prophet?
There
are those learned iconoclasts among Egyptologists, who say that "when the
Pharisees sought a 'sign from heaven' Jesus said, 'there shall no sign be given
but the sign of Jonas' (Mat. xvi. 4). . . . . The sign of Jonas is that of the
Oan or fishman of Nineveh. . . . . Assuredly there was no other sign than that
of the Sun reborn in Pisces. The
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[[Vol.
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voice
of the Secret Wisdom says those who are looking for signs can have no other
than that of the returning fish-man Ichthys, Oannes, or Jonas -- who could not
be made flesh."
It
would appear that Kepler maintained it as a positive fact that, at the moment
of the "incarnation," all the planets were in conjunction in the sign
of Pisces, called by the Jews (the Kabalists) the "constellation of the
Messiah." "It is in this constellation," he averred, "that
was placed the star of the Magi." This statement, quoted by Dr. Sepp (Vie
de notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, Vol. I. p. 9), emboldened him to remark that
"all the Jewish traditions while announcing that star, that many nations
have seen,"(!)* added that "it would absorb the seventy planets that
preside over the destinies of various nations on this globe."** "In
virtue of those natural prophecies," explains Dr. Sepp, "it was
written in the stars of the firmament that the Messiah would be born in the
lunar year of the world 4320, in that memorable year when the entire choir of
the planets would be feasting its jubilee."
There
was indeed a rage, at the beginning of the present century, for claiming from
the Hindus restoration of an alleged robbery from the Jews of their
"gods," patriarchs, and chronology. It was Wilford who had recognized
Noah in Prithee and in Satyavrata, Enos in Dhruva, and even Assur in Iswara.
Yet, after being residents for so many years in India, some Orientalists, at
least, ought to have known that it was not the Hindus alone who had these figures,
or who had divided their great age into four minor ages. Nevertheless writers
in the Asiatic Researches indulged in the most extravagant speculations.
"Christian
theologians think it their duty to write against the long periods of Hindu
chronology," argues very pertinently S. A. Mackey, the Norwich
"philosopher, astronomer, and shoemaker." "But when a man of
learning crucifies the names and numbers of the ancients, and wrings and twists
them into a form which means something quite foreign to the intention of the
ancient authors; but which, so mutilated, fits in with the birth of some maggot
pre-existing in his own brain with so much exactness that he pretends to be
amazed at the discovery, I cannot think him quite so pardonable" (Key of
Urania).
This
is intended to apply to Captain (later Colonel) Wilford, but the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whether many nations have seen that identical star, or not, we all know that
the sepulchres of "the three Magi," who rejoice in the quite Teutonic
names of Kaspar and Melchior, Balthazar being the only exception, and the two
having little of the Chaldean ring in them -- are shown by the priests in the
famous cathedral of Cologne, where the Magian bodies are not only supposed, but
firmly believed to have been buried.
**
This tradition about the seventy planets that preside over the destinies of
nations, is based on the occult cosmogonical teaching that besides our own
septenary chain of world-planets, there are many more in the solar system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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words
may fit more than one of our modern Orientalists. The former was the first to
crown his unlucky speculations in Hindu chronology and the Puranas by
connecting the 4,320,000 years with biblical chronology, simply dwarfing the
figures to 4,320 years (the supposed lunar year of the Nativity), and Dr. Sepp
has simply plagiarized the idea from this gallant officer. Moreover, he
persisted in seeing in them Jewish property, as well as a Christian prophecy,
thus accusing the Aryans of having helped themselves to Semitic revelation,
whereas it was the reverse. The Jews, moreover, need not be accused of
despoiling the Hindus, of whose figures Ezra probably knew nothing. They had
evidently and undeniably borrowed them from the Chaldeans, along with their
gods. Of the 432,000 years of the Chaldean divine Dynasties* they made 4,320
lunar years from the world's creation to the Christian era; as to the
Babylonian and Egyptian Gods, they transformed them as quietly and modestly
into Patriarchs. Every nation was more or less guilty of such refashioning and
adaptation of a Pantheon (common once to all) of universal, into national, tribal
gods and Heroes. It was their property in its new Pentateuchal garb, and no one
of the Israelites has ever forced it upon any other nation -- least of all upon
Europeans.
Without
stopping to notice this very unscientific chronology more than is necessary, we
may make a few remarks that may be found to the point. These figures of 4,320
lunar years of the world (in the Bible the solar years are used) are not
fanciful, as such, even if their application is quite erroneous; for they are
only the distorted echo of the primitive esoteric, and later on Brahminical
doctrine concerning the Yugas. A "Day" of Brahma equals 4,320,000,000
years, as also a "Night" of Brahma, or the duration of Pralaya, after
which a new SUN rises trium-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Every scholar is aware, of course, that the Chaldeans claimed the same figures
(432) or (432,000) for their divine dynasties as the Hindus do for their
Mahayuga, namely, 4,320,000. Therefore has Dr. Sepp, of Munich, undertaken to
support Kepler and Wilford in their charge that the Hindus had borrowed them
from the Christians, and the Chaldeans from the Jews, who, as claimed, expected
their Messiah in the lunar year of the world 4,320!!! As these figures,
according to ancient writers, were based by Berosus on the 120 Saroses -- each
of the divisions meaning six neroses of 600 years each, making a sum total of
432,000 years -- they do not thus appear peremptory. But the pious professor of
Munich undertook to explain them in the correct way. He claims to have solved
the riddle by showing that "the saros being composed according to Pliny of
222 synodial months, to wit, 18 years 6/10," the calculator naturally fell
back into the figures "given by Suidas," who affirmed that the 120
saroses made 2,222 sacerdotal and cyclic years, which equalled 1,656 solar
years." (Vie de Notre Seigneur Jesus Christ, Vol. II., p. 417.)
Suidas
said nothing of the kind, and, if he had, he would prove little, if anything,
by it. The neroses and saroses were the same thorn in the side of uninitiated
ancient writers, as the apocalyptic 666 of the "great Beast" is in
that of the modern, and they have found their unlucky Newtons as the latter
figures have.
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[[Vol.
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phantly
over a new manvantara, for the septenary chain it illuminates. The teaching had
penetrated into Palestine and Europe centuries before the Christian era (see
Isis Unveiled II. 132), and was present in the minds of the Mosaic Jews, who
based upon it their small cycle, though it received full expression only
through the Christian chronologers of the Bible, who adopted it, as also the
25th of December, the day on which all the solar gods were said to have been
incarnated. What wonder, then, that the Messiah was made to be born "the
lunar year of the world 4,320?" The "Son of Righteousness and
Salvation" had once more arisen and had dispelled pralayic darkness of chaos
and non-being on the plane of our objective little globe and chain. Once the
subject of the adoration was settled upon, it was easy to make the supposed
events of his birth, life, and death, fit in with the Zodiacal exigencies and
old traditions, though they had to be somewhat remodelled for the occasion.
Thus
what Kepler said, as a great astronomer, becomes comprehensible. He recognised
the grand and universal importance of all such planetary conjunctions,
"each of which" -- as he has well said -- "is a climacteric year
of Humanity."* The rare conjunction of Saturn, Jupiter, and Mars has its
significance and importance on account of its certain great results -- in India
and China as much as it has in Europe for the respective mystics of all those
countries. And it is certainly no better now than a mere assumption to maintain
that nature had only Christ in view, when building her (to the profane)
fantastic and meaningless constellations. If it is claimed that it was no
hazard that could lead the archaic architects of the Zodiac, thousands of years
ago, to mark with the asterisk (a) the figure of Taurus, with no better or more
valid proof of it being prophetic of the Verbum or Christ than that the aleph
of Taurus means "the ONE" and the FIRST, and that Christ was also the
alpha or the ONE, then this "proof" may be shown strangely
invalidated in more than one way. To begin with, the Zodiac existed before the
Christian era, at all events; further, all the Sun-gods had been mystically
connected with that constellation (Taurus) -- Osiris, for instance -- and were
all called by their respective votaries "the First." Then the
compilers of the mystical epithets given to the Christian Saviour, were all
more or less acquainted with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The reader has to bear in mind that the phrase "climacteric year" has
more than the usual significance, when used by Occultists and Mystics. It is
not only a critical period, during which some great change is periodically
expected, whether in human or cosmic constitution, but it likewise pertains to
spiritual universal changes. The Europeans called every 63rd year "the
grand climacteric," and perhaps justly supposed those years to be the
years produced by multiplying 7 into the odd numbers 3, 5, 7 and 9. But seven
is the real scale of nature, in Occultism, and 7 has to be multiplied in quite
a different way and method, unknown as yet to European nations.
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[[Vol.
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the
significance of the Zodiacal signs; and it is easier to suppose that they
should have arranged their claims so as to answer the mystic signs, than that
the latter should have shone as a prophecy for one portion of humanity, for
millions of years, taking no heed of the numberless generations that had gone
before, and those to be born hereafter.
"It
is not simple chance," we are told, "that has placed in certain
spheres, on a throne, the head of that bull (Taurus), trying to push away with
the ansated cross on its horns, a Dragon; the more so, since this constellation
of Taurus was called 'the great city of God and the mother of revelations,' and
also 'the interpreter of the divine voice,' the Apis pacis of Hermoutis, in
Egypt, which (as the patristic fathers would assure the world) preferred
oracles that related to the birth of the Saviour" (Pneumatologie, iv.,
71).
To
this theological assumption there are several answers. Firstly, the ansated
Egyptian cross, or tau, the Jaina cross, or Swastica, and the Christian cross
have all the same meaning. Secondly, no peoples or nations except the
Christians gave the significance to the Dragon that is given to it now. The
serpent was the symbol of WISDOM; and the Bull (Taurus) the symbol of physical
or terrestrial generation. Thus the latter, pushing off the Dragon, or
spiritual, Divine Wisdom, with the Tau, or Cross -- which is esoterically
"the foundation and framework of all construction" -- would have an
entirely phallic, physiological meaning, had it not still another significance
unknown to our Biblical scholars and symbologists. At any rate, it shows no
special reference to the Verbum of St. John, except, perhaps, in a general
sense. The taurus (which, by the way, is no lamb, but a bull) was sacred in
every Cosmogony, with the Hindus as with the Zoroastrians, with the Chaldees as
with the Egyptians. So much, every schoolboy knows.
It
may perhaps help to refresh the memory of our Theosophists by referring them to
what was said of the Virgin and the Dragon, and the universality of periodical
births and re-births of World-Saviours -- solar gods -- in Isis, II., 490, with
reference to certain passages in Revelations.
In
1853, the savant known as Erard-Mollien read before the Institute of France a
paper tending to prove the antiquity of the Indian Zodiac, in the signs of
which were found the root and philosophy of all the most important religious
festivals of that country, the origin of which religious ceremonies goes back
into the night of time at least 3,000 B.C., as the lecturer tried to
demonstrate. The Zodiac of the Hindus, he thought, was far anterior to the
Zodiac of the Greeks, and differed from it in some particulars vastly. In it
one sees the Dragon on a tree, at the foot of which the "Virgin,"
Kanya-Durga, one of the most ancient goddesses, is placed on a lion dragging
after him the solar car. "This is the reason why," he added,
"this Virgin Durga is not the simple memento of
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[[Vol.
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an
astronomical fact, but verily the most ancient divinity of the Indian Olympus.
She is evidently the same of whom all the Sibylline books spoke, those works
that have been the source of the inspiration of Virgil; the virgin whose return
was prophesied as a sign of universal renovation. . . . . And why," he
added, "when we see to this day, the months named after the deity-names of
this solar Zodiac by the Malayalim-speaking people of southern India -- why
should that people have abandoned their ancestral Zodiac to burden themselves
with that of the Greeks? Everything proves, on the contrary, that these
zodiacal figures have been transmitted to the Greeks by the Chaldees, who got
them from the Brahmans." (See Recueil de l'Academie des Inscriptions,
1853.)
But
all this is very poor testimony. Let us remember, however, also that which was
said and accepted by the contemporaries of Volney, who, in his "Ruins of
Empires," p. 360, remarks that as Aries was in its fifteenth degree 1447
B.C., it follows that the first degree of "Libra" could not have
coincided with the Vernal equinox more lately than 15,194 years B.C., to which,
if you add 1,790 years since Christ, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed
since the origin of the Zodiac.
Dr.
Schlegel, moreover, in his Uranographie Chinoise assigns to the Chinese
Astronomical Sphere an antiquity of 18,000 years. (Vide pp. 54, 196, et seq.)
Nevertheless,
as opinions quoted without adequate proofs are of little avail, it may be more
useful to turn to scientific evidence. M. Bailly, the famous French astronomer
of the last century, Member of the Academy, etc., etc., asserts that the Hindu
systems of astronomy are by far the oldest, and that from them the Egyptians,
Greeks, Romans, and even the Jews derived their knowledge. In support of these
views he says --
"The
astronomers who preceded the epoch 1,491 are, first, the Alexandrian Greeks;
Hipparchus, who flourished 125 years before our era, and Ptolemy, 260 years
after Hipparchus. Following these were the Arabs, who revived the study of
astronomy in the ninth century. These were succeeded by the Persians and the
Tartars, to whom we owe the tables of Massireddin in 1269, and those of
Ulug-beg in 1437. Such is the succession of events in Asia as known prior to
the Indian epoch 1491. What, then, is an epoch? It is the observation of the
longitude of a star at a given moment, the place in the sky where it was seen,
and which serves as a point of reference, a starting-point from which to
calculate both the past and future positions of the star from its observed
motion. But an epoch is useless unless the motion of the star has been
determined. A people, new to science and obliged to borrow a foreign astronomy,
finds no difficulty in fixing an epoch, since
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
only observation needed is one which can be made at any moment. But what it
needs above all, what it is obliged to borrow, are those elements which depend
on accurate determination, and which require continuous observation; above all,
those motions which depend on time, and which can only be accurately determined
by centuries of observation. These motions, then, must be borrowed from a
nation which has made such observations, and has behind it the labours of
centuries. We conclude, therefore, that a new people will not borrow the epochs
of an ancient one, without also borrowing from them the 'average motions.'
Starting from this principle we shall find that the Hindu epochs 1491 and 3102
could not have been derived from those of either Ptolemy or Ulug-beg."
There
remains the supposition that the Hindus, comparing their observations in 1491
with those previously made by Ulug-beg and Ptolemy, used the intervals between
these observations to determine the "average motions." The date of
Ulug-beg is too recent for such a determination; while those of Ptolemy and
Hipparchus were barely remote enough. But if the Hindu motions had been
determined from these comparisons, the epochs would be connected together.
Starting from the epochs of Ulug-beg and Ptolemy we should arrive at all those
of the Hindus. But this is not the case. Hence foreign epochs were either
unknown or useless to the Hindus.*
We
may add to this another important consideration. When a nation is obliged to
borrow from its neighbours the methods or the average motions of its
astronomical tables, it has even greater need to borrow, besides these, the
knowledge of the inequalities of the motions of the heavenly bodies, the
motions of the apogee, of the nodes, and of the inclination of the ecliptic; in
short, all those elements the determination of which requires the art of
observing, some instrumental appliances, and great industry. All these
astronomical elements, differing more or less with the Greeks of Alexandria,
the Arabs, the Persians and the Tartars, exhibit no resemblance whatever with
those of the Hindus. The latter, therefore, borrowed nothing from their
neighbours.
Condensing
Bailly's remarks, he comes to the following conclusions:--
If
the Hindus did not borrow their epoch, they must have possessed a real one of
their own, based on their own observations; and this must be either the epoch
of the year 1491 after, or that of the year 3102 before our era, the latter
preceding by 4592 years the epoch 1491. We have to choose between these two epochs
and to decide which of them is based on observation. But before stating the
arguments which can and must
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For a detailed scientific proof of this conclusion, see page 121 of Mr. Bailly's
work, where the subject is discussed technically.
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[[Vol.
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decide
the question, we may be permitted to make a few remarks to those who may be
inclined to believe that it is modern observations and calculations which have
enabled the Hindus to determine the past positions of the heavenly bodies. It
is far from easy to determine the celestial movements with sufficient accuracy
to ascend the stream of time for 4592 years, and to describe the phenomena
which must have occurred at that period.
We
possess to-day excellent instruments; exact observations have been made for
some two or three centuries, which already permit us to calculate with
considerable accuracy the average motions of the planets; we have the
observations of the Chaldeans, of Hipparchus and of Ptolemy, which, owing to
their remoteness from the present time, permit us to fix these motions with
greater certainty. Still we cannot undertake to represent with invariable
accuracy the observations throughout the long period intervening between the
Chaldeans and ourselves; and still less can we undertake to determine with
exactitude events occurring 4592 years before our day. Cassini and Maier have
each determined the secular motion of the moon, and they differ by 3m. 43s.
This difference would give rise in forty-six centuries to an uncertainty of
nearly three degrees in the moon's place. Doubtless one of these determinations
is more accurate than the other; and it is for observations of very great
antiquity to decide between them. But in very remote periods, where
observations are lacking, it follows that we are uncertain as to the phenomena.
How, then, could the Hindus have calculated back from the year 1491 A.D. to the
year 3102 before our era, if they were only recent students of astronomy?
The
Orientals have never been what we are. However high an opinion of their
knowledge we may form from the examination of their Astronomy, we cannot
suppose them ever to have possessed that great array of instruments which
distinguishes our modern observatories, and which is the product of
simultaneous progress in various arts, nor could they have possessed that
genius for discovery, which has hitherto seemed to belong exclusively to
Europe, and which, supplying the place of time, causes the rapid progress of
science and of human intelligence. If the Asiatics have been powerful, learned
and wise, it is power and time which have produced their merit and success of
all kinds. Power has founded or destroyed their empires; now it has erected
edifices imposing by their bulk, now it has reduced them to venerable ruins;
and while these vicissitudes alternated with each other, patience accumulated
knowledge; and prolonged experience produced wisdom. It is the antiquity of the
nations of the East which has erected their scientific fame.
If
the Hindus possessed in 1491 a knowledge of the heavenly motions
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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sufficiently
accurate to enable them to calculate backwards for 4,592 years, it follows that
they could only have obtained this knowledge from very ancient observations. To
grant them such knowledge, while refusing them the observations from which it
is derived, is to suppose an impossibility; it would be equivalent to assuming
that at the outset of their career they had already reaped the harvest of time
and experience. While on the other hand, if their epoch of 3102 is assumed to
be real, it would follow that the Hindus had simply kept pace with successive
centuries down to the year 1491 of our era. Thus, time itself was their teacher;
they knew the motions of the heavenly bodies during these periods, because they
had seen them; and the duration of the Hindu people on earth is the cause of
the fidelity of its records and the accuracy of its calculations.
It
would seem that the problem as to which of the two epochs of 3102 and 1491 is
the real one ought to be solved by one consideration, viz., that the ancients
in general, and particularly the Hindus, calculated, and therefore observed,
eclipses only. Says Bailly:--
Now,
there was no eclipse of the sun at the moment of the epoch 1492; and no eclipse
of the moon either 14 days before or after that moment. Therefore the epoch
1491 is not based on an observation. As regards the epoch 3102, the Brahmins of
Tirvalour place it at sunrise on February 18th. The sun was then in the first
point of the Zodiac according to its true longitude. The other tables show that
at the preceding midnight the moon was in the same place, but according to its
average longitude. The Brahmins tell us also that this first point, the origin
of their Zodiac, was, in the year 3102, 54 degrees behind the equinox. It
follows that the origin -- the first point of their Zodiac -- was therefore in
the sixth degree of Libra.
There
occurred, therefore, about this time and place an average conjunction;
"and indeed this conjunction is given in our best tables: La Caille's for
the sun and Maier's for the moon." There was no eclipse of the sun, the
moon being too distant from her node; but fourteen days later, the moon having
approached the node, must have been eclipsed. Maier's tables, used without
correction for acceleration, give this eclipse; but they place it during the
day when it could not have been observed in India. Cassini's tables give it as
occurring at night, which shows that Maier's motions are too rapid for distant
centuries, when the acceleration is not allowed for; and which also proves that
in spite of the improvement of our knowledge we can still be uncertain as to
the actual aspect of the heavens in past times.
Therefore
we believe that as between the two Hindu epochs, the real one is the year 3102,
because it was accompanied by an eclipse which could be observed, and which
must have served to determine it. This
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[[Vol.
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is
a first proof of the truth of the longitude assigned by the Hindus to the sun
and the moon at this instant; and this proof would perhaps be sufficient, were
it not that this ancient determination becomes of the greatest importance for
the verification of the motions of these bodies, and must therefore be borne
out by every possible proof of its authenticity.
We
notice, first, that the Hindus seem to have combined two epochs together into the
year 3102. The Tirvalour Brahmins reckon primarily from the first moment of the
Kali-Yug; but they have a second epoch placed 2d. 3h. 32m. 30s. later. The
latter is the true astronomical epoch, while the former seems to be a civil
era. But if this epoch of the Kali-Yug had no reality, and was the mere result
of a calculation, why should it be thus divided? Their calculated astronomical
epoch would have become that of the Kali-Yug, which would have been placed at
the conjunction of the sun and the moon, as is the case with the epochs of the
three other tables. They must have had some reason for distinguishing between
the two; and this reason can only be due to the circumstances and the time of
the epoch; which therefore could not be the result of calculation. This is not
all; starting from the solar epoch determined by the rising of the sun on
February 18th, 3102, and tracing back events 2d. 3h. 32m. 30s., we come to 2h.
27m. 30s. a.m. of February 16th, which is the instant of the beginning of
Kali-Yuga. It is curious that this age has not been made to commence at one of
the four great divisions of the day. It might be suspected that the epoch
should be midnight, and that the 2h. 27m. 30s. are a meridian correction. But
whatever may have been the reason for fixing on this moment, it is plain that
were this epoch the result of calculation, it would have been just as easy to
carry it back to midnight, so as to make the epoch correspond to one of the
chief divisions of the day, instead of placing it at a moment fixed by the
fraction of a day.
2nd.
The Hindus assert that at the first moment of Kali-Yug there was a conjunction
of all the planets; and their tables show this conjunction while ours indicate
that it might actually have occurred. Jupiter and Mercury were in exactly the
same degree of the ecliptic; Mars being 8 [[degrees]] and Saturn 17 [[degrees]]
distant from it. It follows that about this time, or some fourteen days after
the commencement of Kali-Yug, the Hindus saw four planets emerge successively from
the Sun's rays; first Saturn, then Mars, then Jupiter and Mercury, and these
planets appeared united in a somewhat small space. Although Venus was not among
them, the taste for the marvellous caused it to be called a general conjunction
of all the planets. The testimony of the Brahmins here coincides with that of
our tables; and this evidence, the result of a tradition, must be founded on
actual observation.
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[[Vol.
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3rd.
We may remark that this phenomenon was visible about a fortnight after the
epoch, and exactly at the time when the eclipse of the moon must have been
observed, which served to fix the epoch. The two observations mutually confirm
each other; and whoever made the one must have made the other also.
4th.
We may believe also that the Hindus made at the same time a determination of
the place of the moon's node; this seems indicated by their calculation. They
give the longitude of this point of the lunar orbit for the time of their
epoch, and to this they add as a constant 40m., which is the node's motion in
12d. 14h. It is as if they stated that this determination was made 13 days
after their epoch, and that to make it correspond to that epoch, we must add
the 40m. through which the node has retrograded in the interval.
This
observation is, therefore, of the same date as that of the lunar eclipse; thus
giving three observations, which are mutually confirmatory.
5th.
It appears from the description of the Hindu Zodiac given by M. C. Gentil, that
on it the places of the stars named "The Eye of Taurus" and the
"Wheat-ear of Virgo," can be determined for the commencement of the
Kali-Yug.
Now,
comparing these places with the actual positions, reduced by our precession of
the equinoxes to the moment in question, we see that the point of origin of the
Hindu Zodiac must lie between the fifth and sixth degree of Libra. The
Brahmins, therefore, were right in placing it in the sixth degree of that sign,
the more so since this small difference may be due to the proper motion of the
stars which is unknown.
Thus
it was yet another observation which guided the Hindus in this fairly accurate
determination of the first point of their movable zodiac.
It
does not seem possible to doubt the existence in antiquity of observations of
this date. The Persians say that four beautiful stars were placed as guardians
at the four corners of the world. Now it so happens that at the commencement of
Kali Yug, 3000 or 3100 years before our era, the "Eye of the Bull"
and the "Heart of the Scorpion" were exactly at the equinoctial
points, while the "Heart of the Lion" and the "Southern
Fish" were pretty near the solstitial points. An observation of the rising
of the Pleiades in the evening, seven days before the autumnal equinox, also
belongs to the year 3000 before our era. This and similar observations
collected in Ptolemy's calendars, though he does not give their authors, these
observations, which are older than those of the Chaldeans, may well be the work
of the Hindus. They are well acquainted with the constellation of the Pleiades,
and while we call it vulgarly the "Poussiniere" they name it:
Pillaloo-codi -- the "Hen and chickens." This name has therefore,
passed from people to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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people,
and comes to us from the most ancient nations of Asia. We see that the Hindus
must have observed the rising of the Pleiades, and have made use of it to
regulate their years and their months; for this constellation is also called
Krittika. Now they have a month of the same name, and this coincidence can only
be due to the fact that this month was announced by the rising or setting of
the constellation in question. But what is even more decisive as showing that
the Hindus observed the stars, and in the same way that we do, marking their
position by their longitude, is a fact mentioned by Augustinus Riccius that,
according to observations attributed to Hermes, and made 1,985 years before
Ptolemy, the brilliant star in the Lyre and that in the Heart of the Hydra were
each seven degrees in advance of their respective positions as determined by
Ptolemy.
This
determination seems very extraordinary. The stars advance regularly with
respect to the equinox; and Ptolemy ought to have found the longitudes 28
degrees in excess of what they were 1985 years before his time. Besides, there
is a remarkable peculiarity about this fact; the same error or difference being
found in the positions of both stars; therefore the error was due to some cause
affecting both stars equally. It was to explain this peculiarity that the Arab
Thebith imagined the stars to have an oscillatory movement, causing them to
advance and recede alternately.
This
hypothesis was easily disproved; but the observations attributed to Hermes
remained unexplained. Their explanation, however, is found in Hindu Astronomy.
At the date fixed for these observations, 1985 years before Ptolemy, the first
point of the Hindu Zodiac was 35 degrees in advance of the equinox; therefore
the longitudes reckoned for this point are 35 degrees in excess of those
reckoned from the equinox. But after the lapse of 1985 years the stars would
have advanced 28 degrees, and there would remain a difference of only 7 degrees
between the longitudes of Hermes and those of Ptolemy, and the difference would
be the same for the two stars, since it is due to the difference between the starting-points
of the Hindu Zodiac and that of Ptolemy, which reckons from the equinox. This
explanation is so simple and natural that it must be true. We do not know
whether Hermes, so celebrated in antiquity, was a Hindu, but we see that the
observations attributed to him are reckoned in the Hindu manner, and we
conclude that they were made by the Hindus, who, therefore, were able to make
all the observations we have enumerated, and which we find noted in their
tables.
6th.
The observation of the year 3102, which seems to have fixed their epoch, was
not a difficult one. We see that the Hindus, having once determined the moon's
daily motion of 13deg. 10m. 35sec., made
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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use
of it to divide the Zodiac into 27 constellations, related to the period of the
moon, which takes about 27 days to describe it.
It
was by this method that they determined the positions of the stars in this
Zodiac; it was thus they found that a certain star of the Lyre was in 8h. 24m.,
the Heart of the Hydra in 4d. 7h., longitudes which are ascribed to Hermes, but
which are calculated on the Hindu Zodiac. Similarly, they discovered that the
"Wheatear of Virgo" forms the commencement of their fifteenth
constellation, and the "Eye of Taurus" the end of the fourth; these
stars being the one in 6d. 6h. 40m., the other in 1d. 23h. 20min. of the Hindu
Zodiac. This being so, the eclipse of Moon which occurred 14 days after the Kali
Yug epoch, took place at a point between the "Wheat Ear" of Virgo and
the star [[ ]] of the same constellation. These stars are very approximately a
constellation apart, the one beginning the fifteenth, the other the sixteenth.
Thus it would not be difficult to determine the moon's place by measuring her
distance from one of these stars; from this they deduced the position of the
sun, which is opposite to the moon, and then, knowing their average motions,
they calculated that the moon was at the first point of the Zodiac according to
her average longitude at midnight on the 17th-18th February of the year 3,102
before our era, and that the sun occupied the same place six hours later
according to his true longitude; an event which fixes the commencement of the
Hindu year.
7th.
The Hindus state that 20,400 years before the age of Kali Yug, the first point
of their Zodiac coincided with the vernal equinox, and that the sun and moon
were in conjunction there. This epoch is obviously fictitious;* but we may inquire
from what point, from what epoch, the Hindus set out in establishing it. Taking
the Hindu values for the revolution of the sun and moon, viz., 365d. 6h. 12m.
30s., and 27d. 7h. 43m. 13s., we have --
20,400
revolutions of the sun = 7,451,277d. 2h.
272,724
revolutions of the moon = 7,451,277d. 7h.
Such
is the result obtained by starting from the Kali Yuga epoch; and the assertion
of the Hindus, that there was a conjunction at the time stated, is founded on
their tables; but if, using the same elements, we start from the era of the
year 1491, or from another placed in the year 1282, of which we shall speak
later, there will always be a difference of almost one or two days. It is both
just and natural, in verifying the Hindu calculations, to take those among
their elements which give the same result as they had themselves arrived at,
and to set out from that one among their epochs which enables us to arrive at
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Why it should be "fictitious" can never be made plain by European
scientists.
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[[Vol.
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the
fictitious epoch in question. Hence, since to make this calculation they must
have set out from their real epoch, the one which was founded on an observation
and not from any of those which were derived by this very calculation from the
former, it follows that their real epoch was that of the year 3102 before our
era.
8th.
The Tiravalore Brahmins give the Moon's motion as 7d. 2h. 8m. on the movable
Zodiac, and as 9d. 7h. 45m. 1s. as referred to the equinox in a great period of
1,600,984 days, or 4,386 years and 94 days. We believe this motion to have been
determined by observation; and we must state at the outset that this period is
of an extent which renders it but ill suited to the calculation of the mean
motions.
In
their astronomical calculations the Hindus make use of periods of 248, 3,031,
and 12,372 days; but, apart from the fact that these periods, though much too
short, do not present the inconvenience of the former, they contain an exact
number of revolutions of the moon referred to its apogee. They are in reality
mean motions. The great period of 1,600,984 is not a sum of accumulated
revolutions; there is no reason why it should contain 1,600,984 rather than
1,600,985 days. It would seem that observation alone must have fixed the number
of days and marked the beginning and end of the period. This period ends on the
21st of May, 1282, of our era at 5h. 15m. 30s. at Benares. The moon was then in
apogee, according to the Hindus, and her longitude was ... 7d. 13h. 45m. 1s.
Maier
gives the longitude as ... 7d. 13h. 53m. 48s.
And
places the apogee at ... ... 7d. 14h. 6m. 54s.
The
determination of the moon's place by the Brahmins thus differs only by nine
minutes from ours, and that of the apogee by twenty-two minutes, and it is very
evident that they could only have obtained this agreement with our best tables
and this exactitude in the celestial positions by observation. If then,
observation fixed the end of this period, there is every reason to believe that
it determined its commencement. But then this motion, determined directly, and
from nature, would of necessity be in close agreement with the true motions of
the heavenly bodies.
And
in fact the Hindu motion during this long period of 4,883 years, does not
differ by a minute from that of Cassini, and agrees equally with that of Maier.
Thus two peoples, the Hindus and the Europeans, placed at the two extremities
of the world, and perhaps as distant by their institutions, have obtained
precisely the same results as regards the moon's motions; and an agreement
which would be inconceivable, if it were not based on the observation and
mutual imitation of nature. We must remark that the four tables of the Hindus
are all copies of the same Astronomy. It cannot be denied that the Siamese
tables existed
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[[Vol.
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in
1687, when they were brought from India by M. de la Loubere. At that time the
tables of Cassini and Maier were not in existence, and thus the Hindus were already
in possession of the exact motion contained in these tables, while we did not
yet possess it.* It must, therefore, be admitted that the accuracy of this
Hindu motion is the point of observation. It is exact throughout this period of
4,383 years, because it was taken from the sky itself -- and if observation
determined its close, it fixed its commencement also. It is the longest period
which has been observed and of which the recollection is preserved in the
annals of Astronomy. It has its origin in the epoch of the year 3102, B.C., and
it is a demonstrative proof of the reality of that epoch.
Bailly
is referred to at such length, as he is one of the few scientific men who have
tried to do full justice to the Astronomy of the Aryans. From John Bentley down
to Burgess' "Surya-Siddhanta," not one astronomer has been fair
enough to the most learned people of Antiquity. However distorted and
misunderstood the Hindu Symbology, no Occultist can fail to do it justice once
that he knows something of the Secret Sciences; nor will he turn away from
their metaphysical and mystical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The following is an answer to those men of science who might suspect that our
Astronomy was carried to India and communicated to the Hindus by our
Missionaries. 1st. Hindu astronomy has its own peculiar forms, characterized by
their originality; if it had been our astronomy translated, great skill and
knowledge would have been needed to disguise the theft. 2nd. When adopting the
mean movement of the moon, they would have adopted also the inclination of the
ecliptic, the equation of the sun's centre, the length of the year; these
elements differ completely from ours, and are remarkably accurate as applying
to the epoch of 3102; while they would be exceedingly erroneous if they had
been calculated for last century. 3rd, finally, our missionaries could not have
communicated to the Hindus in 1687 the tables of Cassini, which were not then
in existence; they could have known only the mean motions of Tycho, Riccioli,
Copernicus, Bouilland, Kepler, Longomontanus, and those of the tables of
Alphonso. I will now give a tabular view of these mean motions for 4383 years
and 94 days:--
Table.
------------- Mean Motion. --- Difference from Hindu.
Alphonso
............9d 7h 2m 47s ... - 0h 42m 14s
Copernicus
......... 9d 6h 2m 13s ... - 1h 42m 48s
Tycho
.............. 9d 7h 54m 40s .. + 0h 9m 39s
Kepler
............. 9d 6h 57m 35s .. - 0h 47m 26s
Longomontanus
...... 9d 7h 2m 13s ... - 0h 42m 48s
Bouilland
.......... 9d 6h 48m 8s ... - 0h 58m 53s
Riccioli
........... 9d 7h 53m 57s .. + 0h 8m 56s
Cassini
............ 9d 7h 44m 11s .. - 0h 0m 50s
Indian
............. 9d 7h 45m 1s
None
of these mean motions, except Cassini's, agrees with that of the Hindus, who
therefore, did not borrow their mean motions, since their figures agree only
with those of Cassini, whose tables were not in existence in 1687. This mean
motion of the moon belongs, therefore, to the Hindus, who could only have obtained
it by observation." -- Bailly's "Traite de l'Astronomie Indienne et
Orientale."
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[[Vol.
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interpretation
of the Zodiac, even though the whole Pleiades of Royal Astronomical Societies
rise in arms against their mathematical rendering of it. The descent and
re-ascent of the Monad or Soul cannot be disconnected from the Zodiacal signs,
and it looks more natural, in the sense of the fitness of things, to believe in
a mysterious sympathy between the metaphysical soul and the bright
constellations, and in the influence of the latter on the former, than in the
absurd notion that the creators of Heaven and Earth have placed in heaven the
types of twelve vicious Jews. And if, as the author of The Gnostics asserts,
the aim of all the Gnostic schools and the later Platonists "was to
accommodate the old faith to the influence of Buddhistic theosophy, the very
essence of which was that the innumerable gods of the Hindu mythology were but
names for the ENERGIES of the First Triad in its successive AVATARS or
manifestations unto man," whither can we turn to trace these theosophic
ideas to their very root -- better than to old Indian wisdom? We say it again:
archaic Occultism would remain incomprehensible to all, if it were rendered
otherwise than through the more familiar channels of Buddhism and Hinduism. For
the former is the emanation of the latter; and both are children of one mother
-- ancient Lemuro-Atlantean Wisdom.
-------
XVIII.
SUMMARY
OF THE MUTUAL POSITION.
THE
reader has had the whole case presented to him from both sides, and it remains
with him to decide whether its summary stands in our favour or not. If there were
such a thing as void, a vacuum in Nature, one would find it produced, according
to a physical law, in the minds of helpless admirers of the "lights"
of science, who pass their time in mutually destroying their teachings. If ever
the theory that "two lights make darkness" found its application it
is in this case, when one half of the "lights" imposes its Forces and
"modes of motion" on the belief of the faithful, and the other half
opposes the very existence of the same. "Ether, Matter, Energy" --
the sacred hypostatical trinity, the three principles of the truly unknown God
of Science, called by them PHYSICAL NATURE!
Theology
is taken to task and ridiculed for believing in the union of three persons in
one Godhead -- one God as to substance, three persons as to individuality; and
we are laughed at for our belief in unproved and unprovable doctrines, in
Angels and Devils, Gods and Spirits. And,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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indeed,
that which made the Scientists win the day over Theology in the Great
"Conflict between Religion and Science," was precisely the argument
that neither the identity of that substance, nor the triple individuality
claimed, after having been conceived, invented, and worked out in the depths of
Theological Consciousness, could be proved by any Scientific inductive process
of reasoning, least of all on the evidence of our senses. Religion must perish,
it is said, because it teaches mysteries. Mystery is the negation of Common
Sense, and Science repels it. According to Mr. Tyndall, metaphysics is fiction,
like poetry. The man of Science takes nothing on trust; rejects everything that
is not proven to him, while the Theologian accepts everything on blind faith.
The Theosophist and the Occultist, who take nothing on trust, not even exact
Science, the Spiritualist who denies dogma but believes in Spirits and in
invisible but potential influences, all share in the same contempt. Very well,
then; what we have to do now, is to examine for the last time whether exact
Science does not act precisely in the same way as Theosophy, Spiritualism, and
Theology do.
In
a work by Mr. S. Laing, considered a standard book on Science, "Modern
Science and Modern Thought," the author of which, according to the
laudatory review of the Times, "exhibits with much power and effect the
immense discoveries of Science, and its numerous victories over old opinions,
whenever THEY HAVE THE RASHNESS TO CHALLENGE CONCLUSIONS WITH IT," one
reads in chapter III., "On Matter," as follows:
"WHAT
IS THE MATERIAL UNIVERSE COMPOSED OF? ETHER, MATTER, ENERGY" . . . . . is
the answer.
We
stop to ask, "What is Ether?" And Mr. Laing answers in the name of
Science:--
"Ether
is not actually known to us BY ANY TEST OF WHICH THE SENSES CAN TAKE
COGNIZANCE, but is a sort of mathematical substance which WE ARE COMPELLED TO
ASSUME in order to account for the phenomena of light and heat."
And
what is matter? Do you know more about it than you do about the
"hypothetical" agent, Ether?
"In
perfect strictness, it is true that chemical investigations can tell us . . . .
NOTHING DIRECTLY of the composition of living matter, and . . . . it is also in
strictness true, THAT WE KNOW NOTHING about the composition of ANY (material)
BODY WHATEVER AS IT IS." (Lecture on Protoplasm by Mr. Huxley.)
And
Energy? Surely you can define the third person of the Trinity of your Material
universe?
"THE
ENERGY IS THAT WHICH IS ONLY KNOWN TO US BY ITS EFFECTS." (Books on
Physics.)
Pray
explain, for this is rather hazy.
"IN
MECHANICS THERE IS ACTUAL AND POTENTIAL ENERGY: WORK
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 670 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
ACTUALLY
PERFORMED, AND THE CAPACITY FOR PERFORMING IT. AS TO THE NATURE OF MOLECULAR
ENERGY OR FORCES, THE VARIOUS PHENOMENA WHICH BODIES PRESENT SHOW THAT THEIR
MOLECULES ARE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF TWO CONTRARY FORCES -- ONE WHICH TENDS TO
BRING THEM TOGETHER, THE OTHER TO SEPARATE THEM. . . . . THE FIRST IS MOLECULAR
ATTRACTION, THE SECOND FORCE IS DUE TO vis viva, OR MOVING FORCE." . . . .
(Ganot's Physics.)
Just
so: it is the nature of this moving force, the vis viva that we want to know.
What is it? . . . . .
"WE
DO NOT KNOW!" IS THE INVARIABLE ANSWER. "IT IS AN EMPTY SHADOW OF MY
IMAGINATION," explains Mr. Huxley in his Physical Basis of Life.
Thus
the whole structure of Modern Science is built on a kind of "mathematical
abstraction," on a Protean "Substance which eludes the senses,"
(Dubois Reymond,) and on effects, the shadowy and illusive will-o'-the-wisps of
a something entirely unknown to and beyond the reach of Science,
"Self-moving" atoms! Self-moving Suns, planets, and stars! But who,
then, or what are they all, if they are self-endowed with motion? Why then
should you, physicists, laugh and deride our "Self-moving ARCHAEUS"?
Mystery is rejected and scorned by Science, and "MYSTERY is the fatality
of Science," as Father Felix has truly said. . . . . Science cannot escape
it!" The language of the French preacher is ours, and we quote it in
"Isis Unveiled" (Vide Vol. I. 338-9). Who -- he asks -- who of you,
men of Science:
".
. . . has been able to penetrate the secret of the formation of a body, the generation
of a single atom? What is there, I will not say at the centre of a sun, but at
the centre of an atom? Who has sounded to the bottom the abyss in a grain of
sand? The grain of sand, gentlemen, has been studied four thousand years by
science, she has turned and returned it; she divides it and subdivides it; she
torments it with her experiments; she vexes it with her questions to snatch
from it the final word as to its secret constitution; she asks it, with an
insatiable curiosity: 'Shall I divide thee infinitesimally?' Then suspended
over this abyss, science hesitates, she stumbles, she feels dazzled, she
becomes dizzy, and in despair says: I DO NOT KNOW."
"But
if you are so fatally ignorant of the genesis and hidden nature of a grain of
sand, how should you have an intuition as to the generation of a single living
being? Whence in the living being does life come? Where does it commence? What
is the life principle?"*
Do
the men of science deny all these charges? Not at all, for here is a confession
of Tyndall, which shows how powerless is science, even over the world of
matter.
"The
first marshalling of the atoms, on which all subsequent action depends,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Le Mystere et la Science," Conferences, Pere Felix de Notre Dame;
des Mousseaux: "Hauts Phen. Magiques."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 671 NO VOID POSSIBLE.
baffles
a keener power than that of the microscope." "Through pure excess of
complexity, and long before observation can have any voice in the matter, the
most highly trained intellect, the most refined and disciplined imagination,
retires in bewilderment from the contemplation of the problem. We are struck dumb
by an astonishment which no microscope can relieve, doubting not only the power
of our instrument, but even whether we ourselves possess the intellectual
elements which will ever enable us to grapple with the ultimate structural
energies of nature."
How
little is known of the material universe, indeed, has now been suspected for
years, on the very admissions of these men of science themselves. And now there
are some materialists who would even make away with Ether -- or whatever
Science calls the infinite Substance, the noumenon of which the Buddhists call
Swabhavat -- as well as with atoms, too dangerous both on account of their
ancient philosophical and their present Christian and theological associations.
From the earliest philosophers whose records passed to posterity, down to our
present age, which, if it denies "invisible Beings" in Space, can
never be so insane as to deny a plenum of some sort -- the fulness of the
universe was an accepted belief. And what it was said to contain, one learns
from Hermes Trismegistus (in Mrs. Kingsford's able rendering) -- who is made to
say:--
"Concerning
the void . . . my judgment is that it does not exist, that it never existed,
and that it never will exist, for all the various parts of the universe are
filled, as the earth also is complete and full of bodies, differing in quality
and in form, having their species and their magnitude, one larger, one smaller,
one solid, one tenuous. The larger . . . are easily perceived; the smaller . .
. are difficult to apprehend, or altogether invisible. We know only of their
existence by the sensation of feeling, wherefore many persons deny such
entities to be bodies, and regard them as simply spaces,* but it is impossible
there should be such spaces. For if indeed there should be anything outside the
universe . . . then it would be a space occupied by intelligent beings
analogous to its (the universe's) divinity . . . . . . I speak of the genii,
for I hold they dwell with us, and of the heroes who dwell above us, between
the earth and the highest airs; wherein are neither clouds nor any
tempest" (p. 84).
And
we "hold" it too. Only, as already remarked, no Eastern Initiate
would speak of spheres "above us, between the earth and the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Behold the work of Cycles and their periodical return! Those who denied such
"Entities" (Forces) to be bodies, and called them "Spaces,"
were the prototypes of our modern "Science-struck" public, and their
official teachers, who speak of the Forces of nature as the imponderable energy
of matter and modes of motion, and yet bold electricity (for one) as being as
atomic as matter itself -- (Helmholtz). Inconsistency and contradiction reign
as much in official as in heterodox Science.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 672 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
airs,"
even the highest, as there is no such division or measurement in occult speech,
no "above" as no "below," but an eternal
"within," within two other withins, or the planes of subjectivity
merging gradually into that of terrestrial objectivity -- this being for man
the last one, his own plane. This necessary explanation may be closed here by
giving, in the words of Hermes, the belief on this particular point of the
whole world of mystics:--
"There
are many orders of the gods; and in all there is an intelligent part. It is not
to be supposed they do not come within the range of our senses; on the
contrary, we perceive them, better even than those which are called visible. .
. There are then gods, superior to all appearances; after them come the gods
whose principle is spiritual; these gods being sensible, in conformity with
their double origin, manifest all things by a sensible nature, each of them
illuminating his works one by another.* The Supreme Being of Heaven, or of all
that is comprehended under this name, is Zeus, for it is by Heaven that Zeus
gives life to all things. The Supreme Being of the Sun is Light, for it is by
the disk of the Sun that we receive the benefit of the light. The thirty-six
horoscopes of the fixed stars have for supreme Being or Prince, him whose name
is Pantomorphos, or having all forms, because he gives divine forms to divers
types. The seven planets, or wandering spheres, have for Supreme Spirits
Fortune and Destiny, who uphold the eternal stability of the laws of nature
throughout incessant transformation and perpetual agitation. The ether is the
instrument or medium by which all is produced."
This
is quite philosophical and in accordance with the spirit of Eastern
esotericism: for all the Forces, such as Light, Heat, Electricity, etc., etc.,
are called the "Gods" -- esoterically.
It
must be so, since the esoteric teachings in Egypt and India were identical. And,
therefore, the personification of Fohat synthesizing all the manifesting forces
in nature is a legitimate result. Moreover, as will be shown in the division
that follows this one, the real and Occult forces in nature only now begin to
be known -- and even in this case, by heterodox, not orthodox, Science (See
also § X., THE COMING FORCE), though their existence, in one instance at any
rate, is corroborated, and certified to by an immense number of educated people
and even by some official men of science.
This
sentence, moreover, in Stanza VI., "Fohat sets in motion the primordial
World-germs, or the aggregation of Cosmic atoms and matter, some one way, some
another, in the opposite direction" -- looks orthodox and Scientific
enough. For there is, at all events, one fact in support of this position fully
recognized by Science, and it is this. The meteoric showers (periodical in
November and August) belong to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Hermes here includes as gods the sensible Forces of nature, the elements
and the phenomena of the Universe," remarks Mrs. A. Kingsford in a
foot-note explaining it very correctly. So does Eastern philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 673 THE ALIASES OF FOHAT.
a
system moving in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. The aphelion of this ring
is 1,732 millions of miles beyond the orbit of Neptune, its plane is inclined
to the Earth's orbit at an angle of 64 [[degrees]] 3', and the direction of the
meteoric swarm moving round this orbit is contrary to that of the Earth's
revolution.
This
fact, recognized only in 1833, shows it to be the modern rediscovery of what
was very anciently known. Fohat turns with his two hands in contrary directions
the "seed" and "the curds," or Cosmic matter; is turning,
in clearer language, particles in a highly attenuated condition, and nebulae.
Outside
the boundaries of the solar system, it is other Suns, and especially the
mysterious "central Sun" (the "Abode of the invisible
deity" as some reverend gentlemen have called it) that determines the
motion of bodies and their direction. That motion serves also to differentiate
the homogeneous matter, round and between the several bodies, into elements and
sub-elements unknown to our earth, which are regarded by modern Science as
distinct individual elements, whereas they are merely temporary appearances,
changing with every small cycle within the Manvantara, some Esoteric works
calling them "Kalpic Masks."
Fohat
is the key in Occultism which opens and unriddles the multiform symbols and
respective allegories in the so-called mythology of every nation; demonstrating
the wonderful philosophy and the deep insight into the mysteries of nature, in
the Egyptian and Chaldean as well as in the Aryan religions. Fohat, shown in
his true character, proves how deeply versed were all those prehistoric nations
in every science of nature, now called physical and chemical branches of
natural philosophy. In India, Fohat is the scientific aspect of both Vishnu and
Indra, the latter older and more important in the Rig Veda than his sectarian
successor; while in Egypt Fohat was known as Toum issued of Noot,* or Osiris in
his character of a primordial god, creator of heaven and of beings (see chapter
xvii., "Book of the Dead"). For Toum is spoken of as the Protean god
who generates other gods and gives himself the form he likes; the "master
of life" "giving their vigour to the gods" (chapter lxxix.) He
is the overseer of the gods, and he "who creates spirits and gives them
shape and life"; he is "the north wind and the spirit of the
west;" and finally the "Setting Sun of Life," or the vital
electric force that leaves the body at death, wherefore the defunct begs that
Toum should give him the breath from his right nostril (positive elec-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Oh Toum, Toum! issued from the great (female) which is in the bosom of
the waters" (the great Deep or Space) . . . "Thou, luminous through
the two Lions" (the dual Force or power of the two solar eyes, or the
electro-positive and the electro-negative forces. (See Book of the Dead, III.,
and Egyptian Pantheon, chapter ii.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 674 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
tricity)
that he might live in his second form. Both the hieroglyph, and the text of
chapter lxii. in the "Book of the Dead," show the identity of Toum
with Fohat. The former represents a man standing erect with the hieroglyph of
the breaths in his hands. The latter says:--
"I
open to the chief of An (Heliopolis), I am Toum. I cross the water spilt by
Thot-Hapi, the lord of the horizon, and am the divider of the earth"
(Fohat divides Space and, with his Sons, the earth into seven zones) . . . .
.
. . . "I cross the heavens, and am the two Lions. I am Ra, I am Aam, I ate
my heir.* . . . . I glide on the soil of the field of Aanroo,** given me by the
master of limitless eternity. I am the germ of eternity. I am Toum, to whom
eternity is accorded. . . . "
The
very words used by Fohat in the XIth Book, and the very titles given him. In
the Egyptian Papyri the whole Cosmogony of the Secret Doctrine is found
scattered about in isolated sentences, even in the "Book of Dead."
Number seven is quite as much insisted upon and emphasized therein as in the
Book of Dzyan. "The Great Water (the Deep or Chaos) is said to be seven
cubits deep" -- "cubits" standing here of course for divisions,
zones, and principles. Therein, "in the great mother, all the Gods, and
the seven great ones are born." (See chapter cviii., 4, Book of the Dead
and Egyptian Pantheon). Both Fohat and Toum are addressed as the "Great
ones of the Seven Magic Forces," who, "conquer the Serpent Apap"
or Matter.
No
student of occultism, however, ought to be betrayed, by the usual phraseology
used in the translations of Hermetic Works, into believing that the ancient
Egyptians or Greeks spoke of, and referred, monk-like, at every moment in conversation,
to a Supreme Being, God, the "One Father and Creator of all," etc.,
as found on every page of such translations. No such thing indeed; and those
texts are not the original Egyptian texts. They are Greek compilations, the
earliest of which does not go beyond the early period of Neo-Platonism. No
Hermetic
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An image expressing the succession of divine functions, the substitution from one
form into another, or the correlation of forces. Aam is the electro-positive
force, devouring all others as Saturn devoured his progeny.
**
Aanroo is in the domain of Osiris, a field divided into fourteen sections
"surrounded with an iron enclosure, within which grows the corn of life
seven cubits high," the Kama-loka of the Egyptians. Those only of the
dead, who know the names of the janitors of the "seven halls," will
be admitted into Amenti for ever; i.e., those who have passed through the seven
races of each round -- otherwise they will rest in the lower fields; "and
it represents also the seven successive Devachans, or lokas. In Amenti, one
becomes pure spirit for the eternity (xxx. 4.); while in Aanroo "the soul
of the spirit," or the defunct, is devoured each time by Uraeus -- the
Serpent, Son of the earth (in another sense the primordial vital principles in
the Sun), i.e., the Astral body of the deceased or the "Elementary"
fades out and disappears in the "Son of the earth," limited time. The
soul quits the fields of Aanroo and goes on earth under any shape it likes to
assume. (See chapter xcix., Book of the Dead.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 675 THE GODS OF EGYPT.
work
written by Egyptians (vide "Book of the Dead") would speak of the one
universal God of the Monotheistic systems -- the one Absolute cause of all, was
as unnameable and unpronounceable in the mind of the ancient philosopher of
Egypt, as it is for ever Unknowable in the conception of Mr. Herbert Spencer.
As for the Egyptian in general, as M. Maspero well remarks, whenever he
"arrived at the notion of divine Unity, the God One was never 'God,'
simply." And Lepage Renouf very justly observed that the word Nouter,
nouti, "god" had never ceased being a generic name with the
Egyptians, nor has it ever become a personal pronoun. Every God was the
"one living and unique God" with them. Their "monotheism was
purely geographical. If the Egyptian of Memphis proclaimed the unity of Phtah
to the exclusion of Ammon, the Thebeian Egyptian proclaimed the unity of Ammon
to the exclusion of Phtah," as we now see done in India in the case of the
Saivas and the Vaishnavas. "Ra, the 'One God' at Heliopolis is not the
same as Osiris, the 'One God' at Abydos, and can be worshipped side by side
with him, without being absorbed by his neighbour. The one god is but the god
of the nome or the city, noutir, noutti, and does not exclude the existence of
the one god of that town or of the neighbouring nome. In short, whenever
speaking of Egyptian Monotheism, one ought to speak of the Gods 'One' of Egypt,
and not of the one god" (Maspero, in the Guide au Musee de Boulak.) It is
by this feature, pre-eminently Egyptian, that the authenticity of the various so-called
Hermetic Books, ought to be tested; and it is totally absent from the Greek
fragments known as such. This proves that a Greek Neo-Platonic, or even a
Christian hand, had no small share in the editing of such works. Of course the
fundamental philosophy is there, and in many a place -- intact. But the style
has been altered and smoothed in a monotheistic direction, as much, if not more
than that of the Hebrew Genesis in its Greek and Latin translations. They may
be Hermetic works, but not works written by either of the two Hermes -- or
rather, by Thot (Hermes) the directing intelligence of the Universe (See ch.
xciv., Book of the Dead), or by Thot, his terrestrial incarnation called
Trismegistus, of the Rosetta stone.
But
all is doubt, negation, iconoclasm and brutal indifference, in our age of the
hundred "isms" and no religion. Every idol is broken save the Golden
Calf.
Unfortunately,
no nation or nations can escape their Karmic fate any more than units and
individuals do. History itself is dealt with by the so-called historians as
unscrupulously as legendary lore. For this, Augustin Thierry has made the
amende honorable, if one may believe his biographers. He deplored the erroneous
principle that made them all (the would-be historiographers) lose their way,
and each presume to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
1, Page]] 676 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
correct
tradition, "that vox populi which nine times out of ten is vox Dei;"
and he finally admitted that in legend alone rests real history; for
"legend," he adds, "is living tradition, and three times out of
four it is truer than what we call History."*
While
Materialists deny everything in the universe, save matter, Archaeologists are
trying to dwarf antiquity, and seek to destroy every claim to ancient Wisdom by
tampering with Chronology. Our present-day Orientalists and Historical writers
are to ancient History that which the white ants are to the buildings in India.
More dangerous even than those Termites, the modern Archaeologists -- the
"authorities" of the future in the matter of Universal History -- are
preparing for the History of past nations the fate of certain edifices in
tropical countries: "History will tumble down and break into atoms in the
lap of the twentieth century, devoured to its foundations by her
annalists," said Michelet. Very soon, indeed, under their combined
efforts, it will share the fate of those ruined cities in both Americas, which
lie deeply buried under impassable virgin forests. Historical facts will remain
as concealed from view by the inextricable jungles of modern hypotheses,
denials and scepticism. But very happily actual History repeats herself, for
she proceeds, like everything else, in cycles; and dead facts and events deliberately
drowned in the sea of modern scepticism will ascend once more and reappear on
the surface. . . .
In
our Book II. the very fact that a work with pretensions to philosophy, and
which is an exposition of the most abstruse problems, has to be commenced by
tracing the evolution of mankind from what are regarded as supernatural beings
-- Spirits -- will arouse the most malevolent criticism. Believers in, and the
defenders of, the Secret Doctrine, however, will have to bear the accusation of
madness and worse, as philosophically as for long years already the writer has
done. Whenever a Theosophist is taxed with insanity, he ought to reply by
quoting from Montesquieu's "Lettres Persanes." "By opening so
freely their lunatic asylums to their supposed madmen, men only seek to assure
each other that they are not themselves mad."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------
*
Revue des Deux Mondes, 1865, pp. 157 and 158.
END
OF VOL. I.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE
BY
H. P. BLAVATSKY
VOLUME
2
THEOSOPHCAL
UNIVERSITY PRESS ASCII EDITION
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page i]]
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page ii]]
[[blank]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page iii]]
THE
SECRET DOCTRINE:
THE
SYNTHESIS
OF
SCIENCE,
RELIGION, AND PHILOSOPHY.
BY
H.
P. BLAVATSKY
AUTHOR
OF "ISIS UNVEILED."
"There
is no Religion higher than Truth."
VOL.
II. -- ANTHROPOGENESIS.
London:
THE
THEOSOPHICAL PUBLISHING COMPANY, LIMITED.
7
Duke Street, Adelphi, W. C.
WILLIAM
Q. JUDGE,
117
Nassau Street, New York.
THE
MANAGER OF THE THEOSOPHIST,
Adyar,
Madras
---
1888.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page iv]]
"Entered
according to Act of Congress in the year 1888, by H. P. Blavatsky,
in
the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington, D. C."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page v]]
This
Work
I
Dedicate to all True Theosophists,
In
every Country,
And
of every Race,
For
they called it forth, and for them it was recorded.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page vi]]
[[blank]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page vii]]
TABLE
OF CONTENTS.
-------
VOLUME
SECOND.
PRELIMINARY
NOTES. PAGE.
On
the Archaic Stanzas, and the Four Prehistoric Continents ... 1
The
Imperishable Sacred Land ... 6
The
Hyperborean ... 7
Lemuria
... 7
Atlantis
... 8
The
Tropics at the Pole ... 11
-------
BOOK
II. -- PART I.
ANTHROPOGENESIS.
STANZAS
FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN... 15
-------
STANZA
I. -- BEGINNINGS OF SENTIENT LIFE ... 22
Man,
the Third Logos ... 25
The
Celestial Governors of Humanity ... 29
Parent
Stars and Sister Planets ... 33
Three
Kinds of Light ... 35
The
Numbers of Creation ... 39
The
First War in Heaven ... 45
-------
TWO
ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONOMERS ... 47
-------
STANZA
II. -- NATURE UNAIDED FAILS ... 52
The
Monsters of Chaos ... 53
The
"Double Dragon" ... 57
Who
are the Flames? ... 63
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] viii CONTENTS.
PAGE.
THE
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BRAHMINS ... 66
The
Race that never dies ... 67
Cosmogony,
an intelligent plan ... 73
-------
STANZA
III. -- ATTEMPTS TO CREATE MAN ... 75
The
various classes of Creators ... 77
Man,
a god in animal form ... 81
"Fires,"
"Sparks," and "Flames" ... 83
-------
STANZA
IV. -- CREATION OF THE FIRST RACES ... 86
Pitris
of the Gods and Demons ... 89
What
Prometheus symbolized ... 95
The
Hammer of Thor ... 99
The
Divine Rebels ... 103
Man's
Father, the Sun ... 105
-------
STANZA
V. -- THE EVOLUTION OF THE SECOND RACE ... 109
The
Secret Work of Chiram ... 113
The
outgrowth of Races ... 117
Leda,
Castor, and Pollux ... 121
Jah-Hovah
Androgynous ... 125
The
Jewish God-name ... 127
-------
STANZA
VI.-THE EVOLUTION OF THE SWEAT-BORN ... 131
Bi-sexual
reproduction ... 133
The
Virgin Third Race ... 135
A
Few Words about Deluges and Noah's ... 138
Various
Deluges ... 141
The
Arkite Symbols ... 143
Could
Men Exist 18,000,000 Years ago? ... 148
Spontaneous
Generation ... 151
The
Solar System in the Puranas ... 155
Oceans
of Carbonic Acid? ... 159
-------
STANZA
VII. -- FROM THE SEMI-DIVINE DOWN TO THE FIRST HUMAN RACES ... 161
Monads
and Rounds ... 167
A
Suggestive Explanation ... 171
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] ix CONTENTS.
PAGE.
A
Saint -- Hypnotised ... 175
Sweat-born
and Androgynes ... 177
-------
STANZA
VIII. -- EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS -- THE FIRST FALL ... 180
Archaic
Zoology ... 182
The
Sin of the Mindless Men ... 183
-------
WHAT
MAY BE THE OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING ... 185
-------
STANZA
IX. -- THE FINAL EVOLUTION OF MAN ... 191
The
Hairy Men of China ... 195
The
Separation of Sexes ... 197
Primeval
Language ... 199
-------
EDENS,
SERPENTS AND DRAGONS ... 202
The
Garden of Eden a College ... 203
Flying
Camels ... 205
Two
Schools of Magic ... 211
The
Flying Dragons ... 219
-------
THE
SONS OF GOD AND THE SACRED ISLAND0 ... 220
The
Magicians of Atlantis ... 223
-------
STANZA
X. -- THE HISTORY OF THE FOURTH RACE ... 227
The
Mysteries among the Mayas ... 229
Satanic
Myths ... 233
Mahasura
and Satan ... 237
Man,
the pale shadow of God ... 243
The
curse of Vasishta ... 247
-------
ARCHAIC
TEACHINGS IN THE PURANAS AND GENESIS ... 251
From
worm to man ... 255
Identity
of Human and Animal embryos ... 259
-------
A
PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE EARLY RACES ... 263
The
Natural "Fall" ... 267
The
Symbolism of Kronos ... 269
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] x CONTENTS.
PAGE.
STANZA
X. -- Continued ... 271
The
Golden Age ... 273
The
Devil's outside Humanity ... 275
-------
ARE
GIANTS A FICTION? ... 277
The
Seven Virgin Youths ... 281
The
Tibetan Lilith ... 285
The
Races of Men not all Human ... 287
-------
THE
RACES WITH THE "THIRD EYE" ... 289
Occult
Physiology ... 295
The
Evolution of the Eve ... 299
The
Third Eye is now a Gland ... 301
-------
THE
PRIMEVAL MANUS OF HUMANITY ... 307
The
Four Earlier Races ... 311
The
Esoteric Meaning of "Fish" ... 313
-------
STANZA
XI. -- THE CIVILIZATION AND DESTRUCTION OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH RACES ... 316
Degeneration
of Mankind ... 319
Atlantis
now Ocean Floor ... 325
Changes
of Climate ... 329
How
to Read Symbols ... 335
The
Antediluvian Buddhas ... 339
-------
CYCLOPEAN
RUINS AND COLOSSAL STONES AS WITNESSES TO GIANTS 341
Living,
Speaking, and Moving Stones ... 345
It
takes a God to become a Man ... 349
-------
STANZA
XII. -- THE FIFTH RACE AND ITS DIVINE INSTRUCTORS 351
The
Astronomical Dragon ... 353
Serpents
and Dragons under different Symbolisms ... 355
The
Sidereal and Cosmic Glyphs ... 357
Our
Divine Instructors ... 365
The
Origin of the Satanic Myth ... 378
Noah
was a Kabir, hence he must have been a Demon ... 390
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] xi CONTENTS.
PAGE.
The
oldest Persian Traditions about the Polar, and the Submerged Continents ... 393
Western
Speculations founded on the Greek and Puranic Traditions ... 401 [[sic]]
The
"Curse" from a Philosophical point of view ... 409
-------
ADDITIONAL
FRAGMENTS FROM A COMMENTARY ON THE VERSES OF STANZA XII. ... 423
The
Oldest Records about Atlantis ... 425
The
Doom of Atlantis ... 427
The
Races, Sub-Races, and Family Races ... 434
CONCLUSION
... 437
-------
BOOK
II. -- PART II.
THE
ARCHAIC SYMBOLISM OF THE WORLD-RELIGIONS.
ESOTERIC
TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE ... 449
-------
§
XVI. ADAM-ADAMI ... 452
The
Cabalistic Four Adams ... 457
-------
XVII.
THE "HOLY OF HOLIES": ITS DEGRADATION ... 459
Christian
Symbolism ... 463
The
"Four-faced" Brahm ... 465
The
Old and the New Jehovah ... 469
-------
XVIII.
ON THE MYTH OF THE "FALLEN ANGEL," IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS ... 475
The
Evil Spirit: Who and What? ... 475
The
Gods of Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness 483
The
many meanings of the "War in Heaven" ... 492
-------
XIX.
IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? ... 506
Jehovah's
Personating Spirit ... 509
The
Mysterium Magnum ... 512
The
Logos and Satan are One ... 515
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] xii CONTENTS.
PAGE.
XX.
PROMETHEUS THE TITAN ... 519
His
Origin in Ancient India ... 519
The
Boon he Gives ... 523
-------
XXI.
ENOICHION-HENOCH ... 529
-------
XXII.
THE SYMBOLTSM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO, AND JEHOVAH 536
Cross
and Circle ... 545
The
Fall of the Cross into Matter ... 553
-------
XXIII.
THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE ... 563
When
Time be no longer ... 565
The
Divine Self's Wisdom ... 566
-------
XXIV.
THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECADE ... 573
Poseidon's
Five Ministers ... 577
The
Mystery of the Number Six ... 583
The
Cross and Christian After-thought ... 587
-------
XXV.
THE MYSTERIES OP THE HEBDOMAD ... 590
Saptaparna
... 590
The
Tetraktis in relation to the Heptagon ... 598
The
Septenary Element in the Vedas ... 605
The
Septenary in the Exoteric Works ... 611
Seven
in Astronomy, Science and Magic ... 618
The
Seven Souls of the Egyptologists ... 630
---------------------
BOOK
II. -- PART III.
ADDENDA.
SCIENCE
AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.
§§
I.
ARCHAIC, OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645
The
Occult and the Modern Doctrines ... 649
Science
is Silent on every Problem ... 653
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] xiii CONTENTS.
PAGE.
II.
THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE ... 656
Various
Modes of Reproduction ... 659
A
Pithecoid Man Wanted ... 669
Plastidular
Souls and Conscious Nerve-Cells ... 670
The
atoms of our "Father-Bathybius" ... 674
-------
III.
THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE ... 675
Insurmountable
difficulties for the Darwinians ... 677
The
Argument of "Rudimentary Organs" ... 683
"Epitomized
History" in the Foetus ... 684
The
Evidence of Skulls ... 687
-------
IV.
DURATION OF THE GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, RACE CYCLES, AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ...
690
Sayce's
Sketch of Chronology ... 691
(a)
Speculations on the Age of the Globe ... 694
The
Adept-Astronomer ... 698
(b)
On Chains of Planets and their Plurality ... 699
States
of Consciousness ... 701
Worlds
mentioned in the Bible ... 703
(c)
Esoteric Geological Chronology ... 709
Parallelism
of Life ... 711
The
Two Sciences contrasted ... 713
The
Paleolithic Landseer ... 721
Astral
Man -- the Solution ... 728
The
Kabalists and Science ... 730
-------
V.
ORGANIC EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES ... 731
Dhyan
Chohans and these Centres ... 732
(a)
Origin and Evolution of the Mammalia ... 734
(b)
The European Paleolithic Races -- whence and how distributed ... 738
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] xiv CONTENTS.
PAGE.
VI.
GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS TRACED IN HISTORY ... 742
A
Mysterious Nation ... 743
The
Seven Sabbaths ... 747
"Revelation"
and the "Secret Doctrine" ... 748
Druidic
Stones ... 752
Races
of Giants ... 755
Mazdean
"Seven Earths" ... 759
(a)
Statements about the Sacred Islands ... 760
The
Heirloom of Atlantis ... 763
The
God-bearing Land ... 765
The
Power of Names ... 767
The
Sons of Coelus and Terra ... 769
Southern
and Northern Atlantis ... 770
Niobe
and her Children ... 771
The
Cycles of Time ... 773
The
Titans in Prison ... 776
-------
VII.
SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED
CONTINENTS ... 778
Corroborations
of Occultism by Geology ... 779
Evidence
of the Flora ... 781
Atlantis
necessary to Ethnology ... 783
Astraea
falls on her Head ... 785
Communication
between South-Sea Islands ... 788
Evidence
of Language ... 790
[[And
now to conclude. ... 794]]
Ragon
explains Masonic Symbols ... 795
The
End a fitting prelude to Truth ... 798
-------
INDEX.
[[Not included in ASCII version.]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page xv]]
[[Eh
eme didache ouk estin eme, alla tou pemphantos me.]]
"My
doctrine is not mine, but his that sent me."
--
John vii. 16.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page xvi]]
MODERN
science insists upon the doctrine of evolution; so do human reason and the
"Secret Doctrine," and the idea is corroborated by the ancient
legends and myths, and even by the Bible itself when it is read between the lines.
We see a flower slowly developing from a bud, and the bud from its seed. But
whence the latter, with all its predetermined programme of physical
transformation, and its invisible, therefore spiritual forces which gradually
develop its form, colour, and odour? The word evolution speaks for itself. The
germ of the present human race must have preexisted in the parent of this race,
as the seed, in which lies hidden the flower of next summer, was developed in
the capsule of its parent flower; the parent may be but slightly different, but
it still differs from its future progeny. The antediluvian ancestors of the
present elephant and lizard were, perhaps, the mammoth and the plesiosaurus;
why should not the progenitors of our human race have been the "giants"
of the Vedas, the Voluspa, and the Book of Genesis? While it is positively
absurd to believe the "transformation of species" to have taken place
according to some of the more materialistic views of the evolutionists, it is
but natural to think that each genus, beginning with the molluscs and ending
with man, had modified its own primordial and distinctive forms. -- "Isis
Unveiled," Vol. I., p. 153.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 1]]
PRELIMINARY
NOTES.
-------
ON
THE ARCHAIC STANZAS, AND THE FOUR PRE-HISTORIC CONTINENTS.
"Facies
totius Universi, quamvis infinitis modis variet,
Manet
tamen semper eadem." -- SPINOZA.
THE
Stanzas, with the Commentaries thereon, in this Book, the second, are drawn
from the same Archaic Records as the Stanzas on Cosmogony in Book I. As far as
possible a verbatim translation is given; but some of the Stanzas were too
obscure to be understood without explanation. Hence, as was done in Book I.,
while they are first given in full as they stand, when taken verse by verse
with their Commentaries an attempt is made to make them clearer, by words added
in brackets, in anticipation of the fuller explanation of the Commentary.
As
regards the evolution of mankind, the Secret Doctrine postulates three new
propositions, which stand in direct antagonism to modern science as well as to
current religious dogmas: it teaches (a) the simultaneous evolution of seven
human groups on seven different portions of our globe; (b) the birth of the
astral, before the physical body: the former being a model for the latter; and
(c) that man, in this Round, preceded every mammalian -- the anthropoids
included -- in the animal kingdom.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Genesis ch. ii., v. 19. Adam is formed in verse 7, and in verse 19 it is
said: "Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field, and
every fowl of the air; and brought them unto Adam to see what he would call
them." Thus man was created before the animals; for the animals mentioned
in chapter i. are the signs of the Zodiac, while the man, "male and
female," is not man, but the Host of the Sephiroth; FORCES, or Angels,
"made in his (God's) image and after his likeness." The Adam, man, is
not made in that likeness, nor is it so asserted in the Bible. Moreover, the
Second Adam [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 2 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
Secret Doctrine is not alone in speaking of primeval MEN born simultaneously on
the seven divisions of our Globe. In the Divine "Pymander" of Hermes
we find the same Seven primeval men* evolving from Nature and "Heavenly
Man," in the collective sense of the word, namely, from the Creative
Spirits; and in the fragments (collected by George Smith) of Chaldean tablets
on which is inscribed the Babylonian Legend of Creation, in the first column of
the Cutha tablet, seven human beings with the faces of ravens (black, swarthy
complexions), whom "the (Seven) great gods created," are mentioned.
Or, as explained in lines 16 and 18 -- "In the midst of the Earth they
grew up and became great . . . . Seven kings, brothers of the same
family." These are the Seven Kings of Edom to whom reference is made in
the Kabala; the first race, which was imperfect, i.e., was born before the
"balance" (sexes) existed, and which was therefore destroyed. (Zohar,
Siphrah Dzeniouta, Idrah Suta, 2928, La Kabbale, p. 205.) "Seven Kings,
brethren, appeared and begat children, 6,000 in number were their peoples"
(Hibbert Lectures, p. 372). The god Nergas (death) destroyed them. "How
did he destroy them?" "By bringing into equilibrium (or balance)
those who did not yet exist" (Siphrah Dzeniouta). They were
"destroyed," as a race, by being merged in their own progeny (by
exudation); that is to say, the sexless race reincarnated in the bisexual
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] is esoterically a septenary which represents
seven men, or rather groups of men. For the first Adam -- the Kadmon -- is the
synthesis of the ten Sephiroth. Of these, the upper triad remains in the
Archetypal World as the future "Trinity," while the seven lower
Sephiroth create the manifested material world; and this septenate is the
second Adam. Genesis, and the mysteries upon which it was fabricated, came from
Egypt. The "God" of the 1st chapter of Genesis is the Logos, and the
"Lord God" of the 2nd chapter the Creative Elohim -- the lower
powers.
*
Thus saith Pymander -- "This is the mystery that to this day was hidden.
Nature being mingled with the Heavenly man (Elohim, or Dhyanis), brought forth
a wonder . . . . Seven men, all males and females (Hermaphrodite) . . .
according to the nature of the seven Governors" -- Book II. v. 29) -- or
the seven Hosts of the Pitris or Elohim, who projected or created him. This is
very clear, but yet, see the interpretations of even our modern theologians,
men supposed to be intellectual and learned! In the "Theological and
philosophical works of Hermes Trismegistus, Christian (?) Neoplatonist," a
work compiled by John David Chambers, of Oriel College, Oxford, the translator
wonders "for whom these seven men are intended?" He solves the
difficulty by concluding that, as "the original pattern man (Adam Kadmon
of ch. i. Genesis) was masculine-feminine, the seven may signify the succeeding
patriarchs named in Genesis" (p. 9) . . . A truly theological way of cutting
the Gordian knot.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 3 THE LEMNOS-BORN KABIRI.
(potentially);
the latter in the Androgynes; these again in the sexual, the later third Race; (for
further explanation, vide infra). Were the tablets less mutilated, they would
be found to contain word for word the same account as given in the archaic
records and in Hermes, at least as regards the fundamental facts, if not as
regards minute details; for Hermes is a good deal disfigured by
mistranslations.
It
is quite certain that the seeming supernaturalism of these teachings, although
allegorical, is so diametrically opposed to the dead-letter statements of the
Bible* as well as to the latest hypotheses of science, that it will evoke
passionate denial. The Occultists, however, know that the traditions of
Esoteric Philosophy must be the right ones, simply because they are the most
logical, and reconcile every difficulty. Besides, we have the Egyptian
"Books of Thoth," and "Book of the Dead," and the Hindu
Puranas with the seven Manus, as well as the Chaldeo-Assyrian accounts, whose
tiles mention seven primitive men, or Adams, the real meaning of which name may
be ascertained through the Kabala. Those who know anything of the Samothracian
mysteries will also remember that the generic name of the Kabiri was the
"Holy Fires," which created on seven localities of the island of
Electria (or Samothrace) the "Kabir born of the Holy Lemnos" (the
island sacred to Vulcan).
According
to Pindar (See "Philosophumena," Miller's edition, p. 98), this
Kabir, whose name was Adamas, was, in the traditions of Lemnos, the type of the
primitive man born from the bosom of the Earth. He was the Archetype of the
first males in the order of generation, and was one of the seven autochthonous
ancestors or progenitors of mankind (ibid, p. 108). If, while coupling with
this the fact that Samothrace was colonised by the Phoenicians, and before them
by the mysterious Pelasgians who came from the East, one remembers also the
identity of the mystery gods of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and Israelites, it
will be easy to discover whence came also the confused account of the Noachian
deluge. It has become undeniable of late that the Jews, who obtained their
primitive ideas about creation from Moses, who had them from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As it is now asserted that the Chaldean tablets, which give the allegorical
description of Creation, the Fall, and the Flood, even to the legend of the
Tower of Babel, were written "before the time of Moses" (See G.
Smith's "Chaldean Account of Genesis," p. 86), how can the Pentateuch
be called a revelation? It is simply another version of the same story.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 4 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Egyptians, compiled their Genesis and first Cosmogonic traditions -- when these
were rewritten by Ezra and others -- from the Chaldeo-Akkadian account. It is,
therefore, sufficient to examine the Babylonian and Assyrian cuneiform and
other inscriptions to find also therein, scattered here and there, not only the
original meaning of the name Adam, Admi, or Adami,* but also the creation of
seven Adams or roots of men, born of Mother Earth, physically, and of the
divine fire of the progenitors, spiritually or astrally. The Assyriologists,
ignorant of the esoteric teachings, could hardly be expected to pay any greater
attention to the mysterious and ever-recurring number seven on the Babylonian
cylinders, than they paid to it on finding the same in Genesis and the Bible.
Yet the number of the ancestral spirits and their seven groups of human progeny
are there, notwithstanding the dilapidated condition of the fragments, as
plainly as they are to be found in "Pymander" and in the "Book
of the Concealed Mystery" of the Kabala. In the latter Adam Kadmon is the
Sephirothal TREE, as also the "Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil."
And that "Tree," says verse 32, "hath around it seven
columns," or palaces, of the seven creative Angels operating in the
spheres of the seven planets on our Globe. As Adam Kadmon is a collective name,
so also is the name of the man Adam. Says George Smith in his "Chaldean
Account of Genesis:" --
"The
word Adam used in these legends for the first human being is evidently not a
proper name, but is only used as a term for mankind. Adam appears as a proper
name in Genesis, but certainly in some passages is only used in the same sense
as the Assyrian word" (p. 86).
Moreover,
neither the Chaldean nor the Biblical deluge (the stories of Xisuthrus and
Noah) is based on the universal or even on the Atlantean deluges, recorded in
the Indian allegory of Vaivaswata Manu. They are the exoteric allegories based
on the esoteric mysteries of Samothrace. If the older Chaldees knew the
esoteric truth concealed in the Puranic legends, the other nations were aware
only of the Samothracian mystery, and allegorised it. They adapted it to their
astronomical and anthropological, or rather phallic, notions. Samothrace is
known historically to have been famous in antiquity for a deluge, which
submerged the country and reached the top of the highest mountains; an event
which happened before the age of the Argonauts. It was overflowed very
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide § "Adam-Adami," in Part II. of this volume.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 5 THE SECRETS OF KOUYUNJIK.
suddenly
by the waters of the Euxine, regarded up to that time as a lake.* But the
Israelites had, moreover, another legend upon which to base their allegory: the
"deluge," that transformed the present Gobi Desert into a sea for the
last time, some 10 or 12,000 years ago, and which drove many Noahs and their
families on to the surrounding mountains. As the Babylonian accounts are now
only restored from hundreds of thousands of broken fragments (the mound of
Kouyunjik alone having yielded to Layard's excavations over twenty thousand
fragments of inscriptions), the proofs here cited are comparatively scanty; yet
such as they are, they corroborate almost every one of our teachings, certainly
three, at least. These are:--
(1.)
That the race which was the first to fall into generation was a dark Race
(Zalmat Gaguadi), which they call the Adami or dark Race, and that Sarku, or
the light Race, remained pure for a long while subsequently.
(2.)
That the Babylonians recognised two principal Races at the time of the Fall,
the Race of the Gods (the Ethereal doubles of the Pitris), having preceded
these two. This is Sir H. Rawlinson's opinion. These "Races" are our
second and third Root-races.
(3)
That these seven Gods, each of whom created a man, or group of men, were
"the gods imprisoned or incarnated." These gods were: the god Zi; the
god Ziku (noble life, Director of purity); the god Mirku (noble crown)
"Saviour from death of the gods" (later on) imprisoned, and the
creator of "the dark Race which his hand has made;" the god Libzu
"wise among the gods"; the god Nissi . . . . and the god Suhhab; and
Hea or Sa, their synthesis, the god of wisdom and of the Deep, identified with
Oannes-Dagon, at the time of the fall, and called (collectively) the Demiurge,
or Creator. (See Chaldean Account Genesis, p. 82.)
There
are two "Creations" so called, in the Babylonian fragments, and
Genesis having adhered to this, one finds its first two chapters distinguished
as the Elohite and the Jehovite creations. Their proper order, however, is not
preserved in these or in any other exoteric accounts. Now these
"Creations," according to the occult teachings, refer respectively to
the formation of the primordial seven men by the progenitors (the Pitris, or Elohim):
and to that of the human groups after the fall.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Pliny, 4, c. 12; Strabo, 10; Herodotus, 7, c. 108; Pausanias, 7, c. 4, etc.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 6 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
All
this will be examined in the light of science and comparisons drawn from the
scriptures of all the ancient nations, the Bible included, as we proceed.
Meanwhile, before we turn to the Anthropogenesis of the prehistoric Races, it
may be useful to agree upon the names to be given to the Continents on which
the four great Races, which preceded our Adamic Race, were born, lived, and
died. Their archaic and esoteric names were many, and varied with the language
of the nationality which mentioned them in its annals and scriptures. That
which in the Vendidad, for instance, is referred to as Airyanem Vaego (see
Bund. 79, 12) wherein was born the original Zoroaster,* is called in the
Puranic literature "Sveta-Dwipa," "Mount Meru," the abode
of Vishnu, etc., etc.; and in the Secret Doctrine is simply named the land of
the "Gods" under their chiefs the "Spirits of this Planet."
Therefore,
in view of the possible, and even very probable confusion, that may arise, it
is considered more convenient to adopt, for each of the four Continents
constantly referred to, a name more familiar to the cultured reader. It is
proposed, then, to call the first continent, or rather the first terra firma on
which the first Race was evolved by the divine progenitors:--
I.
"The Imperishable Sacred Land."
The
reasons for this name are explained as follows: This "Sacred Land" --
of which more later on -- is stated never to have shared the fate of the other
continents; because it is the only one whose destiny it is to last from the
beginning to the end of the Manvantara throughout each Round. It is the cradle
of the first man and the dwelling of the last divine mortal, chosen as a Sishta
for the future seed of humanity. Of this mysterious and sacred land very little
can be said, except, perhaps, according to a poetical expression in one of the
Commentaries, that the "pole-star has its watchful eye upon it, from the
dawn to the close of the twilight of 'a day' of the GREAT BREATH."**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
By "original" we mean the "Amshaspend," called
"Zarathustra, the lord and ruler of the Vara made by Yima in that
land." There were several Zarathustra or Zertusts, the Dabistan alone
enumerating thirteen; but these were all the reincarnations of the first one.
The last Zoroaster was the founder of the Fire temple of Azareksh and the
writer of the works on the primeval sacred Magian religion destroyed by
Alexander.
**
In India called "The Day of Brahma."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 7 HYPERBOREAS AND LEMURIA.
II.
The "HYPERBOREAN" will be the name chosen for the Second Continent,
the land which stretched out its promontories southward and westward from the
North Pole to receive the Second Race, and comprised the whole of what is now
known as Northern Asia. Such was the name given by the oldest Greeks to the
far-off and mysterious region, whither their tradition made Apollo the
"Hyperborean" travel every year. Astronomically, Apollo is of course
the Sun, who, abandoning his Hellenic sanctuaries, loved to visit annually his
far-away country, where the Sun was said never to set for one half of the year.
[[Eggus gar nuktos te kai ematos eisi keleuthoi]], says a verse in the Odyssey
(x. 86).
But
historically, or better, perhaps, ethnologically and geologically, the meaning
is different. The land of the Hyperboreans, the country that extended beyond
Boreas, the frozen-hearted god of snows and hurricanes, who loved to slumber
heavily on the chain of Mount Riphaeus, was neither an ideal country, as
surmised by the mythologists, nor yet a land in the neighbourhood of Scythia
and the Danube.* It was a real Continent, a bona-fide land which knew no winter
in those early days, nor have its sorry remains more than one night and day
during the year, even now. The nocturnal shadows never fall upon it, said the
Greeks; for it is the land of the Gods, the favourite abode of Apollo, the god
of light, and its inhabitants are his beloved priests and servants. This may be
regarded as poetised fiction now; but it was poetised truth then.
III.
The third Continent, we propose to call "Lemuria." The name is an
invention, or an idea, of Mr. P. L. Sclater, who asserted, between 1850 and
1860, on zoological grounds the actual existence, in prehistoric times, of a
Continent which he showed to have extended from Madagascar to Ceylon and
Sumatra. It included some portions of what is now Africa; but otherwise this
gigantic Continent, which stretched from the Indian ocean to Australia, has now
wholly disappeared beneath the waters of the Pacific, leaving here and there
only some of its highland tops which are now islands. Mr. A. R. Wallace, the
naturalist, "extends the Australia of tertiary periods to New Guinea and
the Solomon Islands, and perhaps to Fiji;" and from its Marsupial types he
infers "a connection with the Northern Continent during the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Volcker, "Mythological Geography," pp. 145 to 170.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 8 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Secondary
period," writes Mr. C. Gould in "Mythical Monsters," p. 47. The
subject is treated at length elsewhere.*
IV.
"Atlantis" is the Fourth Continent. It would be the first historical
land, were the traditions of the ancients to receive more attention than they
have hitherto. The famous island of Plato of that name was but a fragment of
this great Continent. (See "Esoteric Buddhism.")
V.
The Fifth Continent was America; but, as it is situated at the Antipodes, it is
Europe and Asia Minor, almost coeval with it, which are generally referred to
by the Indo-Aryan Occultists as the fifth. If their teaching followed the
appearance of the Continents in their geological and geographical order, then
this classification would have to be altered. But as the sequence of the
Continents is made to follow the order of evolution of the Races, from the
first to the fifth, our Aryan Root-race, Europe must be called the fifth great
Continent. The Secret Doctrine takes no account of islands and peninsulas, nor
does it follow the modern geographical distribution of land and sea. Since the
day of its earliest teachings and the destruction of the great Atlantis, the
face of the earth has changed more than once. There was a time when the delta
of Egypt and Northern Africa belonged to Europe, before the formation of the
Straits of Gibraltar, and a further upheaval of the continent, changed entirely
the face of the map of Europe. The last serious change occurred some 12,000
years ago,**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is to be remarked, however, that Mr. Wallace does not accept Mr. Sclater's
idea, and even opposes it. Mr. Sclater supposes a land or continent formerly
uniting Africa, Madagascar, and India (but not Australia and India); and Mr. A.
R. Wallace shows, in his "Geographical Distribution of Animals" and
"Island Life," that the hypothesis of such a land is quite uncalled
for on the alleged zoological grounds. But he admits that a much closer
proximity of India and Australia did certainly exist, and at a time so very
remote that it was "certainly pre-tertiary," and he adds in a private
letter that "no name has been given to this supposed land." Yet the
land did exist, and was of course pre-tertiary, for "Lemuria"
(accepting this name for the third Continent) had perished before Atlantis had
fully developed; and the latter sunk and its chief portions had disappeared
before the end of the Miocene period.
**
One more "coincidence" --
"Now
it is proved that in geologically recent times, this region of North Africa was
in fact a peninsula of Spain, and that its union with Africa (proper) was
effected on the North by the rupture of Gibraltar, and on the South by an
upheaval to which the Sahara owes its existence. The shores of this former sea
of Sahara are still marked by the shells [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 9 PRE-TERTIARY GIANTS.
and
was followed by the submersion of Plato's little Atlantic island, which he
calls Atlantis after its parent continent. Geography was part of the mysteries,
in days of old. Says the Zohar (iii., fol. 10a): "These secrets (of land
and sea) were divulged to the men of the secret science, but not to the
geographers."
The
claim that physical man was originally a colossal pre-tertiary giant, and that
he existed 18,000,000 years ago, must of course appear preposterous to admirers
of, and believers in, modern learning. The whole posse comitatis of biologists
will turn away from the conception of this third race Titan of the Secondary
age, a being fit to fight as successfully with the then gigantic monsters of
the air, sea, and land, as his forefathers -- the ethereal prototype of the
Atlantean -- had little need to fear that which could not hurt him. The modern
anthropologist is quite welcome to laugh at our Titans, as he laughs at the
Biblical Adam, and as the theologian laughs at his pithecoid ancestor. The
Occultists and their severe critics may feel that they have pretty well
mutually squared their accounts by this time. Occult sciences claim less and
give more, at all events, than either Darwinian Anthropology or Biblical
Theology.
Nor
ought the Esoteric Chronology to frighten any one; for, with regard to figures,
the greatest authorities of the day are as fickle and as uncertain as the
Mediterranean wave. As regards the duration of the geological periods alone,
the learned men of the Royal Society are all hopelessly at sea, and jump from
one million to five hundred millions of years with the utmost ease, as will be
seen more than once during this comparison.
Take
one instance for our present purpose -- the calculations of Mr. Croll. Whether,
according to this authority, 2,500,000 years represent the time since the
beginning of the tertiary age, or the Eocene period, as an American geologist
makes him say;* or whether again Mr. Croll "allows fifteen millions since
the beginning of the Eocene period," as quoted by an English geologist,**
both sets of figures cover the claims
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of the same Gastropoda that live on the shores
of the Mediterranean." (Prof. Oscar Schmidt, "Doctrine of Descent and
Darwinism," p. 244.)
*
A. Winchell, Professor of Geology, "World-Life," p. 369.
**
Mr. Charles Gould, late Geological surveyor of Tasmania, in "Mythical
Monsters," p. 84.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 10 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
made
by the Secret Doctrine.* For assigning as the latter does from four to five
million years between the incipient and the final evolution of the Fourth
Root-Race, on the Lemuro-Atlantean Continents; one million years for the Fifth,
or Aryan Race, to the present date; and about 850,000 since the submersion of
the last large peninsula of the great Atlantis -- all this may have easily
taken place within the 15,000,000 years conceded by Mr. Croll to the Tertiary
Age. But, chronologically speaking, the duration of the period is of secondary
importance, as we have, after all, certain American scientists to fall back
upon. These gentlemen, unmoved by the fact that their assertions are called not
only dubious but absurd, yet maintain that man existed so far back as in the
Secondary Age. They have found human footprints on rocks of that formation; and
furthermore, M. de Quatrefages finds no valid scientific reason why man should
not have existed during the Secondary Age.
The
"Ages" and periods in geology are, in sober truth, purely conventional
terms, as they are still hardly delineated, and, moreover,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Sir Charles Lyell, who is credited with having "happily invented the terms
Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene," to mark the three divisions of the
Tertiary age, ought really to have settled upon some approximate age for his
"Mind-offspring." Having left the duration of these periods, however,
to the speculations of specialists, the greatest confusion and perplexity are
the result of that happy thought. It seems like a hopeless task to quote one
set of figures from one work, without the risk of finding it contradicted by
the same Author in an earlier or a subsequent volume. Sir W. Thomson, one of
the most eminent among the modern authorities, has changed, about half-a-dozen
times, his opinion upon the age of the Sun and the date of the consolidation of
the Earth's crust. In Thomson and Tait's "Natural Philosophy," one
finds only ten million years allowed, since the time when the temperature of
the Earth permitted vegetable life to appear on it; (App. D et seq. also Trans.
Roy. Soc. Edin. xxiii, Pt. 1, 157, 1862, where 847 is cancelled). Mr. Darwin
gives Sir W. Thomson's estimate as "a minimum of 98 and a maximum of 200 millions
of years since the consolidation of the crust" (See Ch. Gould). In the
same work (Nat. Phil.) 80 millions are given from the time of incipient
incrustation to the present state of the world. And in his last lecture, as
shown elsewhere, Sir W. Thomson declares (1887) that the Sun is not older than
15 millions of years! Meanwhile, basing his arguments as to the limits to the
age of the Sun's heat, on figures previously established by Sir W. Thomson, Mr.
Croll allows 60 millions of years since the beginning of the Cambrian period.
This is hopeful for the lovers of exact knowledge. Thus, whatever figures are
given by Occult Science, they are sure to be corroborated by those of some one
among the modern men of Science who are considered as authorities.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 11 THE TROPICS AT THE POLE.
no
two geologists or naturalists agree as to the figures. Thus, there is a wide
margin for choice offered to the Occultist by the learned fraternity. Shall we
take for one of our supports Mr. T. Mellard Reade? This gentleman, in a paper
on "Limestone as an Index of Geological Time," read by him in 1878
before the Royal Society, claims that the minimum time required for the
formation of the sedimentary strata and the elimination of the calcareous
matter is in round numbers 600 million years (See "Proceedings of Royal
Society," London, Vol. XXVIII., p. 281); or shall we ask support for our
chronology from Mr. Darwin's works, wherein he demands for the organic
transformations according to his theory from 300 to 500 million years? Sir C.
Lyell and Prof. Houghton were satisfied with placing the beginning of the
Cambrian Age at 200 and 240 millions of years back respectively. Geologists and
zoologists claim the maximum time, though Mr. Huxley, at one time, placed the
beginning of the incrustation of the earth 1,000 million years ago, and would
not surrender a millennium of it.
But
the main point for us lies not in the agreement or disagreement of the Naturalists
as to the duration of geological periods, but rather in their perfect accord on
one point, for a wonder, and this a very important one. They all agree that
during "The Miocene Age" -- whether one or ten million years ago --
Greenland and even Spitzbergen, the remnants of our Second or Hyperborean
Continent, "had almost a tropical climate." Now the pre-Homeric
Greeks had preserved a vivid tradition of this "Land of the Eternal
Sun," whither their Apollo journeyed yearly. "During the Miocene Age,
Greenland (in N. Lat. 70 degrees) developed an abundance of trees, such as the
Yew, the Redwood, the Sequoia, allied to the Californian species, Beeches,
Planes, Willows, Oaks, Poplars and Walnuts, as well as a Magnolia and a
Zamia," says Science; in short Greenland had Southern plants unknown to
Northern regions.
And
now this natural question rises. If the Greeks knew, in the days of Homer, of a
Hyperborean land, i.e., a blessed land beyond the reach of Boreas, the god of
winter and of the hurricane, an ideal region which the later Greeks and their
classics have vainly tried to locate by searching for it beyond Scythia, a
country where nights were short and days long, and beyond that land a country
where the sun never set and the palm grew freely -- if they knew of all this,
who then told them of it? In
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 12 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
their
day, and for ages previously, Greenland must certainly have been already
covered with perpetual snows, with never-thawing ice, just as it is now.
Everything tends to show that the land of the short nights and the long days
was Norway or Scandinavia, beyond which was the blessed land of eternal light
and summer; and to know of this, their tradition must have descended to the
Greeks from some people more ancient than themselves, who were acquainted with
those climatic details of which the Greeks themselves could know nothing. Even
in our day, science suspects beyond the Polar seas, at the very circle of the
Arctic Pole, the existence of a sea which never freezes and a continent which
is ever green. The archaic teachings, and likewise the Puranas -- for one who
understands the allegories of the latter -- contain the same statements.
Suffice, then, to us the strong probability that a people, now unknown to
history, lived during the Miocene period of modern science, at a time when
Greenland was an almost tropical land.
-------
NOTE.
The reader is requested to bear in mind that the first and the following
sections are not strictly consecutive in order of time. In the first Section
the Stanzas which form the skeleton of the exposition are given, and certain
important points commented upon and explained. In the subsequent sections
various additional details are gathered, and a fuller explanation of the
subject is attempted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 13]]
BOOK
II. -- PART I.
ANTHROPOGENESIS.
---------------------
STANZAS
TRANSLATED WITH COMMENTARIES
FROM
THE
SECRET
BOOK OF DZYAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 14]]
In
primeval times, a maiden,
Beauteous
Daughter of the Ether,
Passed
for ages her existence
In
the great expanse of Heaven,
.
. . . . . . . . . .
Seven
hundred years she wandered,
Seven
hundred years she laboured,
Ere
her first-born was delivered.
.
. . . . . . . . . .
Ere
a beauteous duck descending,
Hastens
toward the water-mother.
.
. . . . . . . . . .
Lightly
on the knee she settles,
Finds
a nesting-place befitting,
Where
to lay her eggs in safety,
Lays
her eggs within, at pleasure,
Six,
the golden eggs she lays them,
Then
a Seventh, an egg of iron . . . . ."
(Kalevala,
Rune I.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 15 STANZAS FROM THE BOOK OF DZYAN.
ANTHROPOGENESIS
IN THE SECRET VOLUME.
(VERBATIM
EXTRACTS.*)
I.
1.
THE LHA WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH IS SUBSERVIENT TO THE LHA OF THE SEVEN, THEY WHO
REVOLVE DRIVING THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE. HIS BREATH GAVE
LIFE TO THE SEVEN; IT GAVE LIFE TO THE FIRST.
2.
SAID THE EARTH:-- "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE; MY HOUSE IS EMPTY . . . .
SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL. THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO THE LORD
OF WISDOM. SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF, SEVEN TIMES MORE
DOTH HE FEEL THEE. THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL RINGS, TO CATCH
THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS PASSAGE. SEND NOW TO
THY SERVANT THE SAME."
3.
SAID THE "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE":-- "I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE
WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS; APPLY TO THY
FATHER, THE LORD OF THE LOTUS, FOR HIS SONS . . . . THY PEOPLE SHALL BE UNDER
THE RULE OF THE FATHERS. THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE MEN OF THE LORD OF
WISDOM, NOT THE LUNAR SONS, ARE IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS. THY SEVEN SKINS
ARE YET ON THEE . . . . THOU ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY."
4.
AFTER GREAT THROES SHE CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW SEVEN SKINS,
AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE.
-------
II.
5.
THE WHEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES MORE. IT CONSTRUCTED RUPAS: SOFT STONES
THAT HARDENED; HARD PLANTS THAT SOFTENED. VISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL
LIVES. SHE SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK WHENEVER THEY OVERRAN THE MOTHER.
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
Only forty-nine Slokas out of several hundred are here given. Not every verse
is translated verbatim. A periphrasis is sometimes used for the sake of
clearness and intelligibility, where a literal translation would be quite
unintelligible.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 16 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
.
. . . AFTER THIRTY CRORES SHE TURNED ROUND. SHE LAY ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE .
. . SHE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE WOULD ASK NO SONS OF WISDOM. SHE
CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED WATER-MEN, TERRIBLE AND BAD.
6.
THE WATER-MEN TERRIBLE AND BAD SHE HERSELF CREATED FROM THE REMAINS OF OTHERS,
FROM THE DROSS AND SLIME OF HER FIRST, SECOND, AND THIRD, SHE FORMED THEM. THE
DHYANI CAME AND LOOKED -- THE DHYANI FROM THE BRIGHT FATHER-MOTHER, FROM THE
WHITE REGIONS THEY CAME, FROM THE ABODES OF THE IMMORTAL MORTALS.
7.
DISPLEASED THEY WERE. OUR FLESH IS NOT THERE. NO FIT RUPAS FOR OUR BROTHERS OF
THE FIFTH. NO DWELLINGS FOR THE LIVES. PURE WATERS, NOT TURBID, THEY MUST
DRINK. LET US DRY THEM.
8.
THE FLAMES CAME. THE FIRES WITH THE SPARKS; THE NIGHT FIRES AND THE DAY FIRES.
THEY DRIED OUT THE TURBID DARK WATERS. WITH THEIR HEAT THEY QUENCHED THEM. THE
LHAS OF THE HIGH, THE LHAMAYIN OF BELOW, CAME. THEY SLEW THE FORMS WHICH WERE
TWO- AND FOUR-FACED. THEY FOUGHT THE GOAT-MEN, AND THE DOG-HEADED MEN, AND THE
MEN WITH FISHES' BODIES.
9.
MOTHER-WATER, THE GREAT SEA, WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON WHICH
HAD LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH.
10.
WHEN THEY WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER-EARTH REMAINED BARE. SHE ASKED TO BE DRIED.
-------
III.
11.
THE LORD OF THE LORDS CAME. FROM HER BODY HE SEPARATED THE WATERS, AND THAT WAS
HEAVEN ABOVE, THE FIRST HEAVEN.
12.
THE GREAT CHOHANS CALLED THE LORDS OF THE MOON, OF THE AIRY BODIES. "BRING
FORTH MEN, MEN OF YOUR NATURE. GIVE THEM THEIR FORMS WITHIN. SHE WILL BUILD
COVERINGS WITHOUT. MALES-FEMALES WILL THEY BE. LORDS OF THE FLAME ALSO . . . .
"
13.
THEY WENT EACH ON HIS ALLOTTED LAND: SEVEN OF THEM EACH ON HIS LOT. THE LORDS
OF THE FLAME REMAIN BEHIND. THEY WOULD NOT GO, THEY WOULD NOT CREATE.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 17 THE SLOKAS OF "DZYAN."
IV.
14.
THE SEVEN HOSTS, THE "WILL-BORN LORDS," PROPELLED BY THE SPIRIT OF
LIFE-GIVING, SEPARATE MEN FROM THEMSELVES, EACH ON HIS OWN ZONE.
15.
SEVEN TIMES SEVEN SHADOWS OF FUTURE MEN WERE BORN, EACH OF HIS OWN COLOUR AND
KIND. EACH INFERIOR TO HIS FATHER. THE FATHERS, THE BONELESS, COULD GIVE NO
LIFE TO BEINGS WITH BONES. THEIR PROGENY WERE BHUTA, WITH NEITHER FORM NOR
MIND. THEREFORE THEY ARE CALLED THE CHHAYA.
16.
HOW ARE THE MANUSHYA BORN? THE MANUS WITH MINDS, HOW ARE THEY MADE? THE FATHERS
CALLED TO THEIR HELP THEIR OWN FIRE; WHICH IS THE FIRE THAT BURNS IN EARTH. THE
SPIRIT OF THE EARTH CALLED TO HIS HELP THE SOLAR FIRE. THESE THREE PRODUCED IN
THEIR JOINT EFFORTS A GOOD RUPA. IT COULD STAND, WALK, RUN, RECLINE, OR FLY.
YET IT WAS STILL BUT A CHHAYA, A SHADOW WITH NO SENSE . . . .
17.
THE BREATH NEEDED A FORM; THE FATHERS GAVE IT. THE BREATH NEEDED A GROSS BODY;
THE EARTH MOULDED IT. THE BREATH NEEDED THE SPIRIT OF LIFE; THE SOLAR LHAS
BREATHED IT INTO ITS FORM. THE BREATH NEEDED A MIRROR OF ITS BODY; "WE
GAVE IT OUR OWN," SAID THE DHYANIS. THE BREATH NEEDED A VEHICLE OF
DESIRES; "IT HAS IT," SAID THE DRAINER OF WATERS. BUT BREATH NEEDS A
MIND TO EMBRACE THE UNIVERSE; "WE CANNOT GIVE THAT," SAID THE
FATHERS. "I NEVER HAD IT," SAID THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH. "THE
FORM WOULD BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE," SAID THE GREAT FIRE . . .
. MAN REMAINED AN EMPTY SENSELESS BHUTA . . . . THUS HAVE THE BONELESS GIVEN
LIFE TO THOSE WHO BECAME MEN WITH BONES IN THE THIRD.
-------
V.
18.
THE FIRST WERE THE SONS OF YOGA. THEIR SONS THE CHILDREN OF THE YELLOW FATHER
AND THE WHITE MOTHER.
19.
THE SECOND RACE WAS THE PRODUCT BY BUDDING AND
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 18 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
EXPANSION,
THE A-SEXUAL FROM THE SEXLESS* -- THUS WAS, O LANOO, THE SECOND RACE PRODUCED.
20.
THEIR FATHERS WERE THE SELF-BORN. THE SELF-BORN, THE CHHAYA FROM THE BRILLIANT
BODIES OF THE LORDS, THE FATHERS, THE SONS OF TWILIGHT.
21.
WHEN THE RACE BECAME OLD, THE OLD WATERS MIXED WITH THE FRESHER WATERS. WHEN
ITS DROPS BECAME TURBID, THEY VANISHED AND DISAPPEARED IN THE NEW STREAM, IN THE
HOT STREAM OF LIFE. THE OUTER OF THE FIRST BECAME THE INNER OF THE SECOND. THE
OLD WING BECAME THE NEW SHADOW, AND THE SHADOW OF THE WING.
-------
VI.
22.
THEN THE SECOND EVOLVED THE EGG-BORN, THE THIRD. THE SWEAT GREW, ITS DROPS
GREW, AND THE DROPS BECAME HARD AND ROUND. THE SUN WARMED IT; THE MOON COOLED
AND SHAPED IT; THE WIND FED IT UNTIL ITS RIPENESS. THE WHITE SWAN FROM THE
STARRY VAULT OVERSHADOWED THE BIG DROP. THE EGG OF THE FUTURE RACE, THE
MAN-SWAN OF THE LATER THIRD. FIRST MALE-FEMALE, THEN MAN AND WOMAN.
23.
THE SELF-BORN WERE THE CHHAYAS: THE SHADOWS FROM THE BODIES OF THE SONS OF
TWILIGHT.
-------
VII.
24.
THE SONS OF WISDOM, THE SONS OF NIGHT, READY FOR REBIRTH, CAME DOWN, THEY SAW
THE VILE FORMS OF THE FIRST THIRD, "WE CAN CHOOSE," SAID THE LORDS,
"WE HAVE WISDOM." SOME ENTERED THE CHHAYA. SOME PROJECTED THE SPARK.
SOME DEFERRED TILL THE FOURTH. FROM THEIR OWN RUPA THEY FILLED THE KAMA. THOSE
WHO ENTERED BECAME ARHATS. THOSE WHO RECEIVED BUT A SPARK, REMAINED DESTITUTE
OF KNOWLEDGE; THE SPARK BURNED LOW. THE THIRD REMAINED MIND-LESS. THEIR JIVAS
WERE NOT
[[Footnote(s)
-------------------------------------------------]]
*
The idea and the spirit of the sentence is here given, as a verbal translation
would convey very little to the reader.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 19 THE SLOKAS OF "DZYAN."
READY.
THESE WERE SET APART AMONG THE SEVEN. THEY BECAME NARROW-HEADED. THE THIRD WERE
READY. "IN THESE SHALL WE DWELL," SAID THE LORDS OF THE FLAME.
25.
HOW DID THE MANASA, THE SONS OF WISDOM, ACT? THEY REJECTED THE SELF-BORN. THEY
ARE NOT READY. THEY SPURNED THE SWEAT-BORN. THEY ARE NOT QUITE READY. THEY
WOULD NOT ENTER THE FIRST EGG-BORN.
26.
WHEN THE SWEAT-BORN PRODUCED THE EGG-BORN, THE TWOFOLD AND THE MIGHTY, THE
POWERFUL WITH BONES, THE LORDS OF WISDOM SAID: "NOW SHALL WE CREATE."
27.
THE THIRD RACE BECAME THE VAHAN OF THE LORDS OF WISDOM. IT CREATED "SONS
OF WILL AND YOGA," BY KRIYASAKTI IT CREATED THEM, THE HOLY FATHERS, ANCESTORS
OF THE ARHATS. .
-------
VIII.
28.
FROM THE DROPS OF SWEAT; FROM THE RESIDUE OF THE SUBSTANCE; MATTER FROM DEAD
BODIES OF MEN AND ANIMALS OF THE WHEEL BEFORE; AND FROM CAST-OFF DUST, THE
FIRST ANIMALS WERE PRODUCED.
29.
ANIMALS WITH BONES, DRAGONS OF THE DEEP, AND FLYING SARPAS WERE ADDED TO THE
CREEPING THINGS. THEY THAT CREEP ON THE GROUND GOT WINGS. THEY OF THE LONG
NECKS IN THE WATER BECAME THE PROGENITORS OF THE FOWLS OF THE AIR.
30.
DURING THE THIRD RACE THE BONELESS ANIMALS GREW AND CHANGED: THEY BECAME
ANIMALS WITH BONES, THEIR CHHAYAS BECAME SOLID.
31.
THE ANIMALS SEPARATED THE FIRST. THEY BEGAN TO BREED. THE TWO-FOLD MAN
SEPARATED ALSO. HE SAID: "LET US AS THEY; LET US UNITE AND MAKE
CREATURES." THEY DID.
32.
AND THOSE WHICH HAD NO SPARK TOOK HUGE SHE-ANIMALS UNTO THEM. THEY BEGAT UPON
THEM DUMB RACES. DUMB THEY WERE THEMSELVES. BUT THEIR TONGUES UNTIED. THE
TONGUES OF THEIR PROGENY REMAINED STILL. MONSTERS THEY BRED. A RACE OF CROOKED
RED-HAIR-COVERED MONSTERS GOING ON ALL FOURS. A DUMB RACE TO KEEP THE SHAME
UNTOLD.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 20 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
IX.
33.
SEEING WHICH, THE LHAS WHO HAD NOT BUILT MEN, WEPT, SAYING:--
34.
"THE AMANASA HAVE DEFILED OUR FUTURE ABODES. THIS IS KARMA. LET US DWELL
IN THE OTHERS. LET US TEACH THEM BETTER, LEST WORSE SHOULD HAPPEN. THEY DID . .
. .
35.
THEN ALL MEN BECAME ENDOWED WITH MANAS. THEY SAW THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS.
36.
THE FOURTH RACE DEVELOPED SPEECH.
37.
THE ONE BECAME TWO; ALSO ALL THE LIVING AND CREEPING THINGS THAT WERE STILL
ONE, GIANT FISH-BIRDS AND SERPENTS WITH SHELL-HEADS.
-------
X.
38.
THUS TWO BY TWO ON THE SEVEN ZONES, THE THIRD RACE GAVE BIRTH TO THE
FOURTH-RACE MEN; THE GODS BECAME NO-GODS; THE SURA BECAME A-SURA.
39.
THE FIRST, ON EVERY ZONE, WAS MOON-COLOURED; THE SECOND YELLOW LIKE GOLD; THE
THIRD RED; THE FOURTH BROWN, WHICH BECAME BLACK WITH SIN. THE FIRST SEVEN HUMAN
SHOOTS WERE ALL OF ONE COMPLEXION. THE NEXT SEVEN BEGAN MIXING.
40.
THEN THE FOURTH BECAME TALL WITH PRIDE. WE ARE THE KINGS, IT WAS SAID; WE ARE
THE GODS.
41.
THEY TOOK WIVES FAIR TO LOOK UPON. WIVES FROM THE MINDLESS, THE NARROW-HEADED.
THEY BRED MONSTERS. WICKED DEMONS, MALE AND FEMALE, ALSO KHADO (DAKINI), WITH
LITTLE MINDS.
42.
THEY BUILT TEMPLES FOR THE HUMAN BODY. MALE AND FEMALE THEY WORSHIPPED. THEN
THE THIRD EYE ACTED NO LONGER.
-------
XI.
43.
THEY BUILT HUGE CITIES. OF RARE EARTHS AND METALS THEY BUILT, AND OUT OF THE
FIRES VOMITED, OUT OF THE WHITE STONE OF
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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THE
MOUNTAINS AND OF THE BLACK STONE, THEY CUT THEIR OWN IMAGES IN THEIR SIZE AND
LIKENESS, AND WORSHIPPED THEM.
44.
THEY BUILT GREAT IMAGES NINE YATIS HIGH, THE SIZE OF THEIR BODIES. INNER FIRES
HAD DESTROYED THE LAND OF THEIR FATHERS. THE WATER THREATENED THE FOURTH.
45.
THE FIRST GREAT WATERS CAME. THEY SWALLOWED THE SEVEN GREAT ISLANDS.
46.
ALL HOLY SAVED, THE UNHOLY DESTROYED. WITH THEM MOST OF THE HUGE ANIMALS,
PRODUCED FROM THE SWEAT OF THE EARTH.
-------
XII.
47.
FEW MEN REMAINED: SOME YELLOW, SOME BROWN AND BLACK, AND SOME RED REMAINED. THE
MOON-COLOURED WERE GONE FOREVER.
48.
THE FIFTH PRODUCED FROM THE HOLY STOCK REMAINED; IT WAS RULED OVER BY THE FIRST
DIVINE KINGS.
49.
. . . . WHO RE-DESCENDED, WHO MADE PEACE WITH THE FIFTH, WHO TAUGHT AND
INSTRUCTED IT. . . . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 22 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
STANZA
I.*
BEGINNINGS
OF SENTIENT LIFE.
-------
§§
(1) THE LHA, or Spirit of the Earth. (2) Invocation of the Earth to the Sun.
(3)
What the Sun answers. (4) Transformation of the Earth.
--------------
1.
THE LHA (a) WHICH TURNS THE FOURTH (Globe, or our Earth) IS SERVANT TO THE
LHA(S) OF THE SEVEN (the planetary Spirits) (b), THEY WHO REVOLVE, DRIVING
THEIR CHARIOTS AROUND THEIR LORD, THE ONE EYE (Loka-Chakshub) OF OUR WORLD. HIS
BREATH GIVES LIFE TO THE SEVEN (gives light to the planets). IT GAVE LIFE TO
THE FIRST (c). "THEY ARE ALL DRAGONS OF WISDOM," adds the Commentary
(d).
(a)
Lha is the ancient word in trans-Himalayan regions for "Spirit," any celestial
or superhuman Being, and it covers the whole series of heavenly hierarchies,
from Archangel, or Dhyani, down to an angel of darkness, or terrestrial Spirit.
(b)
This expression shows in plain language that the Spirit-Guardian of our globe,
which is the fourth in the chain, is subordinate to the chief Spirit (or God)
of the Seven Planetary Genii or Spirits. As already explained, the ancients
had, in their Kyriel of gods, seven chief Mystery-gods, whose chief was,
exoterically, the visible Sun, or the eighth, and, esoterically, the second
Logos, the Demiurge. The seven (who have now become the "Seven Eyes of the
Lord" in the Christian religion) were the regents of the seven chief
planets; but these were not
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
All the words and sentences placed in brackets in the Stanzas and Commentaries
are the writer's. In some places they may be incomplete and even inadequate
from the Hindu standpoint; but in the meaning attached to them in Trans-Himalayan
Esotericism they are correct. In every case the writer takes any blame upon
herself. Having never claimed personal infallibility, that which is given on
her own authority may leave much to be desired, in the very abstruse cases
where too deep metaphysics is involved. The teaching is offered as it is
understood; and as there are seven keys of interpretation to every symbol and
allegory, that which may not fit a meaning, say from the psychological or
astronomical aspect, will be found quite correct from the physical or
metaphysical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 23 THE ACTION OF THE GREAT BREATH.
reckoned
according to the enumeration devised later by people who had forgotten, or who
had an inadequate notion of, the real Mysteries, and included neither the sun,
the moon, nor the earth. The sun was the chief, exoterically, of the twelve
great gods, or zodiacal constellations; and, esoterically, the Messiah, the
Christos (the subject anointed by the Great BREATH, or the ONE) surrounded by
his twelve subordinate powers, also subordinate, in turn, to each of the seven
"Mystery-gods" of the planets.
"The
seven higher make the Seven Lhas create the world," states a Commentary;
which means that our Earth, leaving aside the rest, was created or fashioned by
terrestrial spirits, the "Regents" being simply the supervisors. This
is the first germ, the seed of that which grew later into the Tree of Astrology
and Astrolatry. The Higher ones were the Kosmocratores, the fabricators of our
solar system. This is borne out by all the ancient Cosmogonies: that of Hermes,
of the Chaldees, of the Aryans, of the Egyptians, and even of the Jews.
Heaven's belt, the signs of the Zodiac (the Sacred animals), are as much the
Bne' Alhim (Sons of the Gods or the Elohim) as the Spirits of the Earth; but
they are prior to them. Soma and Sin, Isis and Diana, are all lunar gods or
goddesses, called the fathers and mothers of our Earth, which is subordinate to
them. But these, in their turn, are subordinate to their "Fathers"
and "Mothers" -- the latter interchangeable and varying with each
nation -- the gods and their planets, such as Jupiter, Saturn Bel, Brihaspati,
etc.
(c)
"His breath gave life to the seven," refers as much to the sun, who
gives life to the Planets, as to the "High One," the Spiritual Sun,
who gives life to the whole Kosmos. The astronomical and astrological keys
opening the gate leading to the mysteries of Theogony can be found only in the
later glossaries, which accompany the Stanzas.
In
the apocalyptic Slokas of the Archaic Records, the language is as symbolical,
if less mythical, than in the Puranas. Without the help of the later
commentaries, compiled by generations of adepts, it would be impossible to understand
the meaning correctly. In the ancient Cosmogonies, the visible and the
invisible worlds are the double links of one and the same chain. As the
invisible Logos, with its seven hierarchies (represented or personified each by
its chief angel or rector), form one POWER, the inner and the invisible; so, in
the world of Forms, the Sun and the seven chief Planets constitute the visible
and active potency; the latter "Hierarchy" being, so to speak, the
visible and objective Logos of the invisible and (except in the lowest grades)
ever-subjective angels.
Thus
-- to anticipate a little by way of illustration -- every Race in its
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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evolution
is said to be born under the direct influence of one of the Planets: Race the
first receiving its breath of life from the Sun, as will be seen later on;
while the third humanity -- those who fell into generation, or from androgynes
became separate entities, one male and the other female -- are said to be under
the direct influence of Venus, "the little sun in which the solar orb
stores his light."
The
summation of the Stanzas in Book I. showed the genesis* of Gods and men taking
rise in, and from, one and the same Point, which is the One Universal,
Immutable, Eternal, and absolute UNITY. In its primary manifested aspect we
have seen it become: (1) in the sphere of objectivity and Physics, Primordial
Substance and Force (centripetal and centrifugal, positive and negative, male
and female, etc., etc.); (2) in the world of Metaphysics, the SPIRIT OF THE
UNIVERSE, or Cosmic Ideation, called by some the LOGOS.
This
LOGOS is the apex of the Pythagorean triangle. When the triangle is complete it
becomes the Tetraktis, or the Triangle in the Square, and is the dual symbol of
the four-lettered Tetragrammaton in the manifested Kosmos, and of its radical
triple RAY in the unmanifested, or its noumenon.
Put
more metaphysically, the classification given here of Cosmic Ultimates, is more
one of convenience than of absolute philosophical accuracy. At the commencement
of a great Manvantara, Parabrahm manifests as Mulaprakriti and then as the
Logos. This Logos is equivalent to the "Unconscious Universal Mind,"
etc., of Western Pantheists. It constitutes the Basis of the SUBJECT-side of
manifested Being, and is the source of all manifestations of individual
consciousness. Mulaprakriti or Primordial Cosmic Substance, is the foundation
of the OBJECT-side of things -- the basis of all objective evolution and
Cosmogenesis. Force, then, does not emerge with Primordial Substance from
Parabrahmic Latency. It is the transformation into energy of the
supra-conscious thought of the Logos, infused, so to speak, into the objectivation
of the latter out of potential latency in the One Reality. Hence spring the
wondrous laws of matter: hence the "primal impress" so vainly
discussed by Bishop Temple. Force thus is not synchronous with the first
objectivation of Mulaprakriti. But as, apart from it, the latter is absolutely
and necessarily inert -- a mere abstraction -- it is unnecessary to weave too
fine a cobweb of subtleties as to the order of succession of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
According to Dr. A. Wilder's learned definition, Genesis, [[genesis]], is not
generation, but "a coming out of the eternal into the Kosmos and
Time": "a coming from esse into exsistere," or "from
BE-NESS into 'being' " -- as a Theosophist would say.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 25 MAN, THE THIRD LOGOS.
the
Cosmic Ultimates. Force succeeds Mulaprakriti; but, minus Force, Mulaprakriti
is for all practical intents and purposes non-existent.*
The
"Heavenly Man" (Tetragrammaton) who is the Protogonos, Tikkoun, the
firstborn from the passive deity and the first manifestation of that deity's
shadow, is the universal form and idea, which engenders the manifested Logos,
Adam Kadmon, or the four-lettered symbol, in the Kabala, of the Universe
itself, also called the second Logos. The second springs from the first and
develops the third triangle (see the Sephirothal Tree); from the last of which
(the lower host of Angels) MEN are generated. It is with this third aspect that
we shall deal at present.
The
reader must bear in mind that there is a great difference between the LOGOS and
the Demiurgos, for one is Spirit and the other is Soul; or as Dr. Wilder has
it: "Dianoia and Logos are synonymous, Nous being superior and closely in
affinity with [[To agathon]], one being the superior apprehending, the other
the comprehending -- one noetic and the other phrenic."
Moreover,
Man was regarded in several systems as the third Logos. The esoteric meaning of
the word Logos (speech or word, Verbum) is the rendering in objective
expression, as in a photograph, of the concealed thought. The Logos is the
mirror reflecting DIVINE MIND, and the Universe is the mirror of the Logos,
though the latter is the esse of that Universe. As the Logos reflects all in
the Universe of Pleroma, so man reflects in himself all that he sees and finds
in his Universe, the Earth. It is the three Heads of the Kabala: "Unum
intra alterum, et alterum super alterum" (Zohar, Idra Suta, sec. VII). "Every
Universe (world or planet) has its own Logos," says the doctrine. The Sun
was always called by the Egyptians "the eye of Osiris," and was
himself the Logos, the first-begotten, or light made manifest to the world,
"which is the Mind and divine intellect of the Concealed." It is only
by the sevenfold Ray of this light that we can become cognizant of the Logos
through the Demi-urge, regarding the latter as the creator of our planet and
everything pertaining to it, and the former as the guiding Force of that
"Creator" -- good and bad at the same time, the origin of good and
the origin of evil. This "Creator" is neither good nor bad per se,
but its differentiated aspects in nature make it assume one or the other
character. With the invisible and the unknown Universes disseminated through
space, none of the sun-gods had anything to do. The idea is expressed very
clearly in the "Books of Hermes," and in every ancient folk lore. It
is symbolised generally by the Dragon and the Serpent -- the Dragon of Good and
the Serpent of Evil, represented on Earth by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For a clearer explanation of the origins, as contained in the esotericism of
the Bhagavad Gita, see the Notes thereon published in the "Theosophist"
for February, March and June, 1887, Madras.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
right and the left-hand Magic. In the epic poem of Finland, the Kalewala,* the
origin of the Serpent of Evil is given: it is born from the "spittle of
Suoyatar . . . . and endowed with a living Soul by the Principle of Evil,"
Hisi. A strife is described between the two, the "thing of Evil" (the
Serpent or Sorcerer), and Ahti, the Dragon; "Magic Lemminkainen." The
latter is one of the seven sons of Ilmatar, the virgin "daughter of the
air," she "who fell from heaven into the sea," before Creation,
i.e., Spirit transformed into the matter of sensuous life. There is a world of
meaning and Occult thought in these few lines, admirably rendered by Dr. J. M.
Crawford, of Cincinnati. The hero Lemminkainen, the good magician,
"Hews
the wall with might of magic,
Breaks
the palisade in pieces,
Hews
to atoms seven pickets,
Chops
the Serpent wall to fragments.
.
. . . . .
When
the monster little heeding,
.
. . . . .
Pounces
with his mouth of venom
At
the head of Lemminkainen.
But
the hero, quick recalling,
Speaks
the Master words of Knowledge,
Words
that came from distant ages,
Words
his ancestors had taught him . . . . "
(d)
In China the men of Fohi (or the "Heavenly Man") are called the
twelve Tien-Hoang, the twelve hierarchies of Dhyanis or Angels, with human
Faces, and Dragon bodies; the dragon standing for divine Wisdom or Spirit**;
and they create men by incarnating themselves in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
J. W. Alden, New York.
**
It has been repeatedly stated that the Serpent is the symbol of wisdom and of
Occult knowledge. "The Serpent has been connected with the god of wisdom
from the earliest times of which we have any historical notice," writes
Staniland Wake. "This animal was the especial symbol of Thot or Taut . . .
and of all those gods, such as Hermes (?) and Seth who can be connected with
him. This is also the primitive Chaldean triad Hea or Hoa." According to
Sir Henry Rawlinson, the most important titles of this deity refer to "his
functions as the source of all knowledge and science." Not only is he "the
intelligent fish," but his name may be read as signifying both
"life" and a serpent (an initiated adept), and he may be considered
as "figured by the great serpent which occupies so conspicuous a place
among the symbols of the gods on the black stones recording Babylonian benefactions."
Esculapius, Serapis, Pluto, Knoum and Kneph, are all deities with the
attributes of the serpent. Says Dupuis, "They are all healers, givers of
health, spiritual and physical, and of enlightenment." The crown formed of
an asp, the Thermuthis, belongs to Isis, goddess of Life and Healing. The
Upanishads have a treatise on the Science of Serpents -- in other words, the
Science of Occult knowledge; and the Nagas of the exoteric Buddhist are not
"the fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents . . . beings superior to
men and the protectors of the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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seven
figures of clay -- earth and water -- made in the shape of those Tien-hoang, a
third allegory; (compare the "Symbols of the Bonzes"). The twelve
AESERS of the Scandinavian Eddas do the same. In the Secret Catechism of the
Druses of Syria -- a legend which is repeated word for word by the oldest
tribes about and around the Euphrates -- men were created by the "Sons of
God" descending on Earth, where, after culling seven Mandragoras, they
animated these roots, which became forthwith men.*
All
these allegories point to one and the same origin -- to the dual and the triple
nature of man; dual, as male and female; triple -- as being of spiritual and
psychic essence within, and of a material fabric without.
--------
2.
SAID THE EARTH, "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE (the Sun) MY HOUSE IS EMPTY. . .
. SEND THY SONS TO PEOPLE THIS WHEEL (Earth). THOU HAST SENT THY SEVEN SONS TO
THE LORD OF WISDOM (a). SEVEN TIMES DOTH HE SEE THEE NEARER TO HIMSELF; SEVEN
TIMES MORE DOTH HE FEEL THEE. THOU HAST FORBIDDEN THY SERVANTS, THE SMALL
RINGS, TO CATCH THY LIGHT AND HEAT, THY GREAT BOUNTY TO INTERCEPT ON ITS
PASSAGE (b). SEND NOW TO THY SERVANT THE SAME!" (c).
(a)
The "Lord of Wisdom" is Mercury, or Budha.
(b)
The modern Commentary explains the words as a reference to a well-known
astronomical fact, "that Mercury receives seven times more
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] law of Buddha," as Schlagintweit believes,
but real living men, some superior to men by virtue of their Occult knowledge,
and the protectors of Buddha's law, inasmuch as they interpret his metaphysical
tenets correctly, others inferior morally as being black magicians. Therefore
it is truly declared that Gautama Buddha "is said to have taught them a
more philosophical religious system than to men, who were not sufficiently
advanced to understand it at the time of his appearance." (Schlagintweit's
"Tibetan Buddhism.")
*
The Mandragora is the mandrake of the Bible, of Rachel and Leah. They are the
roots of a plant, fleshy, hairy, and forked below, representing roughly the
limbs of a man, the body and even a head. Its magical and mysterious properties
have been proclaimed in fable and play from the most archaic ages. From Rachel
and Leah, who indulged in witchcraft with them, down to Shakespeare, who speaks
of shrieking --
.
. . . "Like mandrakes torn out of the earth
That
living mortals, hearing them, run mad"
--
the mandragora was the magic plant par excellence.
These
roots, without any stalk, and with large leaves growing out of the head of the
root, like a gigantic crop of hair, present little similitude to man when found
in Spain, Italy, Asia Minor, or Syria. But on the Isle of Candia, and in
Karamania near the city of Adan, they have a wonderfully human form; being very
highly prized as amulets. They are also worn by women as a charm against
sterility, and for other purposes. They are especially effective in Black
Magic.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 28 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
light
and heat from the Sun than Earth, or even the beautiful Venus, which receives
but twice that amount more than our insignificant Globe." Whether the fact
was known in antiquity may be inferred from the prayer of the "Earth
Spirit" to the Sun as given in the text.* The Sun however, refuses to
people the globe, as it is not ready to receive life as yet.
Mercury
is, as an astrological planet, still more occult and mysterious than Venus. It
is identical with the Mazdean Mithra, the genius, or god, "established
between the Sun and the Moon, the perpetual companion of 'Sun' of Wisdom."
Pausanias shows him as having an altar in common with Jupiter (Book V). He had
wings to express his attendance upon the Sun in its course; and he was called the
Nuntis, or Sun-wolf, "solaris luminis particeps." He was the leader
of and the evocator of Souls, the "great Magician" and the
Hierophant. Virgil depicts him as taking "his wand to evoke from Orcus the
souls plunged therein" -- tum virgam capit, hac animas ille evocat Orco.
(See also the 21st Fargard of the Vendidad on the celestial militia.) He is the
golden-coloured Mercury, the [[chrusophaes Hermes]] whom the Hierophants
forbade to name. He is symbolised in Grecian mythology by one of the dogs (vigilance),
which watch over the celestial flock (occult wisdom), or Hermes Anubis, or
again Agathodaemon. He is the Argus watching over the Earth, and which the
latter mistakes for the Sun itself. It is through the intercession of Mercury
that the Emperor Julian prayed to the Occult Sun every night; for, as says
Vossius: "All the theologians agree to say that Mercury and the Sun are
one. . . . He was the most eloquent and the most wise of all the gods, which is
not to be wondered at, since Mercury is in such close proximity to the Wisdom
and the Word of God (the Sun) that he was confused with both." (Idolatry,
Vol. II., p. 373.) Vossius utters here a greater occult truth than he
suspected. The Hermes-Sarameyas of the Greeks is closely related to the Hindu Saram
and Sarameya, the divine watchman, "who watches over the golden flock of
stars and solar rays."
In
the clearer words of the Commentary:
"The
Globe, propelled onward by the Spirit of the Earth and his six assistants,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Copernicus wrote his theories on the "Revolution of the Heavenly
Bodies" in the XVIth century, and the Zohar, even if compiled by Moses de
Leon in the XIIIth century, states that: "In the book of Hammannunah, the
Old, we learn . . . that the earth turns upon itself in the form of a circle;
that some are on top, the others below, . . . . that there are some countries
which are lightened, whilst others are in darkness; these have the day, when
for the former it is night; and there are countries in which it is constantly
day, or in which at least the night continues only some instants." (Zohar
iii., fol. 10a "Qabbalah," p. 139.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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gets
all its vital forces, life, and powers through the medium of the seven
planetary Dhyanis from the Spirit of the Sun. They are his messengers of Light
and Life."
"Like
each of the seven regions of the Earth, each of the seven* Firstborn (the
primordial human groups) receives its light and life from its own especial
Dhyani -- spiritually, and from the palace (house, the planet) of that Dhyani
physically; so with the seven great Races to be born on it. The first is born
under the Sun; the second under Brihaspati (Jupiter); the third under Lohitanga
(the "fiery-bodied," Venus, or Sukra); the fourth, under Soma (the
Moon, our Globe also, the Fourth Sphere being born under and from the Moon) and
Sani, Saturn** the Krura-lochana (evil-eyed) and the Asita (the dark); the
fifth, under Budha (Mercury)."
"So
also with man and every 'man' in man (every principle). Each gets its specific
quality from its primary (the planetary spirit), therefore every man is a septenate
(or a combination of principles, each having its origin in a quality of that
special Dhyani). Every active power or force of the earth comes to her from one
of the seven Lords. Light comes through Sukra (Venus), who receives a triple
supply, and gives one-third of it to the Earth. Therefore the two are called
'Twin-sisters,' but the Spirit of the Earth is subservient to the 'Lord' of
Sukra. Our wise men represent the two Globes, one over, the other under the
double Sign (the primeval Svastica bereft of its four arms, or the cross
[[diagram]])."***
The
"double sign" is, as every student of Occultism knows, the symbol of
the male and the female principles in Nature, of the positive and the negative,
for the Svastica or [[diagram]] is all that and much more. All antiquity, ever
since the birth of Astronomy -- imparted to the Fourth Race by one of its
divine kings of the Divine Dynasty -- and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Science teaches that Venus receives from the sun twice as much light and heat
as the earth. Thus the planet, precursor of the dawn and the twilight, the most
radiant of all the planets, said to give the earth one-third of the supply she
receives, has two parts left for herself. This has an occult as well as an
astronomical meaning.
**
"As it is above so it is below" is the fundamental axiom of occult
philosophy. As the logos is seven-fold, i.e., throughout Kosmos it appears as
seven logoi under seven different forms, or, as taught by learned Brahmins,
"each of these is the central figure of one of the seven main branches of
the ancient wisdom religion;" and, as the seven principles which
correspond to the seven distinct states of Pragna, or consciousness, are allied
to seven states of matter and the seven forms of force, the division must be
the same in all that concerns the earth.
***
Venus is thus [[diagram]] the Earth [[diagram]].
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 30 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
also
of Astrology, represented Venus in its astronomical tables as a Globe poised
over a Cross, and the Earth, as a Globe under a Cross. The esoteric meaning of
this is: "Earth fallen into generation, or into the production of its
species through sexual union." But the later Western nations did not fail
to give quite a different interpretation. They explained this sign through
their mystics -- guided by the light of the Latin Church -- as meaning that our
Earth and all on it were redeemed by the Cross, while Venus (otherwise Lucifer
or Satan) was trampling upon it. Venus is the most occult, powerful, and
mysterious of all the planets; the one whose influence upon, and relation to
the Earth is most prominent. In exoteric Brahmanism, Venus or Sukra -- a male
deity* -- is the son of Bhrigu, one of the Prajapati and a Vedic sage, and is
Daitya-Guru, or the priest-instructor of the primeval giants. The whole history
of "Sukra" in the Puranas, refers to the Third and to the Fourth
Races.
"It
is through Sukra that the 'double ones' (the Hermaphrodites) of the Third
(Root-Race) descended from the first 'Sweat-born,'" says the Commentary.
Therefore it is represented under the symbol of [[diagram]] (the circle and
diameter) during the Third (Race) and of [[diagram]] during the Fourth.
This
needs explanation. The diameter, when found isolated in a circle, stands for
female nature, for the first ideal World, self-generated and self-impregnated
by the universally diffused Spirit of Life -- referring thus to the primitive
Root-Race also. It becomes androgynous as the Races and all on Earth develop
into their physical forms, and the symbol is transformed into a circle with a
diameter from which runs a vertical line: expressive of male and female, not separated
as yet -- the first and earliest Egyptian Tau [[diagram]]; after which it
becomes [[diagram]] or male-female separated** (See first pp. of Book I) and
fallen into generation. Venus (the planet) is symbolised by the sign of a globe
over the cross, which shows it as presiding over the natural generation of man.
The Egyptians symbolised Ank, "life," by the ansated cross, or
[[diagram]], which is only another form of Venus (Isis) [[diagram]], and meant,
esoterically, that mankind and all animal life bad stepped out of the divine
spiritual circle and fallen into physical male and female generation. This
sign, from the end of the Third Race, has the same phallic significance as the
"tree
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the esoteric philosophy it is male and female, or hermaphrodite; hence the
bearded Venus in mythology.
**
Therefore, putting aside its religio-metaphysical aspect, the Cross of the
Christians is symbolically far more phallic than the pagan Svastica.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
life" in Eden Anouki, a form of Isis, is the goddess of life; and Ank was
taken by the Hebrews from the Egyptians and introduced by Moses, one learned in
the Wisdom of the priests of Egypt, with many other mystical words. The word
Ank in Hebrew, with the personal suffix, means "my life," my being,
which "is the personal pronoun Anochi," from the name of the Egyptian
goddess Anouki.*
In
one of the most ancient Catechisms of Southern India, Madras Presidency, the
hermaphrodite goddess Adanari (see also "Indian Pantheon") has the
ansated cross, the Svastica, the "male and female sign," right in the
central part, to denote the pre-sexual state of the Third Race. Vishnu, who is
now represented with a lotus growing out of his navel -- or the Universe of
Brahma evolving out of the central point Nara -- is shown in one of the oldest
carvings as double-sexed (Vishnu and Lakshmi) standing on a lotus-leaf floating
on the water; which water rises in a semicircle and pours through the Svastica,
"the source of generation" or of the descent of man.
Pythagoras
calls Sukra-Venus the Sol alter, "the other Sun." Of the "seven
palaces of the Sun," that of Lucifer Venus is the third one in Christian
and Jewish Kabala, the Zohar making of it the abode of Samael. According to the
Occult Doctrine, this planet is our Earth's primary, and its spiritual
prototype. Hence, Sukra's car (Venus-Lucifer's) is said to be drawn by an
ogdoad of "earth-born horses," while the steeds of the chariots of
the other planets are different.
"Every
sin committed on Earth is felt by Usanas-Sukra. The Guru of the Daityas is the
Guardian Spirit of the Earth and Men. Every change on Sukra is felt on, and
reflected by, the Earth."
Sukra,
or Venus, is thus represented as the preceptor of the Daityas, the giants of
the Fourth Race, who, in the Hindu allegory, obtained at one time the
sovereignty of all the Earth, and defeated the minor gods. The Titans of the
Western allegory are as closely connected with Venus-Lucifer, identified by
later Christians with Satan. Therefore, as Venus, equally with Isis, was
represented with Cow's horns on her head, the symbol of mystic Nature, and one
that is convertible with, and significant of, the moon, since all these were
lunar goddesses, the configuration of this planet is now placed by theologians
between the horns of the mystic Lucifer.** It is owing to the fanciful
interpretation of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The ansated Cross is the astronomical planetary sign of Venus, "signifying
the existence of parturient energy in the sexual sense, and this was one of the
attributes of Isis, the Mother, of Eve, Hauvah, or Mother-Earth, and was so
recognised among all the ancient peoples in one or another mode of
expression." (From a modern Kabalistic MS.)
**
Athenaeus shows that the first letter of Satan's name was represented in days
of old by an arc and crescent; and some Roman Catholics, good and kind men,
would persuade the public that it is in honour of Lucifer's crescent-like horns
that Mussulmen [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 32 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
archaic
tradition, which states that Venus changes simultaneously (geologically) with
the Earth; that whatever takes place on the one takes place on the other; and
that many and great were their common changes -- it is for these reasons that
St. Augustine repeats it, applying the several changes of configuration,
colour, and even of the orbital paths, to that theologically-woven character of
Venus-Lucifer. He even goes so far in his pious fancy as to connect the last changes
of the planet with the Noachian and mythical Deluge alleged to have taken place
1796 years B.C. (See "City of God" lxxi., ch. viii.).
As
Venus has no satellites, it is stated allegorically, that "Asphujit"
(this "planet") adopted the Earth, the progeny of the Moon, "who
overgrew its parent and gave much trouble," a reference to the occult
connection between the two. The Regent (of the planet) Sukra* loved his adopted
child so well that he incarnated as Usanas and gave it perfect laws, which were
disregarded and rejected in later ages. Another allegory, in Harivansa, is that
Sukra went to Siva asking him to protect his pupils, the Daityas and Asuras,
from the fighting gods; and that to further his object he performed a Yoga rite
"imbibing the smoke of chaff with his head downwards for 1,000
years." This refers to the great inclination of the axis of Venus
(amounting to 50 degrees), and to its being enveloped in eternal clouds. But it
relates only to the physical constitution of the planet. It is with its Regent,
the informing Dhyan Chohan,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] have chosen the Crescent for their national
arms. Venus has always been identified, since the establishment of Roman
Catholic dogmatism, with Satan and Lucifer, or the great Dragon, contrary to
all reason and logic. As shown by the symbologists and astronomers, the
association between the serpent and the idea of darkness had an astronomical
foundation. The position which the constellation of Draco at one time occupied
showed that the great serpent was the ruler of the night. This constellation
was formerly at the very centre of the heavens, and is so extensive that it was
called the Great Dragon. Its body spreads over seven signs of the Zodiac; and
Dupuis, "who," says Staniland Wake, "sees in the Dragon of the
Apocalypse a reference to the celestial serpent," remarks that "it is
not astonishing that a constellation so extended should be represented by the
author of that book as a Great Dragon with seven heads, who drew the third part
of the stars from heaven and cast them to Earth"; (Dupuis, tome III., p.
255). Only Dupuis never knew why Draco, once the pole-star -- the symbol of
"Guide," Guru and director -- had been thus degraded by posterity.
"The gods of our fathers are our devils," says an Asiatic proverb.
When Draco ceased to be the lode-star, the guiding sidereal divinity, it shared
the fate of all the fallen gods. Seth and Typhon was at one time, Bunsen tells us,
"a great god universally adored throughout Egypt, who conferred on the
sovereigns of the 18th and 19th Dynasties the symbols of life and power. But
subsequently, in the course of the 20th Dynasty, he is suddenly treated as an
evil Demon, insomuch that his effigies and name are obliterated on all the
monuments and inscriptions that could be reached." The real occult reason
will be given in these pages.
*
Sukra is the son of Bhrigu the great Rishi, and one of the Seven Prajapati, the
founder of the Race of Bhargavas, in which Parasu Rama is born.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 33 PARENT STARS AND SISTER PLANETS.
that
Occult mysticism has to deal. The allegory which states that for killing Sukra's
mother, Vishnu was cursed by him to be reborn seven times on the Earth, is full
of occult philosophical meaning. It does not refer to Vishnu's Avatars, since
these number nine, the tenth being still to come, but to the Races on Earth.
Venus, or Lucifer (also Sukra and Usanas) the planet, is the light-bearer of
our Earth, in both its physical and mystic sense. The Christians knew it well
in early times, since one of the earliest popes of Rome is known by his Pontiff
name as Lucifer.
"Every
world has its parent star and sister planet. Thus Earth is the adopted child
and younger brother of Venus, but its inhabitants are of their own kind. . . .
All sentient complete beings (full septenary men or higher beings) are
furnished, in their beginnings, with forms and organisms in full harmony with
the nature and state of the sphere they inhabit."*
"The
Spheres of Being, or centres of life, which are isolated nuclei breeding their
men and their animals, are numberless; not one has any resemblance to its
sister-companion or to any other in its own special progeny."**
"All
have a double physical and spiritual nature."
"The
nucleoles are eternal and everlasting; the nuclei periodical and finite. The
nucleoles form part of the absolute. They are the embrasures of that black
impenetrable fortress, which is for ever concealed from human or even Dhyanic
sight. The nuclei are the light of eternity escaping therefrom."
"It
is that LIGHT which condenses into the forms of the 'Lords of Being' -- the
first and the highest of which are, collectively, JIVATMA, or Pratyagatma (said
figuratively to issue from Paramatma. It is the Logos of the Greek philosophers
-- appearing at the beginning of every new Manvantara). From these downwards --
formed from the ever-consolidating waves of that light, which becomes on the
objective plane gross matter -- proceed the numerous hierarchies of the
Creative Forces, some formless, others having their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is a flat contradiction of Swedenborg, who saw, in "the first Earth
of the astral world," inhabitants dressed as are the peasants in Europe;
and on the Fourth Earth women clad as are the shepherdesses in a bal masque.
Even the famous astronomer Huygens laboured under the mistaken idea that other
worlds and planets have the same identical beings as those who live on our
Earth, possessing the same figures, senses, brain-power, arts, sciences,
dwellings and even to the same fabric for their wearing apparel! (Theorie du
Monde). For the clearer comprehension of the statement that the Earth "is
the progeny of the Moon," see Book I., stanza VI.
**
This is a modern gloss. It is added to the old Commentaries for the clearer
comprehension of those disciples who study esoteric Cosmogony after having
passed through Western learning. The earlier Glosses are too redundant with
adjectives and figures of speech to be easily assimilated.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 34 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
own
distinctive form, others, again, the lowest (Elementals), having no form of
their own, but assuming every form according to the surrounding
conditions."
"Thus
there is but one Absolute Upadhi (basis) in the spiritual sense, from, on, and
in which, are built for Manvantaric purposes the countless basic centres on
which proceed the Universal, cyclic, and individual Evolutions during the
active period."
"The
informing Intelligences, which animate these various centres of Being, are
referred to indiscriminately by men beyond the Great Range* as the Manus, the
Rishis, the Pitris**, the Prajapati, and so on; and as Dhyani Buddhas, the
Chohans, Melhas (fire-gods), Bodhisattvas,*** and others, on this side. The
truly ignorant call them gods; the learned profane, the one God; and the wise,
the Initiates, honour in them only the Manvantaric manifestations of THAT which
neither our Creators (the Dhyan Chohans) nor their creatures can ever discuss
or know anything about. The ABSOLUTE is not to be defined, and no mortal or
immortal has ever seen or comprehended it during the periods of Existence. The
mutable cannot know the Immutable, nor can that which lives perceive Absolute
Life."
Therefore,
man cannot know higher beings than his own "progenitors." "Nor
shall he worship them," but he ought to learn how he came into the world.
(c)
Number Seven, the fundamental figure among all other figures in every national
religious system, from Cosmogony down to man, must have its raison d'etre. It
is found among the ancient Americans, as prominently as among the archaic
Aryans and Egyptians. The question will be fully dealt with in the second part
of this Book; meanwhile a few facts may be given here. Says the author of the
"Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quiches, 11,500 years
ago"****:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Beyond" the Great Range, means, in our case, India, as being the
Trans-Himalayan region for the Cis-Himalayan region.
**
The term Pitris is used by us in these Slokas to facilitate their
comprehension, but it is not so used in the original Stanzas, where they have
distinct appellations of their own, besides being called "Fathers"
and "Progenitors."
***
It is erroneous to take literally the worship of the human Bodhisattvas, or
Manjusri. It is true that, exoterically, the Mahayana school teaches adoration
of these without distinction, and that Huien-Tsang speaks of some disciples of
Buddha as being worshipped. But esoterically it is not the disciple or the
learned Manjusri personally that received honours, but the divine Bodhisattvas
and Dhyani Buddhas that animated (Amilakha, as the Mongolians say) the human
forms.
****
The author of this work is Augustus Le Plongeon. He and his wife are well known
in the United States for their untiring labours in Central America. It is they
who discovered the sepulchre of the royal Kan Coh, at Cichen-Itza. The author
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 35 THE "SEVEN" MYSTERY.
"Seven
seems to have been the sacred number par excellence among all civilised nations
of antiquity. Why? Each separate people has given a different explanation,
according to the peculiar tenets of their (exoteric) religion. That it was the
number of numbers for those initiated into the sacred mysteries, there can be
no doubt. Pythagoras . . . calls it the 'Vehicle of Life' containing body and soul,
since it is formed of a Quaternary, that is Wisdom and intellect, and of a
Trinity or action and matter. The Emperor Julian, 'In matrem, etc.,' expresses
himself thus: 'Were I to touch upon the initiation into our Sacred Mysteries,
which the Chaldees Bacchized, respecting the seven-rayed god, lighting up the
soul through him, I should say things unknown to the rabble, very unknown, but
well known to the blessed Theurgists.' " (p. 141).
And
who, acquainted with the Puranas, the Book of the Dead, the Zendavesta, the
Assyrian tiles, and finally the Bible, and who has observed the constant
occurrence of the number seven, in these records of people living from the
remotest times unconnected and so far apart, can regard as a coincidence the
following fact, given by the same explorer of ancient Mysteries? Speaking of
the prevalence of seven as a mystic number, among the inhabitants of the
"Western continent" (of America), he adds that it is not less
remarkable. For:--
"It
frequently occurs in the Popul-vuh . . . we find it besides in the seven
families said by Sahagun and Clavigero to have accompanied the mystical
personage named Votan, the reputed founder of the great city of Nachan,
identified by some with Palenque. In the seven caves* from which the ancestors
of the Nahuatl are reported to have emerged. In the seven cities of Cibola,
described by Coronado and Niza. . . . In the seven Antilles; in the seven
heroes who, we are told, escaped the Deluge . . . ."
"Heroes,"
moreover, whose number is found the same in every "Deluge" story --
from the seven Rishis who were saved with Vaivasvata Manu, down to Noah's ark,
into which beasts, fowls, and living creatures were taken by
"Sevens." Thus we see the figures 1, 3, 5, 7, as perfect, because
thoroughly mystic, numbers playing a prominent part in every Cosmogony and
evolution of living Beings. In China, 1, 3, 5, 7, are called "celestial
numbers" in the canonical "Book of Changes." (Yi King, or
transformation, as in "Evolution").
The
explanation of it becomes evident when one examines the ancient
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] seems to believe and to seek to prove that the
esoteric learning of the Aryans and the Egyptians was derived from the Mayas.
But, although certainly coeval with Plato's Atlantis, the Mayas belonged to the
Fifth Continent, which was preceded by Atlantis and Lemuria.
*
These seven caves, seven cities, etc., etc., stand in every case for the seven
centres, or zones, upon which the seven primitive groups of the first Root-race
were born.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 36 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Symbols:
all these are based upon and start from the figures given from the Archaic
Manuscript in the proem of Book I. [[diagram]], the symbol of evolution and
fall into generation or matter, is reflected in the old Mexican sculptures or
paintings, as it is in the Kabalistic Sephiroth, and the Egyptian Tau. Examine
the Mexican MSS (Add. MSS. Brit. Mus. 9789)*; you will find in it a tree whose
trunk is covered with ten fruits ready to be plucked by a male and female, one
on each side of it, while from the top of the trunk two branches shoot
horizontally to the right and left, thus forming a perfect [[diagram]] (tau),
the ends of the two branches, moreover, each bearing a triple bunch, with a
bird -- the bird of immortality, Atman or the divine Spirit -- sitting between
the two, and thus making the seventh. This represents the same idea as the
Sephirothal Tree, ten in all, yet, when separated from its upper triad, leaving
Seven. These are the celestial fruits, the ten or [[diagram]] 10, born out of
the two invisible male and female seeds, making up the 12, or the Dodecahedron of
the Universe. The mystic system contains the [[diagram]], the central point;
the 3 or [[diagram]]; the five, [[diagram]], and the seven or [[diagram]], or
again [[diagram]]; the triangle in the square and the synthesizing point in the
interlaced double triangles. This for the world of the archetypes. The
phenomenal world receives its culmination and the reflex of all in MAN.
Therefore he is the mystic square -- in his metaphysical aspect -- the
Tetraktis; and becomes the Cubeon the creative plain. His symbol is the cube
unfolded** and 6 becoming 7, or the [[diagram]] three crossways (the female)
and four vertically; and this is man, the culmination of the deity on Earth,
whose body is the cross of flesh, on, through, and in which he is ever
crucifying and putting to death the divine Logos or his HIGHER SELF.
"The
universe," says every Philosophy and Cosmogony, "hath a Ruler (Rulers
collectively) set over it, which is called the WORD (Logos); the fabricating
Spirit is its Queen: which two are the First Power after the ONE."
These
are the Spirit and Nature, which two form our illusory universe. The two
inseparables remain in the Universe of Ideas so long as it lasts, and then
merge back into Parabrahm, the One ever changeless. "The Spirit, whose
essence is eternal, one and self-existent," emanates a pure ethereal LIGHT
-- a dual light not perceptible to the elementary senses -- in the Puranas, in
the Bible, in the Sepher
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The engraving is reproduced in the "Sacred Mysteries of the Mayas and
Quiches" on p. 134.
**
See "Source of Measures" p. 50 to 53 and also Book II. Part 2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 37 THE THREE KINDS OF LIGHT.
Jezirah,
the Greek and Latin hymns, in the Book of Hermes, in the Chaldean Book of
Numbers, in the esotericism of Lao-tse, everywhere. In the Kabala, which
explains the secret meaning of Genesis, this light is the DUAL-MAN, or the Androgyne
(rather the sexless) angels, whose generic name is ADAM KADMON. It is they who
complete man, whose ethereal form is emanated by other divine, but far lower
beings, who solidify the body with clay, or the "dust of the ground"
-- an allegory indeed, but as scientific as any Darwinian evolution and more
true.
The
author of the "Source of Measures" says that the foundation of the
Kabala and all its mystic books is made to rest upon the ten Sephiroth; which
is a fundamental truth.* He shows these ten Sephiroth or the ten numbers in the
following diagram:--
[[diagram]]
wherein
the circle is the naught, its vertical diameter line is the first or primal ONE
(the Word or Logos), from which springs the series of the other numbers up to
9, the limit of the digits. The 10 is the first Divine Manifestation**
containing "every possible power of exact expression of proportion."
By this Kabalistic speculation we are taught that the Sephiroth "were the
numbers or emanations of the Heavenly Light (figures 20612 to 6561), they were
the 10 'Words,' DBRIM, 41224, the light, of which they were the flux, was the
Heavenly Man, the Adam KDM (the 144- 144); and the Light, by the New Testament
or Covenant (or 41224) created God; just as, by the Old Testament God (Alhim,
31415) creates light (20612 to 6561)."
Now
there are three kinds of light in Occultism, as in the Kabala. (1) The Abstract
and Absolute Light, which is Darkness; (2) The Light of the
Manifested-Unmanifested, called by some the Logos; and (3) The latter light reflected
in the Dhyan Chohans, the minor logoi (the Elohim, collectively), who, in their
turn, shed it on the objective Universe. But in the Kabala -- re-edited and
carefully adjusted to fit the Christian tenets by the Kabalists of the XIII.
century -- the three lights are described as:-- (1) The clear and penetrating,
that of Jehovah; (2) reflected light; and (3) light in the abstract." This
light abstractly taken (in a metaphysical or symbolical sense) is Alhim (Elohim
God),
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Masonic Review," Cincinnati, June 1886, Art. Kabala No. 6.
**
See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., pp. 300 et seq., for a proof of the
antiquity of the decimal system of figures.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 38 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
while
the clear penetrating light is Jehovah. The light of Alhim belongs to the world
in general, in its allness and general fulness, but the light of Jehovah is
that pertaining to the chiefest production, man, whom this light penetrated and
made." The author of the "Source of Measures" pertinently refers
the reader to Inman's "Ancient Faiths embodied in Ancient Names,"
vol. ii., p. 648. There, an engraving of "the vesica piscis, Mary and the
female emblem, copied from a rosary of the blessed Virgin . . . . printed at
Venice, 1542," and therefore, as Inman remarks, "with a license from
the Inquisition, consequently orthodox," will show the reader what the
Latin Church understood by this "penetrating power of light and its
effects " How sadly disfigured -- applied as they were to the grossest
anthropomorphic conceptions -- have become, under Christian interpretation, the
noblest and grandest, as the most exalted, ideas of deity of the Eastern
philosophy!
The
Occultists call this light Daiviprakriti in the East, and light of Christos in
the West. It is the light of the LOGOS, the direct reflection of the ever
Unknowable on the plane of Universal manifestation. But here is the interpretation
thereof given by the modern Christians from the Kabala. As declared by the
author just cited:--
"To
the fulness of the world in general with its chiefest content, man, the term
Elohim-Jehovah applies. In extracts from the Zohar, the Rev. Dr. Cassell (a
Kabalist), to prove that the Cabbalah sets forth the doctrine of the Trinity,
among other things says: 'Jehovah is Elohim (Alhim) . . . by three steps God
(Alhim), and Jehovah become the same, and though separated each and together,
they are of the same one.'" Similarly, Vishnu becomes the Sun, the visible
symbol of the impersonal deity. Vishnu is described as "striding through
the seven regions of the Universe in three steps." But with the Hindus
this is an exoteric account, a surface tenet and an allegory, while the
Kabalists give it out as the esoteric and final meaning. But to proceed:--
"Now
light," explains the author, "as shown, is 20612 to 6561, as the
proper enunciation of the integral and numerical relation of diameter to
circumference of a circle. God (Alhim, i.e., 3.1415 to one, a modified form of
the above) is the reduction of this, so as to obtain a standard unitone, as the
basis, in general, of all calculation and all mensuration. But, for the
production of animal life, and for especial time measure or the lunar year,
that influence which causes conception and embryotic development, the numbers
of the Jehovah measure ('man even Jehovah' measure), viz. 113 to 355, have to
be specialised.* But this last ratio is but a modified form of light or 20612
to 6561, as a '[[pi]]' value, being only a variation of the same (that is 20612
to 6561 is 31415 to one, or Alhim or God) -- and in such a manner that one can
be made
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Source of Measures," pp. 276, et seq. App. VII.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 39 THE NUMBERS OF CREATION.
to
flow into and be derived from the other, and these are the three steps by which
the Unity and sameness can be shown of the divine names. That is, the two are
but variations of the same ratio, viz., that of '[[pi]].' The object of this
comment is to show the same measuring use for the Cabbalah as was employed in
the three Covenants of the Bible, and in the symbols of Masonry, as just
noticed."
"First
then, the Sephiroth are described as Light, that is, they themselves are a
function of, indeed, the same as, the manifestation of Ain Soph; and they are
so from the fact that Light represents the ratio of 20612 to 6561, as part of
the 'Words,' DBRIM, 41224, or as to the Word, Debar, 206 (= 10 cubits). Light
is so much the burden of the Kabbalah, in explaining the Sephiroth, that the
most famous book on the Kabbalah is called Zohar or Light. In this we find
expressions of this kind:-- 'The Infinite was entirely unknown and diffused no
light before the luminous point violently broke through into vision . . . .'
'When he first assumed the form (of the Crown, or the first Sephira), he caused
9 splendid lights to emanate from it, which, shining through it, diffused a
bright light in all directions': that is, these 9 with his one (which was the
origin, as above, of the nine), together made the 10, that is [[diagram]] or
[[diagram]], or the sacred Ten (numbers or Sephiroth), or Jod -- and these
numbers were 'the Light.' Just as in the Gospel of St. John, God (Alhim, 31415
to one) was that light (20612 to 6561) by which (Light) all things were
made."
In
Sepher Jezirah, or Numbers of Creation, the whole process of evolution is given
out in Numbers. In its "32 paths of Wisdom" the number 3 is repeated
four times, and the number 4 five times. Therefore, the Wisdom of God is
contained in numbers (Sephrim or Sephiroth), for Sepher (or S-ph-ra when
unvowelled) means "to cipher." And therefore, also, we find Plato
stating that the deity geometrizes in fabricating the Universe.
The
Kabalistic book, the Sepher Jezirah, opens with a statement of the hidden
wisdom of Alhi in Sephrim, i.e, the Elohim in the Sephiroth.
"In
thirty and two paths, hidden wisdom, established Jah, JHVH, Tzabaoth, Elohi of
Israel, Alhim of Life, El of Grace and Mercy -- exalted, uplifted Dweller on
high, and King of Everlasting, and his name -- Holy! in three Sephrim: viz:--
B-S'ph-r, V-S'ph-r, V-Siph-o-r."
"This
Comment sets forth 'the Hidden Wisdom' of the original text by hidden Wisdom,
that is, by the use of words carrying a special set of Numbers and a special
phraseology, which will set forth the very explanatory system which we find to
fit so accurately in the Hebrew Bible. . . . . In setting forth his scheme, to
enforce it, and to finish out his detailed exposition in a general postulate,
viz., the one word
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 40 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Sephrim
(Sephiroth) of the Number Jezirah, the author explains the separation of this
word in the three subordinate ones, a play upon a common word s-ph-r, or
number."
The
prince Al-Chazari says to the Rabbi*:-- "I wish now that thou wouldest
impart to me some of the chiefest or leading principles of Natural Philosophy,
which as thou sayest were in former times worked out by them (the Ancient Wise
Ones)"; to which the Rabbi makes answer:-- "To such principles appertains
the Number of Creation of our Race-father Abraham" (that is Abram and
Abraham, or numbers 41224 and 41252). He then says that this book of Number
treats of teaching the Alhim-ness and One-ness through, "DBRIM,"
viz., the numbers of the Word "Words." That is, it teaches the use of
the ratio 31415 to one, through 41224, which last, in the description of the
Ark of the Covenant, was divided into two parts by two tables of stone, on
which these, DBRIM or 41224, were written or engraved -- or 20612 by 2. He then
comments on these three subordinately used words, and takes care as to one of
them to make the comment:-- "And Alhim (31415 to 1) said: Let there be
Light (20612 to 6561)."
The
three words as given in the text are: [[hebrew]]. And the Rabbi in commenting
upon them says: "It teaches the Alhim-ness (31415) and One-ness (the
diameter to Alhim) through Words (DBRIM, 41224), by which on the one side there
is infinite expression in heterogeneous creations, and on the other a final
harmonic tendency to One-ness" (which as everyone knows is the
mathematical function of "[[pi]]" of the schools, which measures, and
weighs and numbers the stars of heaven, and yet resolves them back into the
final Oneness of the Universe through Words). "Their final accord perfects
itself in that Oneness that ordains them and which consists in [[hebrew]] (Book
of Al-Chazari), that is the Rabbi, in his first comment, leaves the jod, or i,
out of one of the words, whereas afterwards he restores it again. If we take
the values of those subordinate words, we find them to be 340, 340, 346;
together these are 1026, and the division of the general word into these has
been to produce these numbers, which by Temurah may be changed in various ways
for various purposes." (Kabala.)
The
reader is asked to turn to Stanza IV. of Book I. and its fourth commentary to
find that the 3, 4 -- (7), and the thrice seven, or 1065, the number of
Jehovah, is the number of the 21 Prajapati mentioned in the Mahabharata, or the
three Sephrim (words in cipher or figures). And this comparison between the
Creative Powers of Archaic philosophy and the anthropomorphic Creator of
exoteric Judaism (since their esotericism shows its identity with the Secret
Doctrine) will lead the student to perceive and discover that, in truth,
Jehovah is but a lunar and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the "Book Al-Chazari" by Jehuda-ha-Levi, translated by Dr. D.
Cassell.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 41 THE EMANATIONS OF AIN-SOPH.
"generation"
god. (See Book I, Part 2, "Deus Lunus.") It is a fact well known to
every conscientious student of the Kabala, that the deeper he dives into it,
the more he feels convinced that unless the Kabala -- or what is left of it --
is read by the light of the Eastern esoteric philosophy, its study leads only
to the discovery that, on the lines traced by exoteric Judaism and
Christianity, the monotheism of both is nothing more exalted than ancient Astrolatry,
now vindicated by modern Astronomy. The Kabalists never cease to repeat that
primal intelligence can never be understood. It cannot be comprehended, nor can
it be located, therefore it has to remain nameless and negative. Hence the
Ain-Soph -- the "UNKNOWABLE" and the "UNNAMEABLE" -- which,
as it could not be made manifest, was conceived to emanate manifesting Powers.
It is then with its emanations alone that human intellect has to, and can deal.
Christian theology, having rejected the doctrine of emanations and replaced
them with direct, conscious creations of angels and the rest out of nothing,
now finds itself hopelessly stranded between Supernaturalism, or miracle, and
materialism. An extra-cosmic god is fatal to philosophy, an intra-cosmic Deity
-- i.e. Spirit and matter inseparable from each other -- is a philosophical
necessity. Separate them and that which is left is a gross superstition under a
mask of emotionalism. But why "geometrize," as Plato has it, why
represent these emanations under the form of an immense arithmetical table? The
question is well answered by the author just cited. His remarks are quoted in
Part II., § "The Theogony of the Creative Gods."
"Mental
perception," he says, "to become physical perception, must have the
Cosmic principle of light: and by this, our mental circle must become visible
through light; or, for its complete manifestation, the Circle must be that of
physical visibility, or Light itself. Such conceptions, thus formulated, became
the groundwork of the philosophy of the divine manifesting in the
Universe."
This
is philosophy. It is otherwise when we find the Rabbi in Al-Chazari saying that
"under s'ph-r is to be understood calculation and weighing of created
bodies. For the calculation, by means of which a body must be constructed in
harmony or symmetry, by which it must be in construction rightly arranged and
made to correspond to the object in design, consists at last in number,
extension, mass, weight; co-ordinate relation of movements, then harmony of music,
must consist altogether by number, that is (S'ph-r). . . By Sippor (s'phor) is
to be understood the words of Alhim whereunto joins or adapts itself the design
of the frame or form of construction; for example, it was said 'Let Light be.'
The work became as the WORDS were spoken, that is, as the numbers of the work
came forth. . . . ."
This
is materialising the Spiritual without scruple. But the Kabala
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 42 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
was
not always so well adapted to anthropo-monotheistic conceptions. Compare this
with any of the six schools of India. For instance, in Kapila's
"Sankhya" Philosophy, unless, allegorically speaking, Purusha mounts
on the shoulders of Prakriti, the latter remains irrational, while the former
remains inactive without her. Therefore Nature (in man) must become a compound
of Spirit and Matter before he becomes what he is; and the Spirit latent in
Matter must be awakened to life and consciousness gradually. The Monad has to
pass through its mineral, vegetable and animal forms, before the Light of the
Logos is awakened in the animal man. Therefore, till then, the latter cannot be
referred to as "MAN," but has to be regarded as a Monad imprisoned in
ever changing forms. Evolution, not creation, by means of WORDS is recognized
in the philosophies of the East, even in their exoteric records. Ex oriente
lux. Even the name of the first man in the Mosaic Bible had its origin in
India, Professor Max Muller's negation notwithstanding. The Jews got their Adam
from Chaldea; and Adam-Adami is a compound word and therefore a manifold
symbol, and proves the occult dogmas.
This
is no place for philological disquisitions. But the reader may be reminded that
the words Ad and Adi mean in Sanskrit "the first"; in Aramaean,
"One" (Ad-ad, "the only one"); in Assyrian,
"father" whence Ak-Ad or "father-creator."* And once the
statement is found correct it becomes rather difficult to confine Adam to the
Mosaic Bible alone, and to see therein simply a Jewish name. Vide Part II. of
this Volume, § "Adam-Adami."
There
is frequent confusion in the attributes and genealogies of the gods in their
theogonies, as given to the world by the half-initiated writers, Brahmanical and
Biblical, the Alpha and the Omega of the records of that symbolical science.
Yet there could be no such confusion made by the earliest nations, the
descendants and pupils of the divine instructors: for both the attributes and
the genealogies were inseparably linked with cosmogonical symbols, the
"gods" being the life and animating "soul-principle" of the
various regions of the Universe. Nowhere and by no people was speculation
allowed to range beyond those manifested gods. The boundless and infinite UNITY
remained with every nation a virgin forbidden soil, untrodden by man's thought,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The appellation Ak-ad (or Akkadians) is of the same class as Ad-m, Ha-va (Eve),
AEd-en (Eden); Ak-Ad meaning "Son of Ad" (like the sons of Ad in
Ancient Arabia). Ad-ad, the "Only One" and the First, was the Ad-on
or "Lord" of Syria and consort of Ad-ar-gat or Aster't, the Syrian
goddess. And Gan-AEden (Eden) or Gandunia was Babylonia and Mesopotamia. In Assyrian
Ak meant Creator, the letter K pronounced Kh (Ah) gutturally. According to
Swedenborg's mysticism Adam was not a man but a church (?) of primitive light.
In the Vedas Ad-iti is the primitive light, the Akasa of the phenomenal world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 43 ADAM-ADAMI.
untouched
by fruitless speculation. The only reference made to it was the brief
conception of its diastolic and systolic property, of its periodical expansion
or dilatation, and contraction. In the Universe with all its incalculable
myriads of systems and worlds disappearing and re-appearing in eternity, the
anthropomorphised powers, or gods, their Souls, had to disappear from view with
their bodies:-- "The breath returning to the eternal bosom which exhales
and inhales them," says our Catechism.
"Ideal
nature," the abstract Space in which everything in the Universe is
mysteriously and invisibly generated, is the same female side of procreative
power in Nature in the Vedic as in every other Cosmogony. Aditi is Sephira, and
the Sophia-Achamoth of the Gnostics, and Isis, the virgin Mother of Horus. In
every Cosmogony, behind and higher than the creative deity, there is a superior
deity, a planner, an Architect, of whom the Creator is but the executive agent.
And still higher, over and around, within and without, there is the UNKNOWABLE
and the unknown, the Source and Cause of all these Emanations. . . . .
It
thus becomes easy to account for the reason why "Adam-Adami" is found
in the Chaldean scripture, certainly earlier than the Mosaic Books. In Assyrian
Ad is the father, and in Aramaean Ad is "One," and Ad-ad the
"only one," while Ak is in Assyrian "creator." Thus
Ad-am-ak-ad-mon became Adam Kadmon in the Kabala (Zohar), meaning as it did,
the "One (Son) of the divine Father, or the creator," for the words
"am" and "om" meant at one time in nearly every language
the divine, or the deity. Thus Adam Kadmon and Adam-Adami came to mean:-- "The
first emanation of the Father-Mother or divine nature," and literally
"the first divine one." And it is easy to see that Ad-Argat (or
Aster't, the Syrian goddess, the consort of Ad-on, the lord god of Syria or the
Jewish Adonai), and Venus, Isis, Ishtar, Mylitta, Eve, etc., etc., are identical
with the Aditi and Vach of the Hindus. They are all the "Mothers of all
living" and "of the gods." On the other hand -- cosmically and
astronomically -- all the male gods became at first "Sun-gods," then,
theologically, the "Suns of Righteousness" and the Logoi, all
symbolised by the Sun.* They are all Protogonoi (the first-born) and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Adam-Jehovah, Brahma and Mars are, in one sense, identical; they are all
symbols for primitive or initial generative powers for the purposes of human
procreation. Adam is red, and so also are Brahma-Viraj and Mars -- god and
planet. Water is the blood of the Earth; therefore, all these names are
connected with Earth and Water. "It takes earth and water to create a
human soul," says Moses. Mars is identical with Kartikeya God of War (in
one sense) -- which god is born of the Sweat of Siva, Siva Gharmaja and the
Earth. In the Mahabharata he is shown as born without the intervention of a
woman. And he is also called "Lohita," the red, like Adam, and the
other "first men." Hence, the author of "The Source of
Measures" is quite right in thinking that Mars (and all the other gods of
like attributes), "being the god of war and of [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 44 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Mikroprosopoi.
With the Jews Adam Kadmon was the same as Athamaz, Tamaz, or the Adonis of the
Greeks -- "the One with, and of his father" -- the "Father"
becoming during the later Races Helios, the Sun, as Apollo Karneios,* for
instance, who was the "Sun born"; Osiris, Ormazd, and so on, were all
followed by, and found themselves transformed later on into still more earthly
types: such as Prometheus, the crucified of Mount Kajbee, Hercules, and so many
others, sun-gods and heroes, until all of them came to have no better
significance than phallic symbols.
In
the Zohar is it said "Man was created by the Sephiroth (Elohim-Javeh,
also) and they engendered by common power the earthly Adam." Therefore in
Genesis the Elohim say:-- "Behold Man is become as one of us." But in
Hindu Cosmogony or "Creation," Brahma-Prajapati creates Viraj and the
Rishis, spiritually; therefore the latter are distinctly called "the
Mind-born Sons of Brahma"; and this specified mode of engendering
precluded every idea of Phallicism, at any rate in the earlier human nations.
This instance well illustrates the respective spirituality of the two nations.
-------
3.
SAID THE "LORD OF THE SHINING FACE." "I SHALL SEND THEE A FIRE
WHEN THY WORK IS COMMENCED. RAISE THY VOICE TO OTHER LOKAS, APPLY TO THY FATHER
THE LORD OF THE LOTUS (Kumuda-Pati) (a) FOR HIS SONS . . . . THY PEOPLE SHALL
BE UNDER THE RULE OF THE FATHERS (Pitri-pati). THY MEN SHALL BE MORTALS. THE
MEN OF THE LORD OF WISDOM (Budha, Mercury) NOT THE SONS OF SOMA (the Moon) ARE
IMMORTAL. CEASE THY COMPLAINTS (b). THY SEVEN SKINS ARE YET ON THEE. . . . THOU
ART NOT READY. THY MEN ARE NOT READY (c).
(a)
Kumuda-Pati is the Moon, the Earth's parent, in his region of Soma-loka. Though
the Pitris (Pitar or "Fathers") are sons of the Gods, elsewhere sons
of Brahma and even Rishis, they are generally known as the "lunar"
ancestors.
(b)
Pitri-pati is the lord or king of the Pitris, Yama, the god of Death and the
Judge of mortals. The men of Budha (Mercury) are
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] bloodshed, was but a secondary idea flowing out
of the primary one of shedding of blood in conception for the first time."
Hence Jehovah became later a fighting god, "Lord of Hosts," and one
who commands war. He is the aggressive Zodh -- or Cain by permutation who slew
his (female) "brother," whose "blood crieth from the
ground," the Earth having opened her mouth to receive the blood. (Genesis
iii.)
*
Apollo Karneios is certainly a Greek transformation from the Hindu Krishna
Karna. "Karna" means radiant from "carne," "a
ray," and Karneios, which was a title of Apollo with the Celts as with the
Greeks, meant "Sun born."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 45 THE FIRST WAR IN HEAVEN.
metaphorically
immortal through their Wisdom. Such is the common belief of those who credit
every star or planet with being inhabited. (And there are men of science -- M.
Flammarion among others -- who believe in this fervently, on logical as well as
on astronomical data). The Moon being an inferior body to the Earth even, to
say nothing of other planets, the terrestrial men produced by her sons -- the
lunar men or "ancestors" -- from her shell or body, cannot be
immortal. They cannot hope to become real, self-conscious and intelligent men,
unless they are finished, so to say, by other creators. Thus in the Puranic
legend, the son of the Moon (Soma) is Budha (Mercury), "the
intelligent" and the Wise, because he is the offspring of Soma, the
"regent" of the visible Moon, not of Indu, the physical Moon. Thus
Mercury is the elder brother of the Earth, metaphorically -- his step-brother,
so to say, the offspring of Spirit -- while she (the Earth) is the progeny of
the body. These allegories have a deeper and more scientific meaning
(astronomically and geologically) then our modern physicists are willing to
admit. The whole cycle of the "first War in Heaven," the Taraka-maya,
is as full of philosophical as of Cosmogonical and astronomical truths. One can
trace therein the biographies of all the planets by the history of their gods
and rulers. Usanas (Sukra, or Venus), the bosom-friend of Soma and the foe of
Brihaspati (Jupiter) the instructor of the gods, whose wife Tara (or Taraka)
had been carried away by the Moon, Soma -- "of whom he begat Budha"
-- took also an active part in this war against "the gods" and
forthwith was degraded into a demon (Asura) deity, and so he remains to this
day.*
Here
the word "men" refers to the celestial men, or what are called in
India the PITAR or pitris, the Fathers, the progenitors of men. This
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Usanas-Sukra or Venus is our "Lucifer," the morning star, of course.
The ingenuity of this allegory in its manifold meanings is great indeed. Thus
Brihaspati (the planet Jupiter) or Brahmanaspati is, in the Rig Veda, a deity
who is the symbol and the prototype of the exoteric or ritualistic worship. He
is priest sacrificer, suppliant, and the medium through which the prayers of
mortals reach the gods. He is the Purohita (family priest, or Court Chaplain)
of the Hindu Olympus and the spiritual Guru of the Gods. Soma is the mystery
god and presides over the mystic and occult nature in man and the Universe.
Tara, the priest's wife, who symbolizes the worshipper, prefers esoteric truths
to their mere shell, exotericism; hence she is shown as carried off by Soma.
Now Soma is the sacred juice of that name, giving mystic visions and trance
revelations, the result of which union is Budha (Wisdom), Mercury, Hermes,
etc., etc.; that science in short which to this day is proclaimed by the
Brihaspatis of Theology as devilish and Satanic. What wonder that by expanding
the cycle of this allegory we find Christian theology espousing the quarrel of
the Hindu gods, and regarding Usanas (Lucifer), who helped Soma against that
ancient personification of ritualistic worship (Brahmanaspati, the lord of the
Brahmans, now become "Jupiter-Jehovah") as SATAN, the "enemy of
God"!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 46 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
does
not remove the seeming difficulty, in view of modern hypotheses, of the
teaching, which shows these progenitors or ancestors creating the first human
Adams out of their sides: as astral shadows. And though it is an improvement on
Adam's rib, still geological and climatic difficulties will be brought forward.
Such, however, is the teaching of Occultism.
(c)
Man's organism was adapted in every race to its surroundings. The first
Root-Race was as ethereal as ours is material. The progeny of the seven
Creators, who evolved the seven primordial Adams,* surely required no purified
gases to breathe and live upon (see Part III. of this Volume). Therefore,
however strongly the impossibility of this teaching may be urged by the devotees
of modern science, the Occultist maintains that the case was as stated aeons of
years before even the evolution of the Lemurian, the first physical man, which
itself took place 18,000,000 years ago.**
Preliminary
evolution is described in one of the BOOKS OF DZYAN and the Commentaries
thereon in this wise:--
Archaic
Scripture teaches that at the commencement of every local Kalpa, or Round, the
earth is reborn; "as the human Jiva (monad), when passing into a new womb,
gets re-covered with a new body, so does the Jiva of the Earth; it gets a more
perfect and solid covering with each Round after re-emerging once more from the
matrix of space into objectivity" (Comment). This process is attended, of
course, by the throes of the new birth or geological convulsions.
Thus
the only reference to it is contained in one verse of the volume of the Book of
Dzyan before us, where it says:
--------
4.
AND AFTER GREAT THROES SHE (the Earth) CAST OFF HER OLD THREE AND PUT ON HER NEW
SEVEN SKINS, AND STOOD IN HER FIRST ONE (a).
(a)
This refers to the growth of the Earth, whereas in the Stanza treating of the
First Round it is said (given in the Commentary):--
"After
the changeless (avikara) immutable nature (Essence, sadaikarupa) had awakened
and changed (differentiated) into (a state of) causality (avayakta), and from
cause (Karana) had become its own discrete effect (vyakta), from invisible it
became visible. The smallest of the small (the most atomic of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As shown elsewhere, it is only the "Heavenly Man," Adam Kadmon, of
the first chapter of Genesis, who is made "in the image and likeness of
God." Adam, of chapter ii., is not said to be made in that image nor in
the divine likeness, before he ate of the forbidden fruit. The former Adam is
the Sephirothal Host; the second Adam is the Mindless first human Root-race;
the third Adam is the race that separated, whose eyes are opened.
**
For a discussion of the scientific objections to the views and figures here
enunciated, the reader is referred to the Addenda, which form Part III. of this
book.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 47 NARADA AND ASURAMAYA.
atoms,
or aniyamsam aniyasam) became one and the many (ekanekarupa); and producing the
Universe produced also the Fourth Loka (our Earth) in the garland of the seven
lotuses. The Achyuta then became the Chyuta.*
The
Earth is said to cast off her old three skins, because this refers to the three
preceding Rounds she has already passed through; the present being the fourth
Round out of the seven. At the beginning of every new ROUND, after a period of
"obscuration," the earth (as do also the other six "earths")
casts off, or is supposed to cast off, her old skins as the Serpent does:
therefore she is called in the Aitareya-Brahmana the Sarpa Rajni, "the
Queen of the Serpents," and "the mother of all that moves." The
"Seven Skins," in the first of which she now stands, refer to the
seven geological changes which accompany and correspond to the evolution of the
Seven Root-Races of Humanity.
Stanza
II., which speaks of this Round, begins with a few words of information
concerning the age of our Earth. The chronology will be given in its place. In
the Commentary appended to the Stanza, two personages are mentioned: Narada and
Asura Maya, especially the latter. All the calculations are attributed to this
archaic celebrity; and what follows will make the reader superficially
acquainted with some of these figures.
--------
TWO
ANTEDILUVIAN ASTRONOMERS.
To
the mind of the Eastern student of Occultism, two figures are indissolubly
connected with mystic astronomy, chronology, and their cycles. Two grand and mysterious
figures, towering like two giants in the Archaic Past, emerge before him,
whenever he has to refer to Yugas and Kalpas. When, at what period of
pre-history they lived, none save a few men in the world know, or ever can know
with that certainty which is required by exact chronology. It may have been
100,000 years ago, it may have been 1,000,000, for all that the outside world
will ever know. The mystic West and Freemasonry talk loudly of Enoch and
Hermes. The mystic East speaks of NARADA, the old Vedic Rishi, and of
ASURAMAYA, the Atlantean.
It
has already been hinted that of all the incomprehensible characters in the
Mahabharata and the Puranas, Narada, the son of Brahrna in Matsya Purana, the
progeny of Kasyapa and the daughter of Daksha
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Achyuta is an almost untranslatable term. It means that which is not subject to
fall or change for the worse: the Unfalling; and it is the reverse of chyuta,
"the Fallen." The Dhyanis who incarnate in the human forms of the
Third Root-Race and endow them with intellect (Manas) are called the chyuta,
for they fall into generation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 48 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
in
the Vishnu Purana, is the most mysterious. He is referred to by the honourable
title of Deva Rishi (divine Rishi, more than a demi-god) by Parasara, and yet
he is cursed by Daksha and even by Brahma. He informs Kansa that Bhagavat (or
Vishnu in exotericism) would incarnate in the eighth child of Devaki, and thus
brings the wrath of the Indian Herod upon Krishna's mother; and then, from the
cloud on which he is seated -- invisible as a true Manasaputra -- he lauds
Krishna, in delight at the Avatar's feat of killing the monster Kesim. Narada
is here, there, and everywhere; and yet, none of the Puranas gives the true
characteristics of this great enemy of physical procreation. Whatever those
characteristics may be in Hindu Esotericism, Narada -- who is called in
Cis-Himalayan Occultism Pesh-Hun, the "Messenger," or the Greek
Angelos -- is the sole confidant and the executor of the universal decrees of
Karma and Adi-Budh: a kind of active and ever incarnating logos, who leads and
guides human affairs from the beginning to the end of the Kalpa.
"Pesh-Hun"
is a general not a special Hindu possession. He is the mysterious guiding
intelligent power, which gives the impulse to, and regulates the impetus of
cycles, Kalpas and universal events.* He is Karma's visible adjuster on a
general scale; the inspirer and the leader of the greatest heroes of this
Manvantara. In the exoteric works he is referred to by some very
uncomplimentary names; such as "Kali-Karaka," strife-maker,
"Kapi-vaktra," monkey-faced, and even "Pisuna," the spy,
though elsewhere he is called Deva-Brahma. Even Sir W. Jones was strongly
impressed with this mysterious character from what he gathered in his Sanskrit
Studies. He compares him to Hermes and Mercury, and calls him "the
eloquent messenger of the gods" (see Asiat. Res. I. p. 264). All this led
the late Dr. Kenealy ("Book of God"), on the ground that the Hindus
believe him to be a great Rishi, "who is for ever wandering about the
earth, giving good counsel," to see in him one of his twelve Messiahs. He
was, perhaps, not so far off the real track as some imagine.
What
Narada really is, cannot be explained in print; nor would the modern
generations of the profane gather much from the information. But it may be
remarked, that if there is in the Hindu Pantheon a deity which resembles
Jehovah, in, tempting by "suggestion" of thoughts and
"hardening" of the hearts of those whom he would make his tools and
victims, it is Narada. Only with the latter it is no desire to obtain a pretext
for "plaguing," and thus showing that "I am the Lord God."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is perhaps the reason why, in the Bhagavad Gita, we are told that Brahma
had communicated to Narada in the beginning that all men whatsoever, even
Mlechchhas, outcasts and barbarians, might know the true nature of Vasudeva and
learn to have faith in that deity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 49 THE MIRROR OF FUTURITY.
Nor
is it through any ambitious or selfish motive; but, verily, to serve and guide
universal progress and evolution.
Narada
is one of the few prominent characters, save some gods, in the Puranas, who
visits the so-called nether or infernal regions, Patala. Whether or not it was
from his intercourse with the thousand-headed Sesha, the serpent who bears the
seven Patalas and the entire world like a diadem upon his heads, and who is the
great teacher of astronomy,* that Narada learned all that he knew, certain it
is that he surpasses Garga's Guru in his knowledge of cyclic intricacies. It is
he who has charge of our progress and national weal or woe. It is he who brings
on wars and puts an end to them. In the old Stanzas Pesh-Hun is credited with
having calculated and recorded all the astronomical and cosmic cycles to come,
and with having taught the Science to the first gazers at the starry vault. And
it is Asuramaya, who is said to have based all his astronomical works upon
those records, to have determined the duration of all the past geological and
cosmical periods, and the length of the all the cycles to come, till the end of
this life-cycle, or the end of the seventh Race.
There
is a work among the Secret Books, called the "Mirror of Futurity,"
wherein all the Kalpas within Kalpas and cycles within the bosom of Sesha, or
infinite Time, are recorded. This work is ascribed to Pesh-Hun Narada. There is
another old work which is attributed to various Atlanteans. It is these two
Records which furnish us with the figures of our cycles, and the possibility of
calculating the date of cycles to come. The chronological calculations which
will presently be given are, however, those of the Brahmins as explained
further on; but most of them are also those of the Secret Doctrine.
The
chronology and computations of the Brahmin Initiates are based upon the
Zodiacal records of India, and the works of the above-mentioned astronomer and
magician -- Asuramaya. The Atlantean zodiacal records cannot err, as they were
compiled under the guidance of those who first taught astronomy, among other
things, to mankind.
But
here again we are deliberately and recklessly facing a new difficulty. We shall
be told that our statement is contradicted by science, in the person of a man
regarded as a great authority (in the West) upon all subjects of Sanskrit
literature -- Professor Albrecht Weber, of Berlin. This, to our great regret,
cannot be helped; and we are ready to maintain what is now stated. Asuramaya,
to whom the epic tradition points as the earliest astronomer in Aryavarta, one
to whom "the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Sesha, who is also Ananta, the infinite, and the "Cycle of Eternity"
in esotericism, is credited with having given his astronomical knowledge to
Garga, the oldest astronomer of India, who propitiated him, and forthwith knew
all about the planets and how to read omens.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 50 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Sun-god
imparted the knowledge of the stars," in propria persona, as Dr. Weber
himself states, is identified by him, in some very mysterious way, with the
"Ptolemaios" of the Greeks. No more valid reason is given for this
identification than that "this latter name (Ptolemaios), as we see from
the inscription of Piyadasi, became the Indian 'Turamaya,' out of which the
name 'Asuramaya' might very easily grow." No doubt it "might,"
but the vital question is -- Are there any good proofs that it has thus grown?
The only evidence that is given for it is, that it must be so: "since this
Maya is distinctly assigned to Romaka-pura in the West."* The Maya is
evident, since no Sanskritist among Europeans can tell where that locality of
"Romaka-pura" was, except, indeed, that it was somewhere "in the
West." Anyhow, as no member of the Asiatic Society, or Western
Orientalist, will ever listen to a Brahmanical teaching, it is useless to take
the objections of European Orientalists into consideration. "Romakapura"
was in "the West," certainly, since it was part and parcel of the
last continent of ATLANTIS. And it is equally certain that it is Atlantis,
which is assigned in the Hindu Puranas as the birth-place of Asuramaya,
"as great a magician as he was an Astrologer and an Astronomer."
Moreover, Prof. Weber refuses to assign any great antiquity to the Indian
Zodiac, and feels inclined to think that the Hindus never knew of a Zodiac at
all till "they had borrowed one from the Greeks."** This statement
clashes with the most ancient traditions of India, and must therefore be
ignored. (Vide "The Zodiac and its Antiquity"). We are the more
justified in ignoring it, as the learned German Professor himself tells us in
the introduction to his work (History of Sanskrit Literature) that "in
addition to the natural obstacles which impede investigation (in India), there
still prevails a dense mist of prejudices and preconceived opinions hovering
over the land, and enfolding it as with a veil." Caught in that veil, it
is no wonder that Dr. Weber should himself have been led into involuntary
errors. Let us hope that he knows better now.
Now
whether Asuramaya is to be considered a modern myth, a personage who flourished
in the day of the Macedonian Greeks, or as that which he is claimed to be by
the Occultists, in any case his calculations agree entirely with those of the
Secret Records.
From
fragments of immensely old works attributed to the Atlantean astronomer, and
found in Southern India, the calendar elsewhere men-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Lectures on the Indian Literature," p. 253, by Prof. A. Weber;
in Trubner's Asiatic Series.
**
Even the Maya Indians of Guatemala had their Zodiac from untold antiquity. And
"primitive man acted in the same manner independently of time or locality
in every age," observes a French writer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 51 WHAT THE EARTH-WHIRL PRODUCED.
tioned
was compiled by two very learned Brahmins* in 1884 and 1885. The work is
proclaimed by the best Pundits as faultless -- from the Brahmanical standpoint
-- and thus far relates to the chronology of the orthodox teachings. If we
compare its statements with those made several years earlier in "Isis
Unveiled," with the fragmentary teachings published by some Theosophists,
and with the present data derived from the Secret Books of Occultism, the whole
will be found to agree perfectly, save in some details which may not be
explained; for secrets of higher Initiation -- as unknown to the writer as they
are to the reader -- would have to be revealed, and that cannot be done. (But
see "Chronology of the Brahmins" at the close of Stanza II.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Tirukkanda Panchanga" for the Kali Yug 4986, by Chintamany
Raghanaracharya, son of the famous Government astronomer of Madras, and
Tartakamala Venkata Krishna Rao.
--------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 52 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
STANZA
II.
NATURE
UNAIDED FAILS.
-------
§
(5) After enormous periods the Earth creates monsters. (6) The
"Creators" are displeased. (7) They dry the Earth. (8) The forms are
destroyed by them. (9) The first great tides. (10) The beginning of
incrustation.
---------------------
5.
THE WHEEL WHIRLED FOR THIRTY CRORES (of years, or 300,000,000*). IT CONSTRUCTED
RUPAS (forms). SOFT STONES, THAT HARDENED (minerals); HARD PLANTS, THAT
SOFTENED (vegetation). VISIBLE FROM INVISIBLE, INSECTS AND SMALL LIVES
(sarisripa, swapada). SHE (the Earth) SHOOK THEM OFF HER BACK, WHENEVER THEY
OVERRAN THE MOTHER (a). AFTER THIRTY CRORES OF YEARS, SHE TURNED ROUND. SHE
LAID ON HER BACK; ON HER SIDE. . . . . SHE WOULD CALL NO SONS OF HEAVEN, SHE
WOULD ASK NO SONS OF WISDOM. SHE CREATED FROM HER OWN BOSOM. SHE EVOLVED
WATER-MEN TERRIBLE AND BAD (b).
(a)
This relates to an inclination of the axis -- of which there were several -- to
a consequent deluge and chaos on Earth (having, however, no reference to
primeval chaos), in which monsters, half-human, half-animal, were generated. We
find it mentioned in the "Book of the Dead," and also in the Chaldean
account of creation, on the Cutha Tablets, however mutilated.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
300 million years, or Three Occult Ages. The Rig Veda has the same division. In
the "Physician's Hymn," (X 97 1) it is said that "the plants came
into being three ages (Triyugam) before the gods" on our Earth (See
"Chronology of the Brahmins" at the end of this Stanza).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 53 THE MONSTERS OF CHAOS.
It
is not even allegory. Here we have facts, that are found repeated in the
account of Pymander, as well as in the Chaldean tablets of creation. The verses
may almost be checked by the Cosmogony, as given by Berosus, which has been
disfigured out of recognition by Eusebius, but some of the features of which
may yet be found in fragments left by ancient Greek authors -- Apollodorus,
Alexander Polyhistor, etc., etc. "The water-men terrible and bad,"
who were the production of physical nature alone, a result of the "evolutionary
impulse" and the first attempt to create man the "crown," and
the aim and goal of all animal life on Earth -- are shown to be failures in our
Stanzas. Do we not find the same in the Berosian Cosmogony, denounced with such
vehemence as the culmination of heathen absurdity? And yet who of the
Evolutionists can say that things in the beginning have not come to pass as
they are described? That, as maintained in the Puranas, the Egyptian and
Chaldean fragments, and even in Genesis, there have not been two, and even
more, "creations" before the last formation of the Globe; which,
changing its geological and atmospheric conditions, changed also its flora, its
fauna, and its men? This claim agrees not only with every ancient Cosmogony,
but also with modern science, and even, to a certain degree, with the theory of
evolution, as may be demonstrated in a few words.
There
is no "dark creation," no "Evil Dragon" conquered by a
Sun-God, in the earliest World-Cosmogonies. Even with the Akkads, the great
Deep (the Watery Abyss, or SPACE) was the birthplace and abode of Ea, Wisdom,
the incognizable infinite Deity. But with the Semites and the later Chaldeans,
the fathomless Deep of Wisdom becomes gross matter, sinful Substance, and Ea is
changed into Tiamat, the dragon slain by Merodach, or Satan, in the astral
waves.
In
the Hindu Puranas, Brahma, the creator, is seen recommencing de novo several
creations after as many failures; and two great creations are mentioned,* the
Padma and the Varaha, the present, when the Earth was lifted out of the water
by Brahma, in the shape of a boar, or "Varaha Avatar." Creation is
shown as a sport, an amusement (Lila) of the creative god. The Zohar speaks of
primordial worlds, which perished as soon as they came into existence. And the
same is said in Midraish, Rabbi Abahu explaining distinctly (in Bereschith
Rabba, Parscha IX.) that "the Holy One" had successively created and
de-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These two must not be confused with the seven creations or divisions in each
Kalpa (See Book I. "The Seven Creations"). The primary and secondary
creations are here meant.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 54 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
stroyed
sundry worlds, before he succeeded in the present one. This does not relate
only to other worlds in space, but to a mystery of our own globe contained in
the allegory about the "kings of Edom." For the words, "This one
pleases me," are repeated in Genesis i. 31, though in disfigured terms, as
usual. The Chaldean fragments of Cosmogony on the Cuneiform inscriptions, and
elsewhere, show two distinct creations of animals and men, the first being
destroyed, as it was a failure. The Cosmogonical tablets prove that this our
actual creation was preceded by others (See "Hibbert Lectures," p.
390); and as shown by the author of "The Qabbalah," in the Zohar,
Siphrah Dzeniouta, in Jovah Rabbah, 128a, etc., etc. The Kabala states the
same.
(b)
Oannes (or Dagon, the Chaldean "Man-fish") divides his Cosmogony and
Genesis into two portions. First the abyss of waters and darkness, wherein
resided most hideous beings -- men with wings, four and two-faced men, human
beings with two heads, with the legs and horns of a goat (our
"goat-men,")* hippocentaurs, bulls with the heads of men, and dogs
with tails of fishes. In short, combinations of various animals and men, of
fishes, reptiles and other monstrous animals assuming each other's shapes and
countenances. The feminine element they resided in, is personified by Thalatth
-- the Sea, or "Water" -- which was finally conquered by Belus, the
male principle. And Polyhistor says: "Belus came and cut the woman
asunder, and of one half of her he formed the Earth, and of the other half the
heavens, and at the same time he destroyed the animals within her." As
pertinently remarked by I. Myer, "with the Akkadians each object and power
of Nature had its Zi, Spirit. The Akkadians formed their deities into triads,
usually males (sexless, rather?); the Semites also had triadic deities, but
introduced sex" (p. 246) -- or phallicism. With the Aryans and the
earliest Akkadians all things are emanations through, not by, a creator or
logos. With the Semites everything is begotten.
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whence the identity of the ideas? The Chinese have the same traditions.
According to the commentator Kwoh P'oh, in the work called Shan-Hai-King,
"Wonders by Sea and Land," a work which was written by the
historiographer Chung Ku from engravings on nine urns made by the Emperor Yu,
(B.C. 2255), an interview is mentioned with men having two distinct faces on
their heads, before and behind, monsters with bodies of goats and human faces,
etc. Gould, in his "Mythical Monsters," p. 27, giving the names of
some authors on Natural History, mentions Shan-Hai-King. According to Kwoh P'oh
(A.D. 276-324) this work was compiled three thousand years before his time, or
at seven dynasties distance. Yang Sun of the Ming Dynasty (commencing A.D.
1368) states that it was compiled by Kung Chia and Chung Ku (as stated above).
Chung Ku at the time of the last emperor of the Hia dynasty, B.C. 1818, fearing
that the emperor might destroy the books treating of the ancient time, carried
them in his flight to Yin. (See "Mythical Monsters," by C. Gould, p.
27.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 55 UNAIDED PHYSICAL NATURE FAILS.
6.
THE WATER-MEN TERRIBLE AND BAD SHE HERSELF CREATED. FROM THE REMAINS OF OTHERS
(from the mineral, vegetable and animal remains) FROM THE FIRST, SECOND, AND
THIRD (Rounds) SHE FORMED THEM. THE DHYANI CAME AND LOOKED. . . . . THE DHYANI
FROM THE BRIGHT FATHER-MOTHER, FROM THE WHITE (Solar-lunar) REGIONS THEY CAME,*
FROM THE ABODES OF THE IMMORTAL-MORTALS (a).
(a)
The explanations given in our Stanzas are far more clear than that which the
legend of creation from the Cutha tablet would give, even were it complete.
What is preserved on it, however, corroborates them. For, in the tablet,
"the Lord of Angels" destroys the men in the abyss, when "there
were not left the carcases and waste" after they were slaughtered. After
which they, the Great Gods, create men with the bodies of birds of the desert,
human beings, "seven kings, brothers of the same family," etc., which
is a reference to the locomotive qualities of the primary ethereal bodies of
men, which could fly as well as they could walk,** but who "were destroyed"
because they were not "perfect," i.e., they "were sexless, like
the Kings of Edom."
Weeded
of metaphors and allegories, what will science say to this idea of a primordial
creation of species? It will object to the "Angels" and
"Spirits" having anything to do therewith: but if it is nature and
the physical law of evolution that are the creators of all there is now on
Earth, why could there be "no such abyss" when the globe was covered
with waters, in which numbers of monstrous beings were generated? Is it the
"human beings" and animals with human heads and double faces, which
are a point of the objection? But if man is only a higher animal and has
evolved from the brute species by an infinite series of transformations, why
could not the "missing links" have had human heads attached to the
bodies of animals, or, being two-headed, have heads of beasts and vice versa,
in Nature's early efforts? Are we not shown during the geological periods, in
the ages of the reptiles and the mammalia, lizards with birds' wings, and
serpents' heads on animal bodies.*** And, arguing from the standpoint of
science, does not even our modern human race occasionally furnish us with
monster-specimens: two-headed children, animal bodies with human heads,
dog-headed babies, etc., etc.? And this proves that, if nature will still play
such
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Gods and planetary Spirits, especially the Ribhus. "The three Ribhus"
who yet become "thrice seven in number" of their gifts.
**
Remember the "winged Races" of Plato; and the Popol-Vuh accounts of
the first human race, which could walk, fly and see objects, however distant.
***
See "Mythical Monsters," by Charles Gould.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 56 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
freaks
now that she has settled for ages into the order of her evolutionary work,
monsters, like those described by Berosus, were a possibility in her opening
programme; which possibility may even have existed once upon a time as a law,
before she sorted out her species and began regular work upon them; which
indeed now admits of definite proof by the bare fact of "REVERSION,"
as science puts it.
This
is what the doctrine teaches and demonstrates by numerous proofs. But we shall
not wait for the approval of either dogmatic theology or materialistic science,
but proceed with the Stanzas. Let these speak for themselves, with the help of
the light thrown by the Commentaries and their explanations; the scientific
aspect of these questions will be considered later on.
Thus
physical nature, when left to herself in the creation of animal and man, is
shown to have failed. She can produce the first two and the lower animal
kingdoms, but when it comes to the turn of man, spiritual, independent and
intelligent powers are required for his creation, besides the "coats of
skin" and the "Breath of animal Life." The human Monads of
preceding Rounds need something higher than purely physical materials to build
their personalities with, under the penalty of remaining even below any
"Frankenstein" animal.*
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the first volume of the lately published "Introduction a l'atude des
Races Humaines," by M. de Quatrefages, there is proof that since the
post-tertiary period and even before that time -- since many Races were already
scattered during that age on the face of the Earth -- man has not altered one
iota in his physical structure. And if, surrounded for ages by a fauna that
altered from one period or cycle to another, which died out, which was reborn
in other forms -- so that now there does not exist one single animal on Earth,
large or small, contemporary with the man of that period -- if, then, every
animal has been transformed save man himself, this fact goes to prove not only
his antiquity, but that he is a distinct Kingdom. Why should he alone have
escaped transformation? Because, says de Quatrefages, the weapon used by him,
in his struggle with nature and the ever-changing geological conditions and
elements, was "his psychic force, not his physical strength or body,"
as in the case of animals. Give man only that dose of intelligence and reason
with which other mammalia are endowed, and with his present bodily organization
he will show himself the most helpless of creatures of Earth. And as everything
goes to prove that the human organism with all its characteristics,
peculiarities and idiosyncrasies existed already on our Globe in those far distant
geological periods when there was not yet one single specimen of the
now-existing forms of mammalia, what is the unavoidable conclusion? Why this:
Since all the human races are of one and the same species, it follows that this
species is the most ancient of all the now-living mammalia. Therefore it is the
most stable and persevering of all, and was already as fully developed as it is
now when all the other mammalia now known had not made even their first
approach to appearance on this Earth. Such is the opinion of the great French
Naturalist, who gives thereby a terrible blow to Darwinism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 57 THE "DOUBLE DRAGON."
7.
DISPLEASED THEY WERE. OUR FLESH IS NOT THERE (they said). THIS IS NO FIT RUPA
FOR OUR BROTHERS OF THE FIFTH. NO DWELLINGS FOR THE LIVES.* PURE WATERS, NOT
TURBID, THEY MUST DRINK (a). LET US DRY THEM (the waters).
(a)
Says the Catechism (Commentaries):--
"It
is from the material Worlds that descend they, who fashion physical man at the
new Manvantaras. They are inferior Lha (Spirits), possessed of a dual body (an
astral within an ethereal form). They are the fashioners and creators of our
body of illusion." . . . .
"Into
the forms projected by the Lha (Pitris) the two letters** (the Monad, called
also 'the Double Dragon') descend from the spheres of expectation.*** But they
are like a roof with no walls, nor pillars to rest upon." . . . .
"Man
needs four flames and three fires to become one on Earth, and he requires the
essence of the forty-nine fires**** to be perfect. It is those who have
deserted the Superior Spheres, the Gods of Will,***** who complete the Manu of
illusion. For the 'Double Dragon' has no hold upon the mere form. It is like
the breeze where there is no tree or branch to receive and harbour it. It
cannot affect the form where there is no agent of transmission (Manas,
"Mind") and the form knows it not."
"In
the highest worlds, the three are one,****** on Earth (at first) the one becomes
two. They are like the two (side) lines of a triangle that has lost its bottom
line -- which is the third fire." (Catechism Book III., sec. 9.)
Now
this requires some explanation before proceeding any further. To do so
especially for the benefit of our Aryan Hindu brethren --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Monads of the presentments of men of the Third Round, the huge Ape-like
forms.
**
In the esoteric system the seven principles in man are represented by seven
letters. The first two are more sacred than the four letters of the
Tetragrammaton.
***
The intermediate spheres, wherein the Monads, which have not reached Nirvana,
are said to slumber in unconscious inactivity between the Manvantaras.
****
Explained elsewhere. The "Three Fires," Pavaka, Pavamana, and Suchi,
who had forty-five sons, who, with their three fathers and their Father Agni,
constitute the 49 fires. Pavamana (fire produced by friction) is the parent of
the fire of the Asuras; Suchi (Solar fire) is the parent of the fire of the
gods; and Pavaka (electric fire) is the father of the fire of the Pitris (See
Vayu Purana). But this is an explanation on the material and the terrestrial
plane. The flames are evanescent and only periodical; the fires -- eternal in
their triple unity. They correspond to the four lower, and the three higher
human principles.
*****
The Suras, who become later the A-Suras.
******
Atma, Buddhi and Manas. In Devachan the higher element of the Manas is needed to
make it a state of perception and consciousness for the disembodied Monad.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 58 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
whose
esoteric interpretations may differ from our own -- we shall have to explain to
them the foregoing by certain passages in their own exoteric books, namely, the
Puranas. In the allegories of the latter, Brahma, who is collectively the
creative Force of the Universe, is said to be "at the beginning of the Yugas
(cycles) . . . . Possessed of the desire and of the power to create, and,
impelled by the potencies of what is to be created, again and again does he, at
the outset of a Kalpa, put forth a similar creation," (see Vishnu Purana,
Book I. ch. V., closing Sloka. Also "Manava Dharma Shastra" I. 30.)
It is now proposed to examine the exoteric account in the Vishnu Purana, and
see how much it may agree or disagree with our occult version.
-------
CREATION
OF DIVINE BEINGS IN THE EXOTERIC ACCOUNTS.
In
the Vishnu Purana -- which is certainly the earliest of all the scriptures of
that name -- we find, as in all the others, Brahma assuming as the male God,
for purposes of creation, "four bodies invested by three qualities."*
It is said: "In this manner, Maitreya, Jyotsna (dawn), Ratri (night), Ahan
(day), and Sandhya (evening twilight) are the four bodies of Brahma" . .
(p. 81, Vol. I., Wilson's translation). As Parasara explains it, when Brahma
wants to create the world anew and construct progeny through his will, in the
fourfold condition (or the four orders of beings) termed gods (Dhyan Chohans),
Demons** (i.e., more material Devas), Progenitors (Pitris) and men, "he
collects Yoga-like (Yuyuje) his mind."
Strange
to say, he begins by creating DEMONS, who thus take precedence over the angels
or gods. This is no incongruity, nor is it due to inconsistency, but has, like
all the rest, a profound esoteric meaning, quite clear to one free from
Christian theological prejudice. He who bears in mind that the principle MAHAT,
or Intellect, the "Universal Mind" (literally "the great"),
which esoteric philosophy explains as the "manifested Omniscience" --
the "first product" of Pradhana (primordial matter) as Vishnu Purana
says, but the first Cosmic aspect of Parabrahm or the esoteric SAT, the
Universal Soul,*** as Occultism
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This has in esotericism a direct bearing upon the seven principles of the
manifested Brahma, or universe, in the same order as in man. Exoterically, it
is only four principles.
**
Demons is a very loose word to use, as it applies to a great number of inferior
-- i.e., more material -- Spirits, or minor Gods, who are so termed because
they "war" with the higher ones; but they are no devils.
***
The same order of principles in man:-- Atma (Spirit), Buddhi (Soul), its
vehicle, as Matter is the Vahan of Spirit, and Manas (mind), the third, or the
fifth microcosmically. On the plane of personality, Manas is the first.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 59 THE BODIES OF BRAHMA.
teaches
-- is at the root of SELF-Consciousness, will understand the reason why. The
so-called "Demons" -- who are (esoterically) the Self-asserting and
(intellectually) active Principle -- are the positive poles of creation, so to
say; hence, the first produced. This is in brief the process as narrated
allegorically in the Puranas.
"Having
concentrated his mind into itself and the quality of darkness pervading Brahma's
assumed body, the Asuras, issuing from his thigh, were first produced; after
which, abandoning this body, it was transformed into NIGHT." (See Part
II., § "The Fallen Angels.")
Two
important points are involved herein:-- (a) Primarily in the Rig-Veda, the
"Asuras" are shown as spiritual divine beings; their etymology is
derived from asu (breath), the "Breath of God," and they mean the
same as the Supreme Spirit or the Zoroastrian Ahura. It is later on, for
purposes of theology and dogma, that they are shown issuing from Brahma's
thigh, and that their name began to be derived from a privative, and sura, god
(solar deities), or not-a-god, and that they became the enemies of the gods.
Every ancient theogony without exception -- from the Aryan and the Egyptian
down to that of Hesiod -- places, in the order of Cosmogonical evolution, Night
before the Day; even Genesis, where "darkness is upon the face of the
deep" before "the first day." The reason for this is that every
Cosmogony -- except in the Secret Doctrine -- begins by the "Secondary
Creation" so-called: to wit, the manifested Universe, the Genesis of which
has to open by a marked differentiation between the eternal Light of Primary
Creation, whose mystery must remain for ever "Darkness" to the prying
finite conception and intellect of the profane, and the Secondary Evolution of
manifested visible nature. The Veda contains the whole philosophy of that
division without having ever been correctly explained by our Orientalists,
because it has never been understood by them.
Continuing
to create, Brahma assumes another form, that of the Day, and creates from his
breath the gods, who are endowed with the quality of goodness (passivity)*. In
his next body the quality of great passivity prevailed, which is also
(negative) goodness, and from the side of that personage issued the Pitris, the
progenitors of men, because, as the text explains, "Brahma thought of
himself (during the process) as the father of the world."** This is
Kriya-sakti -- the mysterious Yoga power
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus, says the Commentary, the saying "by day the gods are most powerful,
and by night the demons," is purely allegorical.
**
This thinking of oneself as this, that, or the other, is the chief factor in
the production of every kind of psychic or even physical phenomena. The words
"whosoever shall say to this mountain be thou removed and cast into the
sea, and shall not doubt . . . . that thing will come to pass," are no
vain words. Only the word "faith" ought to be translated by WILL.
Faith without Will is like a wind-mill without wind -- barren of results.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 60 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
explained
elsewhere. This body of Brahma when cast off became the Sandhya (evening
twilight), the interval between day and night.
Finally
Brahma assumed his last form pervaded by the quality of foulness, "and
from this MEN, in whom foulness and passion predominate, were produced."
This body when cast off became the dawn, or morning twilight -- the twilight of
Humanity. Here Brahma stands esoterically for the Pitris. He is collectively
the Pitar, "father."
The
true esoteric meaning of this allegory must now be explained. Brahma here
symbolizes personally the collective creators of the World and Men -- the
universe with all its numberless productions of things movable and (seemingly)
immovable.* He is collectively the Prajapatis, the Lords of Being; and the four
bodies typify the four classes of creative powers or Dhyan Chohans, described
in the Commentary directly following Stanza VII. in Book I. The whole
philosophy of the so-called "Creation" of the good and evil in this
world and of the whole cycle of Manvantaric results therefrom, hangs on the
correct comprehension of these Four bodies of Brahma.
The
reader will now be prepared to understand the real, the esoteric significance
of what follows. Moreover there is an important point to be cleared up.
Christian theology having arbitrarily settled and agreed that Satan with his
Fallen Angels belonged to the earliest creation, Satan being the first-created,
the wisest and most beautiful of God's Archangels, the word was given, the
key-note struck. Henceforth all the pagan scriptures were made to yield the
same meaning, and all were shown to be demoniacal, and it was and is claimed
that truth and fact belong to, and commence only with, Christianity. Even the
Orientalists and Mythologists, some of them no Christians at all but
"infidels," or men of science, entered unconsciously to themselves,
and by the mere force of association of ideas and habit, into the theological
groove. Purely Brahmanical considerations, based on greed of power and
ambition, allowed the masses to remain in ignorance of great truths; and the
same causes led the Initiates among the early Christians to remain silent,
while those who had never known the truth disfigured the order of things,
judging of the hierarchy of "Angels" by their exoteric form. Thus as
the Asuras had become the rebellious inferior gods fighting the higher ones in
popular creeds, so the highest archangel, in truth the Agathodaemon, the eldest
benevolent Logos, became with theology the "Adversary" or Satan. But
is this warranted by the correct interpretation of any old Scripture? The
answer is, most certainly not. As the Mazdean Scriptures of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The same idea is found in the first four chapters of Genesis, with their
"Lord" and "God," which are the Elohim and the Androgynous
Eloha.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 61 WHAT THE GNOSTICS SAY.
Zend-Avesta,
the Vendidad and others correct and expose the later cunning shuffling of the
gods in the Hindu Pantheon, and restore through AHURA the Asuras to their
legitimate place in theogony, so the recent discoveries of the Chaldean tablets
vindicate the good name of the first divine Emanations. This is easily proved.
Christian Angelology is directly and solely derived from that of the Pharisees,
who brought their tenets from Babylonia. The Sadducees, the real guardians of
the Laws of Moses, knew not of, and rejected, any angels, opposing even the
immortality of the human Soul (not impersonal Spirit). In the Bible the only
"Angels" spoken of are the "Sons of God" mentioned in
Genesis vi. (who are now regarded as the Nephilim, the Fallen Angels), and
several angels in human form, the "Messengers" of the Jewish God,
whose own rank needs a closer analysis than heretofore given. (Vide Supra,
Stanza I., sub-sections 2, 3, et seq., where it is shown that the early
Akkadians called Ea, Wisdom, that which was disfigured by the later Chaldees
and Semites into Tismat, Tisalat and the Thallath of Berosus, the female Sea
Dragon, now Satan.) Truly -- "How art thou fallen (by the hand of man), O
bright star and son of the morning"!
Now
what do the Babylonian accounts of "Creation," as found on the
Assyrian fragments of tiles, tell us; those very accounts upon which the
Pharisees built their angelology? But compare Mr. G. Smith's "Assyrian
Discoveries," p. 398, and his "Chaldean Account of Genesis," p.
107. The "Tablet with the story of the Seven Wicked Gods or Spirits,"
has the following account -- we print the important passages in italics:--
1.
In the first days the evil Gods,
2.
the angels, who were in rebellion, who in the lower part of heaven
3.
had been created,
4.
they caused their evil work
5.
devising with wicked heads . . . . etc.
Thus
we are shown, as plainly as can be, on a fragment which remained unbroken, so
that there can be no dubious reading, that the "rebellious angels"
had been created in the lower part of heaven, i.e., that they belonged and do
belong to a material plane of evolution, although as it is not the plane of
which we are made cognizant through our senses, it remains generally invisible
to us, and is thus regarded as subjective. Were the Gnostics so wrong, after
this, in affirming that this our visible world, and especially the Earth, had
been created by lower angels, the inferior Elohim, of which, as they taught,
the God of Israel was one. These Gnostics were nearer in time to the records of
the Archaic Secret Doctrine, and therefore ought to be allowed to have known
better than non-initiated Christians, who took upon themselves, hundreds of
years
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later,
to remodel and correct what was said. But let us see what the same Tablet says
further on:--
7.
There were seven of them (the wicked gods) . . . . (then follows the
description of these, the fourth being a "serpent," the phallic
symbol of the fourth Race in human Evolution).
15.
The seven of them, messengers of the God Anu, their king.
Now
Anu belongs to the Chaldean trinity, and is identical with Sin, the
"Moon," in one aspect. And the Moon in the Hebrew Kabala is the Argha
of the seed of all material life, and is still more closely connected,
kabalistically, with Jehovah, who is double-sexed as Anu is. They are both
represented in Esotericism and viewed from a dual aspect: male or spiritual,
female or material, or Spirit and Matter, the two antagonistic principles.
Hence the "Messengers of Anu," (who is Sin, the "Moon,")
are shown, in verses 28 to 41, as being finally overpowered by the same Sin
with the help of Bel (the Sun) and Ishtar (Venus). This is regarded as a contradiction
by the Assyriologists, but is simply metaphysics in the esoteric teaching.
There
is more than one interpretation, for there are seven keys to the mystery of the
Fall. Moreover there are two "Falls" in Theology: the rebellion of
the Archangels and their "Fall," and the "Fall" of Adam and
Eve. Thus the lower as well as the higher Hierarchies are charged with a
supposed crime. The word "supposed" is the true and correct term, for
in both cases it is founded on misconception. Both are considered in Occultism
as Karmic effects, and both belong to the law of Evolution: intellectual and
spiritual on the one hand, physical and psychic on the other. The
"Fall" is a universal allegory. It sets forth at one end of the
ladder of Evolution the "rebellion," i.e., the action of differentiating
intellection or consciousness on its various planes, seeking union with matter;
and at the other, the lower end, the rebellion of matter against Spirit, or of
action against spiritual inertia. And here lies the germ of an error which has
had such disastrous effects on the intelligence of civilized societies for over
1,800 years. In the original allegory it is matter -- hence the more material
angels -- which was regarded as the conqueror of Spirit, or the Archangels who
"fell" on this plane. "They of the flaming sword (or animal
passions) had put to flight the Spirits of Darkness." Yet it is the latter
who fought for the supremacy of the conscious and divine spirituality on Earth
and failed, succumbing to the power of matter. But in theological dogma we see
the reverse. It is Michael, "who is like unto God," the
representative of Jehovah, who is the leader of the celestial hosts -- as
Lucifer, in Milton's fancy, is of the infernal hosts -- who has the best of
Satan. It is true that the nature of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Michael
depends upon that of his Creator and Master. Who the latter is, one may find
out by carefully studying the allegory of the "War in Heaven" with
the astronomical key. As shown by Bentley, the "War of the Titans against
the gods" in Hesiod, and also the war of the Asuras (or the Tarakamaya)
against the devas in Puranic legend, are identical in all save the names. The
aspects of the stars show (Bentley taking the year 945 B.C. as the nearest date
for such conjunction) that "all the planets, except Saturn, were on the
same side of the heavens as the Sun and Moon," and hence were his
opponents. And yet it is Saturn, or the Jewish "Moon-god," who is
shown as prevailing, both by Hesiod and Moses, neither of whom was understood.
Thus it was that the real meaning became distorted.
-------
STANZA
II. -- Continued.
8.
THE FLAMES CAME. THE FIRES WITH THE SPARKS; THE NIGHT FIRES AND THE DAY FIRES
(a). THEY DRIED OUT THE TURBID DARK WATERS. WITH THEIR HEAT THEY QUENCHED THEM.
THE LHAS (Spirits) OF THE HIGH; THE LHAMAYIN (those) OF BELOW, CAME (b). THEY
SLEW THE FORMS, WHICH WERE TWO- AND FOUR-FACED. THEY FOUGHT THE GOAT-MEN, AND
THE DOG-HEADED MEN, AND THE MEN WITH FISHES' BODIES.
(a)
The "Flames" are a Hierarchy of Spirits parallel to, if not identical
with, the "burning" fiery Saraph (Seraphim) mentioned by Isaiah (vi.
2-6), those who attend, according to Hebrew Theogony, "the Throne of the
Almighty." Melha is the Lord of the "Flames." When he appears on
Earth, he assumes the personality of a Buddha, says a popular legend. He is one
of the most ancient and revered Lhas, a Buddhist St. Michael.
(b)
The word "Below" must not be taken to mean infernal regions, but
simply a spiritual, or rather ethereal, Being of a lower grade, because nearer
to the Earth, or one step higher than our terrestrial sphere; while the Lhas
are Spirits of the highest Spheres -- whence the name of the capital of Tibet,
Lha-ssa.
Besides
a statement of a purely physical nature and belonging to the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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evolution
of life on Earth, there may be another allegorical meaning attached to this
Sloka, or indeed, as is taught, several. The FLAMES, or "Fires,"
represent Spirit, or the male element, and "Water," matter, or the
opposite element. And here again we find, in the action of the Spirit slaying
the purely material form, a reference to the eternal struggle, on the physical
and psychic planes, between Spirit and Matter, besides a scientific cosmic
fact. For, as said in the next verse:--
-------
9.
MOTHER-WATER, THE GREAT SEA WEPT. SHE AROSE, SHE DISAPPEARED IN THE MOON, WHICH
HAD LIFTED HER, WHICH HAD GIVEN HER BIRTH (a).
(a)
Now what can this mean? Is it not an evident reference to tidal action in the
early stage of the history of our planet in its fourth Round? Modern research
has been busy of late in its speculations on the Palaeozoic high-tides. Mr.
Darwin's theory was that not less than 52,000,000 years ago -- and probably
much more -- the Moon originated from the Earth's plastic mass. Starting from
the point where research was left by Helmholtz, Ferrel, Sir William Thomson and
others, he retraced the course of tidal retardation of the earth's rotary
motions far back into the very night of time, and placed the Moon during the
infancy of our planet at only "a fraction of its present distance."
In short, his theory was that it is the Moon which separated from the Earth.
The tidal elevation concurring with the swing of the globular mass --
centrifugal tendency being then nearly equal to gravity -- the latter was
overcome, and the tidally elevated mass could thus separate completely from the
Earth.*
The
Occult teaching is the reverse of this. The Moon is far older than the Earth;
and, as explained in Book I., it is the latter which owes its being to the
former, however astronomy and geology may explain the fact. Hence, the tides
and the attraction to the Moon, as shown by the liquid portion of the Globe
ever striving to raise itself towards its parent. This is the meaning of the
sentence that "the Mother-Water arose and disappeared in the Moon, which
had lifted her, which had given her birth."
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
But see the difficulties suggested later, in the works of various geologists,
against this theory. Compare Sir R. S. Bull's article in "Nature" (Dec.
1, 1881), and also what the American geologists say.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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10.
WHEN THEY (the Rupas) WERE DESTROYED, MOTHER-EARTH REMAINED BARE,* SHE ASKED TO
BE DRIED (a).**
(a)
The time for its incrustation had arrived. The waters had separated and the
process was started. It was the beginning of a new life. This is what one key
divulges to us. Another key teaches the origin of Water, its admixture with
Fire (liquid fire it calls it),*** and enters upon an alchemical description of
the progeny of the two -- solid matter such as minerals and earths. From the
"Waters of Space," the progeny of the male Spirit-Fire and the female
(gaseous) Water has become the Oceanic expanse on Earth. Varuna is dragged down
from the infinite Space, to reign as Neptune over the finite Seas. As always,
the popular fancy is found to be based on a strictly scientific foundation.
Water
is the symbol of the female element everywhere; mater, from which the letter M,
is derived pictorially from [[diagram]] a water hieroglyph. It is the universal
matrix or the "Great Deep." Venus, the great Mother-Virgin, issues
forth from the Sea-wave, and Cupid or Eros is her son. But Venus is the later
mythological variant of Gaia (or Gaea), the Earth, which, in its higher aspect
is Nature (Prakriti), and metaphysically Aditi, and even Mulaprakriti, the root
of Prakriti or its noumenon.
Hence
Cupid or Love in his primitive sense is Eros, the Divine Will, or Desire of
manifesting itself through visible creation. Thence Fohat, the prototype of
Eros, becomes on Earth the great power "Life-electricity," or the
Spirit of "Life-giving." Let us remember the Greek Theogony and enter
into the spirit of its philosophy. We are taught by the Greeks (See
"Iliad" IV., 201, 246) that all things, gods included, owe their
being to the Ocean and his wife Tethys, the latter being Gaea, the Earth or
Nature. But who is Ocean? Ocean is the immeasurable SPACE (Spirit in Chaos),
which is the Deity (see Book I.); and Tethys is not the Earth, but primordial
matter in the process of formation. In our case it is no longer Aditi-Gaea who
begets Ouranos or Varuna, the chief Aditya among the seven planetary gods, but
Prakriti, materialised and localised. The Moon, masculine in its theogonic
character, is,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The goddess who gave birth to these primordial monsters, in the account of
Berosus, was Thallath, in Greek Thalassa, "the Sea."
**
See, for comparison, the account of creation by Berosus (Alexander Polyhistor)
and the hideous beings born from the two-fold principle (Earth and Water) in
the Abyss of primordial creation: Neras (Centaurs, men with the limbs of horses
and human bodies), and Kimnaras (men with the heads of horses) created by
Brahma in the commencement of the Kalpa.
***
See Commentary following Sloka 18.
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[[Vol.
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in
its cosmic aspect only, the female generative principle, as the Sun is the male
emblem thereof. Water is the progeny of the Moon, an androgyne deity with every
nation.
Evolution
proceeds on the laws of analogy in Kosmos as in the formation of the smallest
globe. Thus the above, applying to the modus operandi at the time when the
Universe was appearing, applies also in the case of our Earth's formation.
This
Stanza opens by speaking of thirty crores, 30,000,000, of years. We may be
asked -- What could the ancients know of the duration of geological periods,
when no modern scientist or mathematician is able to calculate their duration
with anything like approximate accuracy? Whether they had or had not better
means (and it is maintained that they had them in their Zodiacs), still the
chronology of the ancient Brahmins shall now be given as faithfully as
possible.
-------
THE
CHRONOLOGY OF THE BRAHMINS.
No
greater riddle exists in science, no problem is more hopelessly insoluble, than
the question: How old -- even approximately -- are the Sun and Moon, the Earth
and Man? What does modern science know of the duration of the ages of the
World, or even of the length of geological periods?
Nothing;
absolutely nothing.
If
one turns to science for chronological information, one is told by those who
are straightforward and truthful, as for instance Mr. Pengelly, the eminent
geologist, "We do not know."* One will learn that, so far, no trustworthy
numerical estimate of the ages of the world and man could be made, and that
both geology and anthropology are at sea. Yet when a student of esoteric
philosophy presumes to bring forward the teachings of Occult Science, he is at
once sat upon. Why should this be so, since, when reduced to their own physical
methods, the greatest scientists have failed to arrive even at an approximate
agreement?
It
is true that science can hardly be blamed for it. Indeed, in the Cimmerian
darkness of the prehistoric ages, the explorers are lost in a labyrinth, whose
great corridors are doorless, allowing no visible exit into the Archaic past.
Lost in the maze of their own conflicting speculations, rejecting, as they have
always done, the evidence of Eastern tradition, without any clue, or one single
certain milestone to guide them, what can geologists or anthropologists do but
pick up the slender
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For a similar admission see Prof. Lefevre's Philosophy, p. 481.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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thread
of Ariadne where they first perceive it, and then proceed at perfect random?
Therefore we are first told that the farthest date to which documentary record
extends is now generally regarded by Anthropology as but "the earliest
distinctly visible point of the pre-historic period." (Encyclopaedia
Britannica.)
At
the same time it is confessed that "beyond that period stretches back a
vast indefinite series of prehistoric ages." (Ibid.)
It
is with those specified "Ages" that we shall begin. They are
"prehistoric" to the naked eye of matter only. To the spiritual eagle
eye of the seer and the prophet of every race, Ariadne's thread stretches
beyond that "historic period" without break or flaw, surely and
steadily, into the very night of time; and the hand which holds it is too
mighty to drop it, or even let it break. Records exist, although they may be
rejected as fanciful by the profane; though many of them are tacitly accepted
by philosophers and men of great learning, and meet with an unvarying refusal
only from the official and collective body of orthodox science. And since the
latter refuses to give us even an approximate idea of the duration of the
geological ages -- save in a few conflicting and contradictory hypotheses --
let us see what Aryan philosophy can teach us.
Such
computations as are given in Manu and the Puranas -- save trifling and most evidently
intentional exaggerations -- are, as already stated, almost identical with
those taught in esoteric philosophy. This may be seen by comparing the two in
any Hindu calendar of recognised orthodoxy.
The
best and most complete of all such calendars, at present, as vouched for by the
learned Brahmins of Southern India, is the already mentioned Tamil calendar
called the "Tirukkanda Panchanga," compiled, as we are told, from,
and in full accordance with, secret fragments of Asuramaya's data. As Asuramaya
is said to have been the greatest astronomer, so he is whispered to have also
been the most powerful "Sorcerer" of the "WHITE ISLAND, which
had become BLACK with sin," i.e., of the islands of Atlantis.
The
"White Island" is a symbolical name. Asuramaya is said to have lived
(see the tradition of Jhana-bhaskara) in Romaka-pura in the West: because the
name is an allusion to the land and cradle of the "Sweat-born" of the
Third Race. That land or continent had disappeared ages before Asuramaya lived,
since he was an Atlantean; but he was a direct descendant of the Wise Race, the
Race that never dies. Many are the legends concerning this hero, the pupil of
Surya (the Sun-God) himself, as the Indian accounts allege. It matters little
whether he lived on one or another island, but the question is to prove that he
was no myth, as Dr. Weber and others would make him. The
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[[Vol.
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fact
of "Romaka-pura in the West" being named as the birth-place of this
hero of the archaic ages, is the more interesting because it is so very
suggestive of the esoteric teaching about the "Sweat-born" Races, the
men born from the pores of their parents. "ROMAKUPAS" means
"hair-pores" in Sanskrit. In Mahabharata XII. 10,308, a people named
Raumyas are said to have been created from the pores of Virabhadara, the
terrible giant, who destroyed Daksha's sacrifice. Other tribes and people are
also represented as born in this way. All these are references to the later
Second and the earlier Third Root Races.
The
following figures are from the calendar just referred to; a footnote marks the
points of disagreement with the figures of the Arya Samaj school:--
I.
From the beginning of cosmic evolution,* up
to
the Hindu year Tarana (or 1887) .............. 1,955,884,687 years.
II.
The (astral) mineral, vegetable and animal
kingdoms
up to Man, have taken to evolve** ........ 300,000,000 years.
III.
Time, from the first appearance of
"Humanity"
(on planetary chain)...................1,664,500,987 years.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The esoteric doctrine says that this "cosmic evolution" refers only
to our solar system; while exoteric Hinduism makes the figures refer, if we do
not mistake, to the whole Universal System.
**
Another point of disagreement. Occultism says: "The astral prototypes of
the mineral, vegetable and animal kingdoms up to man have taken that time (300
million years) to evolve, re-forming out of the cast-off materials of the
preceding Round, which, though very dense and physical in their own cycle, are
relatively ethereal as compared with the materiality of our present middle
Round. At the expiration of these 300 million years, Nature, on the way to the
physical and material, down the arc of descent, begins with mankind and works
downwards, hardening or materialising forms as it proceeds. Thus the fossils
found in strata, to which an antiquity, not of eighteen, but of many hundreds of
millions of years, must be ascribed, belong in reality to forms of the
preceding Round, which, while living, were far more ethereal than physical, as
we know the physical. That we perceive and disinter them as tangible forms, is
due to the process of materialization or crystallization referred to, which
took place subsequently, at the beginning of the Fourth Round, and reached its
maximum after the appearance of man, proceeding parallel with his physical
evolution. This alone illustrates the fact that the degree of materiality of
the Earth changes pari passu with that of its inhabitants. And thus man now
finds, as tangible fossils, what were once the (to his present senses) ethereal
forms of the lower kingdoms. The above Brahmanical figures refer to evolution
beginning on Globe A, and in the First Round. In this Volume we speak only of
this, the Fourth Round."
***
This difference and the change of cyphers in the last three triplets of
figures, the writer cannot undertake to account for. According to every calculation,
once the three hundred millions are subtracted, the figures ought to stand,
1,655,884,687. But they are given as stated in the Tamil calendar above-named
and as they were translated. The school of the late Pandit Dayanand Saraswati,
founder of the Arya Samaj, gives a date of 1,960,852,987. See the "Arya
Magazine" of Lahore, the cover of which bears the words: "Aryan era
1,960,852,987."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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IV.
The number that elapsed since the "Vaivasvata Manvantara"* -- or the
human period -- up to the year 1887, is just ................. 18,618,728
years.
V.
The full period of one Manvantara is ..... 308,448,000 years.
VI.
14 "Manvantaras" plus the period of one Satya Yuga make ONE DAY OF
BRAHMA, or complete Manvantara and make .............. 4,320,000,000 years.
Therefore
a Maha-Yuga consists of ... ......... 4,320,000 years.**
The
year 1887 is from the commencement of
Kali-Yuga
......................................... 4,989 years.
To
make this still clearer in its details, the following computations by Rao
Bahadur P. Sreenivas Row, are given from the "Theosophist" of
November, 1885.
Mortal
years.
360
days of mortals make a year .......................... 1
Krita
Yuga contains .............................. 1,728,000
Treta
Yuga contains .............................. 1,296,000
Dwapara
Yuga contains .............................. 864,000
Kali
Yuga contains ................................. 432,000
The
total of the said four Yugas constitute a
Maha
Yuga ........................................ 4,320,000
Seventy-one
of such Maha-Yugas form the
period
of the reign of one Manu ................ 306,720,000
The
reign of 14 Manus embraces the duration
of
994 Maha-Yugas, which is equal to ......... 4,294,080,000
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
VAIVASVATA Manu is the one human being -- some versions add to him the seven Rishis
-- who in the Matsya Avatar allegory is saved from the Deluge in a boat, like
Noah in the Ark. Therefore, this Vaivasvata Manvantara would be the
"post-Diluvian" period. This, however, does not refer to the later
"Atlantean" or Noah's deluge, nor to the Cosmic Deluge or Pralaya of
obscuration, which preceded our Round, but to the appearance of mankind in the
latter Round. There is a great difference made, however, between the
"Naimitika," occasional or incidental, "Prakritika," elemental,
"Atyantika," the absolute, and "Nitya," the perpetual
Pralaya; the latter being described as "Brahma's contingent recoalescence
of the Universe at the end of Brahma's DAY." The question was raised by a
learned Brahmin Theosophist: "Whether there is such a thing as Cosmic
Pralaya; because, otherwise, the Logos (Krishna) would have to be reborn, and
he is Aja (unborn)." We cannot see why. The Logos is said to be born only
metaphorically, as the Sun is born daily, or rather a beam of that Sun is born
in the morning and is said to die when it disappears, whereas it is simply
reabsorbed into the parent essence. Cosmic Pralaya is for things visible, not
for the Arupa, formless, world. The Cosmic or Universal Pralaya comes only at
the end of one hundred years of Brahma; when the Universal dissolution is said
to take place. Then the Avyaya, say the exoteric scriptures, the eternal life
symbolized by Vishnu, assuming the character of Rudra, the Destroyer, enters
into the Seven Rays of the Sun and drinks up all the waters of the Universe.
"Thus fed, the seven solar Rays dilate to seven Suns and set fire to the
whole Cosmos. . . . ."
**
Since a Maha-Yuga is the 1,000th part of a day of Brahma.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Add
Sandhis, i.e., intervals between the reign of each Manu, which amount
to
six Maha-Yugas, equal to
............................................................ 25,920,000
The
total of these reigns and interregnums of 14 Manus, is 1,000 Maha-Yugas,
which
constitute a Kalpa, i.e., one day of Brahma
......................................................... 4,320,000,000
As
Brahma's Night is of equal duration, one Day and Night of Brahma would contain
................................................. 8,640,000,000
360
of such days and nights make one year of Brahma make
..................................................... 3,110,400,000,000
100
such years constitute the whole period of Brahma's age, i.e., Maha-Kalpa
................................................... 311,040,000,000,000
These
are the exoteric figures accepted throughout India, and they dovetail pretty
nearly with those of the Secret works. The latter, moreover, amplify them by a
division into a number of esoteric cycles, never mentioned in Brahmanical
popular writings -- one of which, the division of the Yugas into racial cycles,
is given elsewhere as an instance. The rest, in their details, have of course
never been made public. They are, nevertheless, known to every
"Twice-born" (Dwija, or Initiated) Brahmin, and the Puranas contain
references to some of them in veiled terms, which no matter-of-fact Orientalist
has yet endeavoured to make out, nor could he if he would.
These
sacred astronomical cycles are of immense antiquity, and most of them pertain,
as stated, to the calculations of Narada and Asuramaya. The latter has the
reputation of a giant and a sorcerer. But the antediluvian giants (the Gibborim
of the Bible) were not all bad or Sorcerers, as Christian Theology, which sees
in every Occultist a servant of the Evil one, would have it; nor were they
worse than many of "the faithful sons of the Church." A Torquemada
and a Catherine de Medicis certainly did more harm in their day and in the name
of their Master than any Atlantean giant or demigod of antiquity ever did;
whether his name was Cyclops, or Medusa, or yet the Orphic Titan, the
anguipedal monster known as Ephialtes. There were good "giants" in
days of old just as there are bad "pigmies" now; and the Rakshasas
and Yakshas of Lanka are no worse than our modern dynamiters, and certain
Christian and civilised generals during modern wars. Nor are they myths.
"He who would laugh at Briareus and Orion ought to abstain from going to,
or even talking of, Karnac or Stonehenge," remarks somewhere a modern
writer.
As
the Brahmanical figures given above are approximately the basic calculations of
our esoteric system, the reader is requested to carefully keep them in mind.
In
the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" one finds, as the last word of
science, that the antiquity of man is allowed to stretch only over "tens
of thou-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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sands
of years."* It becomes evident that as these figures may be made to
fluctuate between 10,000 and 100,000, therefore they mean very little if
anything, and only render still denser the darkness surrounding the question.
Moreover, what matters it that science places the birth of man in the
"pre- or post-glacial drift," if we are told at the same time that
the so-called "ice age" is simply a long succession of ages which
"shaded without abrupt change of any kind into what is termed the human or
Recent period . . . the overlapping of geological periods having been the rule
from the beginning of time." The latter "rule" only results in
the still more puzzling, even if strictly scientific and correct, information,
that "even to-day man is contemporary with the ice-age in the Alpine
valleys and in the Finmark."**
Thus,
had it not been for the lessons taught by the Secret Doctrine, and even by
exoteric Hinduism and its traditions, we should be left to this day to float in
perplexed uncertainty between the indefinite ages of one school of science, the
"tens of thousands" of years of the other, and the 6,000 years of the
Bible interpreters. This is one of the several reasons why, with all the
respect due to the conclusions of the men of learning of our modern day, we are
forced to ignore them in all such questions of pre-historic antiquity.
Modern
Geology and Anthropology must, of course, disagree with our views. But
Occultism will find as many weapons against these two sciences as it has
against astronomical and physical theories, in spite of Mr. Laing's assurances
that*** "in (chronological) calculations of this sort, concerning older
and later formations, there is no theory, and they are based on positive facts,
limited only by a certain possible (?) amount of error either way,"
occultism will prove, scientific confessions in hand, that geology is very much
in error, and very often even more so than Astronomy. In this very passage by
Mr. Laing, which gives to Geology pre-eminence for correctness over Astronomy,
we find a passage in flagrant contradiction to the admissions of the best
Geologists themselves. Says the author --
"In
short, the conclusions of Geology, at any rate up to the Silurian period,****
when the present order of things was fairly inaugurated, are approximate (truly
so) facts and not theories, while the astronomical conclusions are theories
based on data so uncertain, that while in some
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See article "Geology," in "Encyclopaedia Britannica."
**
This allows a chance even to the Biblical "Adam Chronology" of 6,000
years. (Ibid.)
***
See his "Modern Science and Modern Thought."
****
To the Silurian period as regards Molluscs and Animal life -- granted; but what
do they know of man?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 72 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
cases
they give results incredibly short . . . in others they give results almost
incredibly long."
After
which, the reader is advised that the safest course "seems to be to assume
that Geology really proves the duration of the present order of things to have
been somewhere over 100 millions of years," as "Astronomy gives an
enormous though unknown time in the past, and to come in the future, for the
birth, growth, maturity, decline, and death of the Solar System, of which our
Earth is a small planet now passing through the habitable phase." (p. 49.)
Judging
from past experience, we do not entertain the slightest doubt that, once called
upon to answer "the absurd unscientific and preposterous claims of
exoteric (and esoteric) Aryan chronology," the scientist of "the
results incredibly short," i.e., only 15,000,000 years, and the scientist,
who "would require 600,000,000 years," together with those who accept
Mr. Huxley's figures of 1,000,000,000 "since sedimentation began in
Europe" (World Life), would all be as dogmatic one as the other. Nor would
they fail to remind the Occultist and the Brahmin, that it is the modern men of
science alone who represent exact science, whose duty it is to fight inaccuracy
and superstition.
The
earth is passing through the "habitable phase" only for the present
order of things, and as far as our present mankind is concerned with its actual
"coats of skin" and phosphorus for bones and brain.
We
are ready to concede the 100 millions of years offered by Geology, since we are
taught that our present physical mankind -- or the Vaivasvata humanity -- began
only 18 millions of years ago. But Geology has no facts to give us for the
duration of geological periods, as we have shown, no more indeed than has
Astronomy. The authentic letter from Mr. W. Pengelly, F.R.S., quoted elsewhere,
says that: "It is at present, and perhaps always will be, IMPOSSIBLE to
reduce, even approximately, geological time into years or even into
millenniums." And having never, hitherto, excavated a fossil man of any
other than the present form -- what does Geology know of him? It has traced
zones or strata and, with these, primordial zoological life, down to the
Silurian. When it has, in the same way, traced man down to his primordial
protoplasmic form, then we will admit that it may know something of primordial
man. If it is not very material "to the bearings of modern scientific
discovery on modern thought," whether "man has existed in state of
constant though slow progression for the last 50,000 years of period of 15
millions, or for the last 500,000 years of a period of 150 millions"
("Modern Science, etc." p. 49), as Mr. S. Laing tells his readers, it
is very much so for the claims of the Occultists. Unless the latter show that
it is a possibility, if not a perfect certainty, that man
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 73 COSMOGONY, AN INTELLIGENT PLAN.
lived
18 millions of years ago, the Secret Doctrine might as well have remained
unwritten. An attempt must, therefore, be made in this direction, and it is our
modern geologists and men of science generally who will be brought to testify
to this fact in the third part of this volume. Meanwhile, and notwithstanding
the fact that Hindu Chronology is constantly represented by the Orientalists as
a fiction based on no "actual computation,"* but simply a
"childish boasting," it is nevertbeless often twisted out of
recognition to make it yield to, and fit in with, Western theories. No figures
have ever been more meddled with and tortured than the famous 4, 3, 2, followed
by cyphers of the Yugas and Maha-Yugas.
As
the whole cycle of prehistoric events, such as the evolution and transformation
of Races and the extreme antiquity of man, hangs upon the said Chronology, it
becomes extremely important to check it by other existing calculations. If the
Eastern Chronology is rejected, we shall at least have the consolation of
proving that no other -- whether the figures of Science or of the Churches --
is one whit more reliable. As Professor Max Muller expresses it, it is often as
useful to prove what a thing is not as to show what it may be. And once we
succeed in pointing out the fallacies of both Christian and scientific
computations -- by allowing them a fair chance of comparison with our
Chronology -- neither of the two will have a reasonable ground to stand upon,
in pronouncing the esoteric figures less reliable than its own.
We
may here refer the reader to our earlier work "Isis Unveiled," Vol.
I., p. 32, for some remarks concerning the figures which were cited a few pages
back.
To-day
a few more facts may be added to the information there given, which is already
known to every Orientalist. The sacredness of the cycle of 4320, with
additional cyphers, lies in the fact that the figures which compose it, taken
separately or joined in various combinations, are each and all symbolical of
the greatest mysteries in Nature. Indeed, whether one takes the 4 separately,
or the 3 by itself, or the two together making 7, or again the three added
together and yielding 9, all these numbers have their application in the most
sacred and occult things, and record the workings of Nature in her eternally
periodical phenomena. They are never erring, perpetually recurring numbers,
unveiling, to him who studies the secrets of Nature, a truly divine System, an
intelligent plan in Cosmogony, which results in natural cosmic divisions of times,
seasons, invisible influences, astronomical phenomena, with their action and
reaction on terrestrial and even moral nature; on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Wilson's "Translation of Vishnu Purana," Vol. I., pp. 50, 51.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 74 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
birth,
death, and growth, on health and disease. All these natural events are based
and depend upon cyclical processes in the Kosmos itself, producing periodic
agencies which, acting from without, affect the Earth and all that lives and
breathes on it, from one end to the other of any Manvantara. Causes and effects
are esoteric, exoteric, and endexoteric, so to say.
In
Isis Unveiled we wrote that which we now repeat:-- "We are at the bottom
of a cycle and evidently in a transitory state. Plato divides the intellectual
progress of the universe during every cycle into fertile and barren periods. In
the sublunary regions, the spheres of the various elements remain eternally in
perfect harmony with the divine nature, he says; 'but their parts,' owing to a
too close proximity to earth, and their commingling with the earthly (which is
matter, and therefore the realm of evil), 'are sometimes according, and
sometimes contrary to (divine) nature.' When those circulations -- which
Eliphas Levi calls ' currents of the astral light' -- in the universal ether
which contains in itself every element, take place in harmony with the divine
spirit, our earth and everything pertaining to it enjoys a fertile period. The
occult powers of plants, animals, and minerals magically sympathize with the '
superior natures,' and the divine soul of man is in perfect intelligence with
these 'inferior' ones. But during the barren periods, the latter lose their
magic sympathy, and the spiritual sight of the majority of mankind is so
blinded as to lose every notion of the superior powers of its own divine
spirit. We are in a barren period: the eighteenth century, during which the
malignant fever of scepticism broke out so irrepressibly, has entailed unbelief
as an hereditary disease upon the nineteenth. The divine intellect is veiled in
man; his animal brain alone philosophizes." And philosophizing alone, how
can it understand the "SOUL DOCTRINE"?
In
order not to break the thread of the narrative we shall give some striking
proofs of these cyclic laws in Part II., proceeding meanwhile with our
explanations of geological and racial cycles.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 75 THE SECRET OF THE FALL OF THE ANGELS.
STANZA
III.
ATTEMPTS
TO CREATE MAN.
§§
(11) The Descent of the Demiurge. (12) The lunar gods ordered to create. (13)
The higher gods refuse.
11.
THE LORD OF THE LORDS CAME. FROM HER BODY HE SEPARATED THE WATERS, AND THAT WAS
HEAVEN ABOVE, THE FIRST HEAVEN (the atmosphere, or the air, the firmament) (a).
(a)
Here tradition falls again into the Universal. As in the earliest version,
repeated in the Puranas, so in the latest, the Mosaic account. In the first it
is said: "He the Lord" (the god who has the form of Brahma)
"when the world had become one ocean (Harivamsa I. 36) concluding that
within the waters lay the earth, and desirous to raise it up," to separate
it, "created himself in another form. As in the preceding Kalpa
(Manvantara) he had assumed the shape of a tortoise, so in this one he took the
shape of a boar, etc. etc." In the Elohistic "creation"
(Genesis, verses 6, 7, 8, and 9) "God" creates a firmament in the
midst of the waters . . . . . and says "let dry land appear." And now
comes the traditional peg whereunto is hung the esoteric portion of the
Kabalistic interpretation.
12.
THE GREAT CHOHANS (Lords), CALLED THE LORDS OF THE MOON, OF THE AIRY BODIES
(a). "BRING FORTH MEN, (they were told), MEN OF YOUR NATURE. GIVE THEM
(i.e., the Jivas or Monads) THEIR FORMS WITHIN. SHE (Mother Earth or Nature)
WILL BUILD COVERINGS WITHOUT (external bodies). (For) MALES-FEMALES WILL THEY
BE. LORDS OF THE FLAME, ALSO."
(a)
Who are the Lords of the Moon? In India they are called Pitris or "lunar
ancestors," but in the Hebrew scrolls it is Jehovah himself who is the
"Lord of the Moon," collectively as the Host, and also as one of the
Elohim. The astronomy of the Hebrews and their observance of times was
regulated by the moon. A Kabalist, having shown that "Daniel . . . told
off God's providence by set times," and that the "Revelation" of
John "speaks of a carefully measured cubical city descending out of the
heavens," etc., adds --
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 76 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"But
the vitalizing power of heaven lay chiefly with the moon. . . . It was the
Hebrew [[hebrew]] (Jehovah), and St. Paul enjoins: 'Let no man judge you for
your observance of the seventh day, and the day of the new moon, which are a
shadow of things to come; but the body (or substance) is of Christ" or
Jehovah, that function of this power that "made the barren woman . . . a
mother . . . for they are the gift of Jehovah" . . . which is a key to the
objection which her husband made to the Shunamite, as to her going to the man
of God -- "for it is neither the seventh day nor the day of the new moon.
. . . (2 Kings, iv., 23.) The living spiritual powers of the constellations had
mighty wars, marked by the movements and positions of the stars and planets,
and especially as the result of the conjunction of the moon, earth, and sun.
Bentley comments on the Hindu "War between the gods and the giants,"
as marked by the eclipse of the Sun at the ascending node of the Moon, 945 B.C.
(! !), at which time was born* or produced from the sea, SRI (Sarai, S-r-i, the
wife of the Hebrew A-bram**). Sri is also Venus-Aphrodite the Western emblem
"of the luni-solar year or the moon (as Sri is the wife of the moon; vide
foot-note), the goddess of increase*** . . . " Therefore . . . "the
grand monument and landmark of the exact period of the lunar year and month, by
which this cycle (of 19 tropical years and 235 revolutions of the moon) could
be calculated, was Mount Sinai -- the Lord Jehovah coming down thereon. . . .
Paul speaks (then) as a mystagogue, when he says concerning the freed woman and
bond woman of Abraham: 'For this Hagar (the bond-woman) is Mount Sinai in
Arabia.' How could a woman be a mountain? and such a mountain! Yet . . . she
was. . . . Her name was Hagar, Hebrew [[hebrew]], whose numbers re-read 235, or
in exact measure, the very number of lunar months to equal nineteen tropical
years to complete this cycle. . . . Mount Sinai being, in the esoteric language
of the wisdom, the monument of the exact time of the lunar
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
According to the wonderful chronology of Bentley, who wrote in days when
Biblical chronology was still undisputed; and also according to that of those
modern Orientalists who dwarf the Hindu dates as far as they can.
**
Now Sri is the daughter of Bhrigu, one of the Prajapatis and Rishis, the chief
of the Bhrigus, "the Consumers," the aerial class of gods. She is
Lakshmi, the wife of Vishnu, and she is "the bride of Siva" (Gauri),
and she is Sarasvati, "the watery," the wife of Brahma, because the
three gods and goddesses are one, under three aspects. Read the explanation by
Parasara, in Vishnu Purana in Bk. I., ch. viii. (Vol. I., Wilson's trans., p.
119), and you will understand. "The Lord of Sri" is the moon, he
says, and "Sri is the wife of Narayana, the God of Gods"; Sri or
Lakshmi (Venus) is Indrani, as she is Sarasvati, for in the words of Parasara:
"Hari (or Iswara, "the Lord") is all that is called male in the
Universe; Lakshmi is all that is termed female. There is nothing else than
they." Hence she is "female," and "God" is male
Nature.
***
Sri is goddess of, and herself "Fortune and Prosperity."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 77 THE VARIOUS CLASSES OF CREATORS.
years
and months, by which this spiritual vitalizing cycle could be computed -- and
which mountain, indeed, was called (see Fuerst), "the Mountain of the Moon
(Sin). So also Sarai (SRI), the wife of Abram, could have no child until her
name was changed to Sarah, [[hebrew]], giving to her the property of this lunar
influence."*
This
may be regarded as a digression from the main subject; but it is a very
necessary one with a view to Christian readers. For who, after studying
dispassionately the respective legends of Abram or Abraham, Sarai or Sarah, who
was "fair to look upon," and those of Brahma and Sarasvati, or Sri,
Lakshmi-Venus, with the relations of all these to the Moon and Water; -- and
especially one who understands the real Kabalistic meaning of the name Jehovah
and its relation to, and connection with, the moon -- who can doubt that the
story of Abram is based upon that of Brahma, or that Genesis was written upon
the old lines used by every ancient nation? All in the ancient Scriptures is
allegorical -- all based upon and inseparably connected with Astronomy and
Cosmolatry.
-------
13.
THEY (the Moon-gods) WENT, EACH ON HIS ALLOTTED LAND: SEVEN OF THEM, EACH ON
HIS LOT. THE LORDS OF THE FLAME REMAINED BEHIND. THEY WOULD NOT GO, THEY WOULD
NOT CREATE (a).
(a)
The Secret teachings show the divine Progenitors creating men on seven portions
of the globe "each on his lot" -- i.e., each a different race of men
externally and internally, and on different zones. This polygenistic claim is
considered elsewhere (vide Stanza VII.). But who are "They" who
create, and the "Lords of the Flame," "who do not"?
Occultism divides the "Creators" into twelve classes; of which four
have reached liberation to the end of the "Great Age," the fifth is
ready to reach it, but still remains active on the intellectual planes, while
seven are still under direct Karmic law. These last act on the man-bearing
globes of our chain.
Exoteric
Hindu books mention seven classes of Pitris, and among them two distinct kinds
of Progenitors or Ancestors: the Barhishad and the Agnishwatta; or those
possessed of the "sacred fire" and those devoid of it. Hindu
ritualism seems to connect them with sacrificial fires, and with Grihasta
Brahmins in earlier incarnations: those who have, and those who have not
attended as they should to their household sacred fires in their previous
births. The distinction, as said, is derived from the Vedas. The first and
highest class (esoterically) the Agnishwatta,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Masonic Review"; Cincinnati, June 1886, Art. "The
Cabbalah."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 78 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
are
represented in the exoteric allegory as Grihasta (Brahman-householders) who, in
their past births in other Manvantaras having failed to maintain their domestic
fires and to offer burnt sacrifices, have lost every right to have oblations
with fire presented to them. Whereas the Barhishad, being Brahmins who have kept
up their household sacred fires, are thus honoured to this day. Thence the
Agnishwatta are represented as devoid of, and the Barhishad as possessed of,
fires.
But
esoteric philosophy explains the original qualifications as being due to the
difference between the natures of the two classes: the Agnishwatta Pitris are
devoid of fire (i.e., of creative passion), because too divine and pure (vide
supra, Sloka 11th); whereas the Barhishad, being the lunar spirits more closely
connected with Earth, became the creative Elohim of form, or the Adam of dust.
The
allegory says that Sanandana and other Vedhas, the Sons of Brahma, his first
progeny, "were without desire or passion, inspired with the holy wisdom,
estranged from the Universe and undesirous of progeny" (Vishnu Purana,
Book I. vii.). This also is what is meant in Sloka 11 by the words: "They
would not create," and is explained as follows:-- "The primordial
Emanations from the creative Power are too near the absolute Cause. They are
transitional and latent forces, which will develop only in the next and
subsequent removes." This makes it plain. Hence Brahma is said to have
felt wrathful when he saw that those "embodied spirits, produced from his
limbs (gatra), would not multiply themselves." After which, in the
allegory, he creates other seven mind-born Sons (see "Moksha-Darma"
and "Mahabharata"), namely, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha,
Kratu and Vasishta, the latter being often replaced by Daksha, the most
prolific of the creators. In most of the texts these Seven Sons of
Vasishta-Daksha are called the seven Rishis of the Third Manvantara; the latter
referring both to the Third Round and also to the third Root-Race and its
branch-Races in the Fourth Round. These are all the creators of the various
beings on this Earth, the Prajapati, and at the same time they appear as divers
reincarnations in the early Manvantaras or races.
It
thus becomes clear why the Agnishwatta, devoid of the grosser creative fire,
hence unable to create physical man, having no double, or astral body, to
project, since they were without any form, are shown in exoteric allegories as
Yogis, Kumaras (chaste youths), who became "rebels," Asuras, fighting
and opposing gods,* etc., etc. Yet it is they
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Because, as the allegory shows, the Gods who had no personal merit of their
own, dreading the sanctity of those self-striving incarnated Beings who had
become ascetics and Yogis, and thus threatened to upset the power of the former
by their self-acquired powers -- renounced them. All this has a deep
philosophical meaning and refers to the evolution and acquirement of divine
powers through self-exertion. Some Rishi- [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 79 THE LIVING SPIRITUAL FIRE.
alone
who could complete man, i.e., make of him a self-conscious, almost a divine
being -- god on Earth. The Barhishad, though possessed of creative fire, were
devoid of the higher MAHAT-mic element. Being on a level with the lower
principles -- those which precede gross objective matter -- they could only
give birth to the outer man, or rather to the model of the physical, the astral
man. Thus, though we see them intrusted with the task by Brahma (the collective
Mahat or Universal Divine Mind), the "Mystery of Creation" is
repeated on Earth, only in an inverted sense, as in a mirror. It is those who
are unable to create the spiritual immortal man, who project the senseless
model (the Astral) of the physical Being; and, as will be seen, it was those
who would not multiply, who sacrificed themselves to the good and salvation of
Spiritual Humanity. For, to complete the septenary man, to add to his three lower
principles and cement them with the spiritual Monad -- which could never dwell
in such a form otherwise than in an absolutely latent state -- two connecting
principles are needed: Manas and Kama. This requires a living Spiritual Fire of
the middle principle from the fifth and third states of Pleroma. But this fire
is the possession of the Triangles, not of the (perfect) Cubes, which symbolize
the Angelic Beings:* the former having from the first creation got hold of it
and being said to have appropriated it for themselves, as in the allegory of
Prometheus. These are the active, and therefore -- in Heaven -- no longer
"pure" Beings. They have become the independent and free
Intelligences, shown in every Theogony as fighting for that independence and
freedom, and hence -- in the ordinary sense -- "rebellious to the divine
passive law." These are then those "Flames" (the Agnishwatta)
who, as shown in Sloka 13, "remain behind" instead of going along
with the others to create men on Earth. But the true esoteric meaning is that
most of them were destined to incarnate as the Egos of the forthcoming crop of
Mankind. The human Ego is neither Atman nor Buddhi, but the higher Manas: the
intellectual fruition and the efflorescence of the intellectual self-conscious
Egotism -- in the higher spiritual sense. The ancient works refer to it as
Karana Sarira on the plane of Sutratma, which is the golden thread on which,
like beads, the various personalities of this higher Ego are strung. If the
reader were told, as in the semi-esoteric allegories, that these Beings were
returning Nirvanees, from preceding Maha-Manvantaras -- ages of incalculable
dura-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Yogis are shown in the Puranas to be far more
powerful than the gods. Secondary gods or temporary powers in Nature (the
Forces) are doomed to disappear; it is only the spiritual potentiality in man
which can lead him to become one with the INFINITE and the ABSOLUTE.
*
See Book I., Stanzas III. to V. The triangle becomes a Pentagon (five-fold) on
Earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 80 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
tion
which have rolled away in the Eternity, a still more incalculable time ago --
he would hardly understand the text correctly; while some Vedantins might say:
"This is not so; the Nirvanee can never return"; which is true during
the Manvantara he belongs to, and erroneous where Eternity is concerned. For it
is said in the Sacred Slokas:
"The
thread of radiance which is imperishable and dissolves only in Nirvana,
re-emerges from it in its integrity on the day when the Great Law calls all
things back into action. . . ."
Hence,
as the higher "Pitris or Dhyanis" had no hand in his physical
creation, we find primeval man, issued from the bodies of his spiritually
fireless progenitors, described as aeriform, devoid of compactness, and
MINDLESS. He had no middle principle to serve him as a medium between the
highest and the lowest, the spiritual man and the physical brain, for he lacked
Manas. The Monads which incarnated in those empty SHELLS, remained as
unconscious as when separated from their previous incomplete forms and
vehicles. There is no potentiality for creation, or self-Consciousness, in a
pure Spirit on this our plane, unless its too homogeneous, perfect, because
divine, nature is, so to say, mixed with, and strengthened by, an essence
already differentiated. It is only the lower line of the Triangle -- representing
the first triad that emanates from the Universal MONAD -- that can furnish this
needed consciousness on the plane of differentiated Nature. But how could these
pure Emanations, which, on this principle, must have originally been themselves
unconscious (in our sense), be of any use in supplying the required principle,
as they could hardly have possessed it themselves? The answer is difficult to
comprehend, unless one is well acquainted with the philosophical metaphysics of
a beginningless and endless series of Cosmic Re-births; and becomes well
impressed and familiarised with that immutable law of Nature which is ETERNAL
MOTION, cyclic and spiral, therefore progressive even in its seeming
retrogression. The one divine Principle, the nameless THAT of the Vedas, is the
universal Total, which, neither in its spiritual aspects and emanations, nor in
its physical atoms, can ever be at "absolute rest" except during the
"Nights" of Brahma. Hence, also, the "first-born" are those
who are first set in motion at the beginning of a Manvantara, and thus the
first to fall into the lower spheres of materiality. They who are called in
Theology "the Thrones," and are the "Seat of God," must be
the first incarnated men on Earth; and it becomes comprehensible, if we think
of the endless series of past Manvantaras, to find that the last had to come
first, and the first last. We find, in short, that the higher Angels had
broken, countless aeons before, through the "Seven Circles," and thus
robbed them of the Sacred fire;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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which
means in plain words, that they had assimilated during their past incarnations,
in lower as well as in higher worlds, all the wisdom therefrom -- the
reflection of MAHAT in its various degrees of intensity. No Entity, whether
angelic or human, can reach the state of Nirvana, or of absolute purity, except
through aeons of suffering and the knowledge of EVIL as well as of good, as
otherwise the latter remains incomprehensible.
Between
man and the animal -- whose Monads (or Jivas) are fundamentally identical --
there is the impassable abyss of Mentality and Self-consciousness. What is human
mind in its higher aspect, whence comes it, if it is not a portion of the
essence -- and, in some rare cases of incarnation, the very essence -- of a
higher Being: one from a higher and divine plane? Can man -- a god in the
animal form -- be the product of Material Nature by evolution alone, even as is
the animal, which differs from man in external shape, but by no means in the
materials of its physical fabric, and is informed by the same, though
undeveloped, Monad -- seeing that the intellectual potentialities of the two
differ as the Sun does from the Glow-worm? And what is it that creates such
difference, unless man is an animal plus a living god within his physical
shell? Let us pause and ask ourselves seriously the question, regardless of the
vagaries and sophisms of both the materialistic and the psychological modern
sciences.
To
some extent, it is admitted that even the esoteric teaching is allegorical. To
make the latter comprehensible to the average intelligence, requires the use of
symbols cast in an intelligible form. Hence the allegorical and semi-mythical
narratives in the exoteric, and the (only) semi-metaphysical and objective
representations in the esoteric teachings. For the purely and transcendentally
spiritual conceptions are adapted only to the perceptions of those who
"see without eyes, hear without ears, and sense without organs,"
according to the graphic expression of the Commentary. The too puritan idealist
is at liberty to spiritualise the tenet, whereas the modern psychologist would
simply try to spirit away our "fallen," yet still divine, human Soul
in its connection with Buddhi.
The
mystery attached to the highly spiritual ancestors of the divine man within the
earthly man is very great. His dual creation is hinted at in the Puranas,
though its esoteric meaning can be approached only by collating together the
many varying accounts, and reading them in their symbolical and allegorical
character. So it is in the Bible, both in Genesis and even in the Epistles of
Paul. For that creator, who is called in the second chapter of Genesis the
"Lord God," is in the original the Elohim, or Gods (the Lords), in
the plural; and while one of them makes the earthly Adam of dust, the other
breathes into him the breath of life, and the third makes of him a living soul
(ii. 7), all of which readings
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[[Vol.
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are
implied in the plural number of the Elohim.* "The first man is of the
Earth, the second (the last, or rather highest) is from heaven," says Paul
in I. Corinthians xv. 47.
In
the Aryan allegory the rebellious Sons of Brahma are all represented as holy
ascetics and Yogis. Re-born in every Kalpa, they generally try to impede the
work of human procreation. When Daksha, the chief of the Prajapati (creators),
brings forth 10,000 sons for the purpose of peopling the world, Narada -- a son
of Brahma, the great Rishi, and virtually a "Kumara," if not so in
name -- interferes with, and twice frustrates Daksha's aim, by persuading those
Sons to remain holy ascetics and eschew marriage. For this, Daksha curses
Narada to be re-born as a man, as Brahma had cursed him before for refusing to
marry, and obtain progeny, saying:-- "Perish in thy present (Deva or
angelic) form and take up thy abode in the womb," i.e., become a man (Vayu
Purana; Harivamsa, 170). Notwithstanding several conflicting versions of the
same story, it is easy to see that Narada belongs to that class of Brahma's,
"first-born," who have all proven rebellious to the law of animal
procreation, for which they had to incarnate as men. Of all the Vedic Rishis,
Narada, as already shown, is the most incomprehensible, because the most
closely connected with the occult doctrines -- especially with the secret
cycles and Kalpas (vide supra).
Certain
contradictory statements about this Sage have much distracted the Orientalists.
Thus he is shown as refusing positively to create (have progeny), and even as
calling his father Brahma "a false teacher" for advising him to get
married ("Narada-Pancha-Ratra"); nevertheless, he is referred to as
one of the Prajapati, "progenitors"! In Naradiya Purana, he describes
the laws and the duties of the celibate adepts; and as these occult duties do
not happen to be found in the fragment of about 3,000 Stanzas in the possession
of European museums, the Brahmins are proclaimed liars; the Orientalists
forgetting that the Naradiya is credited with containing 25,000 Stanzas, and
that it is not very likely that such MSS. should be found in the hands of the
Hindu profane, those who are ready to sell any precious olla for a red pottage.
Suffice it to say, that Narada is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Seth, as Bunsen and others have shown, is not only the primitive god of the
Semites -- early Jews included -- but also their "semi-divine
ancestor." For, says Bunsen ("God in History," vol. i, pp. 233,
234), "the Seth of Genesis, the father of Enoch (the man) must be
considered as originally running parallel with that derived from the Elohim,
Adam's father." "According to Bunsen, the Deity (the god Seth) was
the primitive god of Northern Egypt and Palestine" (Staniland Wake,
"The Great Pyramid"). And Seth became considered in the later Theology
of the Egyptians as "AN EVIL DAEMON," says the same Bunsen, for he is
one with Typhon and one with the Hindu demons as a logical sequel.
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[[Vol.
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the
Deva-Rishi of Occultism par excellence; and that the Occultist who does not
ponder, analyse, and study Narada from his seven esoteric facets, will never be
able to fathom certain anthropological, chronological, and even Cosmic
Mysteries. He is one of the Fires above-mentioned, and plays a part in the
evolution of this Kalpa from its incipient, down to its final stage. He is an
actor who appears in each of the successive acts (Root-Races) of the present
Manvantaric drama, in the world allegories which strike the key-note of
esotericism, and are now becoming more familiar to the reader. But shall we
turn to other ancient Scriptures and documents for the corroboration of the
"Fires," "Sparks," and "Flames?" They are
plentiful, if one only seeks for them in the right places. In the "Book of
the Concealed Mystery," they are clearly enunciated, as also in the
"Ha Idra Zuta Qadisha," or the lesser holy Assembly. The language is
very mystical and veiled, yet still comprehensible. Therein, among the sparks
of Prior Worlds, "vibrating Flames and Sparks," from the divine
flint, the workmen proceed to create man, "male and female" (427);
which "Flames and Sparks" (Angels and their Worlds, Stars and
Planets) are said, figuratively, to "become extinct and die," that is
to say, remain unmanifested until a certain process of nature is accomplished.
To show how thickly veiled from public view are the most important facts of
anthropogenesis, two passages are now quoted from two Kabalistic books. The
first is from the Book of the Concealed Mystery:--
(429.)
From a Light-Bearer (one of the seven sacred planets) of insupportable
brightness proceeded a radiating Flame, dashing off, like a vast and mighty
hammer, those sparks which were the prior worlds.
(430.)
And with most subtle ether were these intermingled and bound mutually together,
but only when they were conjoined together, even the great Father and great
Mother.
(431.)
From Hoa, himself, is AB, the Father; and from Hoa, himself, is RUACH, the
Spirit; who are hidden in the Ancient of Days, and therein is that Ether
concealed.
(432.)
And it was connected with a Light-Bearer (a planet and its angel or regent),
which went forth from that Light-Bearer of insupportable brightness, which is
hidden in the bosom of Aima, the Great Mother.*
Now
the following extract from the Zohar** also deals with the same mystery:--
"The Pre-Adamite Kings. 'We have learned in the Siphrah D'Tzniootha: That
the At-tee'kah DAt-tee'keen, Ancient of Ancients, before He prepared his Form,
built Kings, and engraved
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Mr. Mather's "Kabbalah Unveiled."
**
Translated in I. Myer's Qabbalah.
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[[Vol.
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Kings,
and sketched out Kings (men, the Kings of the animals), and they could not
exist: till he overthrew them and hid them until after a time, therefore it is
written: 'And these are the Kings which reigned in the land of Edom' . . . .
And they could not exist till Resha'Hiv'rah, the White Head, the At'-tee-'kah
D'At-tee'keen, Ancient of Ancients, arranged Himself . . . . and formed all
forms above and below. . . . Before He arranged himself in his Form had not been
formed all those whom he desired to form, and all worlds have been destroyed .
. . . they did not remain in their places, because the form of the Kings had
not been formed as it ought to be, and the Holy City had not been
prepared." (Zohar iii., 135a; 292a Idra Zootah. Brody, etc.)
Now
the plain meaning of these two allegorical and metaphysical disquisitions is
simply this: Worlds and men were in turn formed and destroyed, under the law of
evolution and from pre-existing material, until both the planets and their men,
in our case our Earth and its animal and human races, became what they are now
in the present cycle: opposite polar forces, an equilibrized compound of Spirit
and Matter, of the positive and the negative, of the male and the female.
Before man could become male and female physically, his prototype, the creating
Elohim, had to arrange his Form on this sexual plane astrally. That is to say,
the atoms and the organic forces, descending into the plane of the given
differentiation, had to be marshalled in the order intended by Nature, so as to
be ever carrying out, in an immaculate way, that law which the Kabala calls the
Balance, through which everything that exists does so as male and female in its
final perfection, in this present stage of materiality. Chochmah, Wisdom, the
Male Sephiroth, had to diffuse itself in, and through, Binah, intelligent
Nature, or Understanding. Therefore the First Root-race of men, sexless and
mindless, had to be overthrown and "hidden until after a time"; i.e.,
the first race, instead of dying, disappeared in the second race, as certain
lower lives and plants do in their progeny. It was a wholesale transformation.
The First became the Second Root-race, without either begetting it, procreating
it, or dying. "They passed by together," as it is written: "And
he died and another reigned in his stead" (Genesis xxvi. 31 et seq. Zohar
iii., 292a). Why? Because "the Holy City had not been prepared." And
what is the "Holy City"? The Maquom (the Secret Place or the Shrine)
on Earth: in other words, the human womb, the microcosmic copy and reflection
of the Heavenly Matrix, the female space or primeval Chaos, in which the male
Spirit fecundates the germ of the Son, or the visible Universe.* So much so,
that in the paragraph on "the Emanation of the Male and Female
Principles" in the Zohar
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide "The Holy of Holies: its esoteric meaning," in Part IO of this
Volume.
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[[Vol.
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(ibid.),
it is said that, on this earth, the WISDOM from the "Holy Ancient"
"does not shine except in male and female." "Hohmah, Wisdom, is the
Father, and BINAH, understanding, is the Mother . . . . and when they connect
one with the other they bring forth and diffuse and emanate truth. In the
sayings of Rabbi Je-yeva Sabah, i.e., the Old, we learned this: What is Binah
Understanding? But when they connect in one another, the [[diagram]] (Yod) in
the [[diagram]] (Heh), they become impregnated and produce a Son. And,
therefore, it is called Binah, Understanding. It means BeN YaH, i.e., Son of
YaH. This is the completeness of the whole."*
This
is also the "completeness" of phallicism by the Rabbis, its perfect
apotheosis, the divine being dragged into the animal, the sublime into the
grossness of the terrestrial. Nothing so graphically gross exists in Eastern
Occultism, nor in the primitive Kabala -- the "Chaldean Book of
Numbers." We have said so in "Isis Unveiled":--
"We
find it rather unwise on the part of Catholic writers to pour out their vials
of wrath in such sentences as these: 'In a multitude of pagodas, the phallic
stone, ever and always assuming, like the Grecian batylos, the brutally
indecent form of the lingham . . . the Maha Deva.' Before casting slurs on a
symbol whose profound metaphysical meaning is too much for the modern champions
of that religion of sensualism par excellence, Roman Catholicism, to grasp,
they are in duty bound to destroy their oldest churches, and change the form of
the cupolas of their own temples. The Mahody of Elephanta, the Round Tower of
Bhangulpore, the minarets of Islam -- either rounded or pointed -- are the
originals of the Campanile column of San Marco, at Venice, of the Rochester
Cathedral, and of the modern Duomo of Milan. All of these steeples, turrets,
domes, and Christian temples, are the reproductions of the primitive idea of
the lithos, the upright phallus." (Vol. II., p. 5.)
Nevertheless,
and however it may be, the fact that all these Hebrew Elohim, Sparks, and
Cherubs are identical with the Devas, Rishis and the Fires and Flames, the
Rudras and the forty-nine Agnis of the ancient Aryas, is sufficiently proven by
and in the Kabala.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Zohar iii., 290a, quoted in Isaac Myer's Qabbalah, p. 387.
-------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
IV.
CREATION
OF THE FIRST RACES.
§§
(14) Creation of men. (15) They are empty shadows. (16) The Creators are
perplexed how to create a THINKING man. (17) What is needed for the formation
of a perfect Man.
14.
THE SEVEN HOSTS, THE "WILL (or Mind)-BORN" LORDS, PROPELLED BY THE
SPIRIT OF LIFE-GIVING (Fohat), SEPARATE MEN FROM THEMSELVES, EACH ON HIS OWN
ZONE (a).
(a)
They threw off their "shadows" or astral bodies -- if such an
ethereal being as a "lunar Spirit" may be supposed to rejoice in an
astral, besides a hardly tangible body. In another Commentary it is said that
the "Ancestors" breathed out the first man, as Brahma is explained to
have breathed out the Suras (Gods), when they became "Asuras" (from
Asu, breath). In a third it is said that they, the newly-created men,
"were the shadows of the Shadows."
With
regard to this sentence -- "They were the shadows of the Shadows" --
a few more words may be said and a fuller explanation attempted. This first
process of the evolution of mankind is far easier to accept than the one which
follows it, though one and all will be rejected and doubted even by some
Kabalists, especially the Western, who study the present effects, but have
neglected to study their primary causes. Nor does the writer feel competent to
explain a mode of procreation so difficult of appreciation save for an Eastern
Occultist. Therefore it is useless to enter here into details concerning the
process, though it is minutely described in the Secret Books, as it would only
lead to speaking of facts hitherto unknown to the profane world, and hence to
their being misunderstood. An "Adam" made of the dust of the ground
will always be found preferable, by a certain class of students, to one projected
out of the ethereal body of his creator; though the former process has never
been heard of, while the latter is familiar, as all know, to many Spiritualists
in Europe and America, who, of all men, ought to understand it. For who of
those who have witnessed the phenomenon of a materialising form oozing out of
the pores of a medium or, at other times, out of his left side, can fail to
credit the possibility, at least, of such a birth? If there are
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[[Vol.
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in
the Universe such beings as Angels or Spirits, whose incorporeal essence may
constitute an intelligent entity notwithstanding the absence of any (to us)
solid organism; and if there are those who believe that a god made the first
man out of dust, and breathed into him a living Soul -- and there are millions
upon millions who believe both -- what does this doctrine of ours contain that
is so impossible? Very soon the day will dawn, when the world will have to
choose whether it will accept the miraculous creation of man (and Kosmos too)
out of nothing, according to the dead letter of Genesis, or a first man born
from a fantastic link -- absolutely "missing" so far -- the common
ancestor of man, and of the "true ape."* Between these two
fallacies,** Occult philosophy steps in. It teaches that the first human stock
was projected by higher and semi-divine Beings out of their own essences. If
the latter process is to be considered as abnormal or even inconceivable --
because obsolete in Nature at this point of evolution -- it is yet proven
possible on the authority of certain "Spiritualistic" FACTS. Which,
then, we ask of the three hypotheses or theories is the most reasonable and the
least absurd? Certainly no one -- provided he is not a soul-blind materialist
-- can ever object to the occult teaching.
Now,
as shown, we gather from the latter that man was not "created" the
complete being he is now, however imperfect he still remains. There was a
spiritual, a psychic, an intellectual, and an animal evolution, from the
highest to the lowest, as well as a physical development -- from the simple and
homogeneous, up to the more complex and heterogeneous; though not quite on the
lines traced for us by the modern evolutionists. This double evolution in two
contrary directions, required various ages, of divers natures and degrees of
spirituality and intellectuality, to fabricate the being now known as man.
Furthermore, the one absolute, ever acting and never erring law, which proceeds
on the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
". . . Huxley, supported by the most evident discoveries in Comparative
Anatomy, could utter the momentous sentence that the anatomical differences
between man and the highest apes are less than those between the latter and the
lowest apes. In relation to our genealogical tree of man, the necessary
conclusion follows that the human race has evolved gradually from the true apes."
("The Pedigree of Man," by Ernest Haeckel, translated by Ed. B.
Aveling, p. 49).
What
may be the scientific and logical objections to the opposite conclusion -- we
would ask? The anatomical resemblances between Man and the Anthropoids --
grossly exaggerated as they are by Darwinists, as M. de Quatrefages shows --
are simply enough "accounted for" when the origin of the latter is
taken into consideration.
"Nowhere,
in the older deposits, is an ape to be found that approximates more closely to
man, or a man that approximates more closely to an ape . . . . . ."
**
". . . . . The same gulf which is found to-day between Man and Ape, goes
back with undiminished breadth and depth to the Tertiary period. This fact
alone is enough to make its untenability clear," (Dr. F. Pfaff, Prof. of
Natural Science in the University of Erlangen).
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[[Vol.
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same
lines from one eternity (or Manvantara) to the other -- ever furnishing an
ascending scale for the manifested, or that which we call the great Illusion
(Maha-Maya), but plunging Spirit deeper and deeper into materiality on the one
hand, and then redeeming it through flesh and liberating it -- this law, we
say, uses for these purposes the Beings from other and higher planes, men, or
Minds (Manus), in accordance with their Karmic exigencies.
At
this juncture, the reader is again asked to turn to the Indian philosophy and
religion. The Esotericism of both is at one with our Secret Doctrine, however
much the form may differ and vary.
-------
ON
THE IDENTITY AND DIFFERENCES OF THE INCARNATING POWERS.
THE
Progenitors of Man, called in India "Fathers," Pitara or Pitris, are
the creators of our bodies and lower principles. They are ourselves, as the
first personalities, and we are they. Primeval man would be "the bone of
their bone and the flesh of their flesh," if they had body and flesh. As
stated, they were "lunar Beings."
The
Endowers of man with his conscious, immortal EGO, are the "Solar
Angels" -- whether so regarded metaphorically or literally. The mysteries
of the Conscious EGO or human Soul are great. The esoteric name of these
"Solar Angels" is, literally, the "Lords" (Nath) of
"persevering ceaseless devotion" (pranidhana). Therefore they of the
fifth principle (Manas) seem to be connected with, or to have originated the
system of the Yogis who make of pranidhana their fifth observance (see Yoga
Shastra, II., 32.) It has already been explained why the trans-Himalayan
Occultists regard them as evidently identical with those who in India are
termed Kumaras, Agnishwattas, and the Barhishads.
How
precise and true is Plato's expression, how profound and philosophical his
remark on the (human) soul or EGO, when he defined it as "a compound of
the same and the other." And yet how little this hint has been understood,
since the world took it to mean that the soul was the breath of God, of
Jehovah. It is "the same and the other," as the great
Initiate-Philosopher said; for the EGO (the "Higher Self" when merged
with and in the Divine Monad) is Man, and yet the same as the
"OTHER," the Angel in him incarnated, as the same with the universal
MAHAT. The great classics and philosophers felt this truth, when saying that
"there must be something within us which produces our thoughts. Something
very subtle; it is a breath; it is fire; it is ether;
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[[Vol.
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it
is quintessence; it is a slender likeness; it is an intellection; it is a
number; it is harmony. . . . . " (Voltaire).
All
these are the Manasam and Rajasas: the Kumaras, Asuras, and other rulers and
Pitris, who incarnated in the Third Race, and in this and various other ways
endowed mankind with Mind.
There
are seven classes of Pitris, as shown below, three incorporeal and four
corporeal; and two kinds, the Agnishwatta and the Barhishad. And we may add
that, as there are two kinds of Pitris, so there is a double and a triple set
of Barhishad and Agnishwatta. The former, having given birth to their astral
doubles, are reborn as Sons of Atri, and are the "Pitris of the
Demons," or corporeal beings, on the authority of Manu (III., 196); while
the Agnishwatta are reborn as Sons of Marichi (a son of Brahma), and are the
Pitris of the Gods (Manu again, Matsya and Padma Puranas and Kulluka in the
Laws of the Manavas, III., 195).* Moreover, the Vayu Purana declares all the
seven orders to have originally been the first gods, the Vairajas, whom Brahma
"with the eye of Yoga, beheld in the eternal spheres, and who are the gods
of gods"; and the Matsya adds that the Gods worshipped them; while the
Harivansa (S. 1, 935) distinguishes the Virajas as one class of the Pitris only
-- a statement corroborated in the Secret Teachings, which, however, identify
the Virajas with the elder Agnishwattas** and the Rajasas, or Abhutarajasas,
who are incorporeal without even an astral phantom. Vishnu is said, in most of
the MSS., to have incarnated in and through them. "In the Raivata
Manvantara, again, Hari, best of gods, was born of Sambhuti, as the divine
Manasas -- originating with the deities called Rajasas." Sambhuti was a
daughter of Daksha, and wife of Marichi, the father of the Agnishwatta, who,
along with the Rajasas, are ever associated with Manasas. As remarked by a far
more able Sanskritist than Wilson, Mr. Fitzedward Hall, "Manasa is no
inappropriate name for a deity associated with the Rajasas. We appear to have
in it Manasam -- the same as Manas -- with the change of termination required
to express male personification" (Vishnu Purana Bk. III., ch. I., p. 17
footnote). All the sons of Viraja are Manasa, says Nilakantha. And
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are quite aware that the Yayu and Matsya Puranas identify (agreeably to
Western interpretation) the Agnishwatta with the seasons, and the Barhishad
Pitris with the months; adding a fourth class -- the Kavyas -- cyclic years.
But do not Christian, Roman Catholics identify their Angels with planets, and
are not the seven Rishis become the Saptarshi -- a constellation? They are
deities presiding over all the cyclic divisions.
**
The Vayu Purana shows the region called Viraja-loka inhabited by the
Agnishwattas.
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[[Vol.
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Viraja
is Brahma, and, therefore, the incorporeal Pitris are called Vairajas from
being the sons of Viraja, says Vayu Purana.
We
could multiply our proofs ad infinitum, but it is useless. The wise will
understand our meaning, the unwise are not required to. There are thirty-three
crores, or 330 millions, of gods in India. But, as remarked by the learned
lecturer on the Bhagavad Gita, "they may be all devas, but are by no means
all 'gods', in the high spiritual sense one attributes to the term."
"This is an unfortunate blunder," he remarks, "generally committed
by Europeans. Deva is a kind of spiritual being, and because the same word is
used in ordinary parlance to mean god, it by no means follows that we have to
worship thirty-three crores of gods." And he adds suggestively:
"These beings, as may be naturally inferred have a certain affinity with
one of the three component Upadhis (basic principles) into which we have
divided man." -- (Vide Theosophist, Feb., 1887, et seq.)
The
names of the deities of a certain mystic class change with every Manvantara.
Thus the twelve great gods, Jayas, created by Brahma to assist him in the work
of creation in the very beginning of the Kalpa, and who, lost in Samadhi,
neglected to create -- whereupon they were cursed to be repeatedly born in each
Manvantara till the seventh -- are respectively called Ajitas, Tushitas,
Satyas, Haris, Vaikunthas, Sadhyas, and Adityas: they are Tushitas (in the
second Kalpa), and Adityas in this Vaivasvata period (see Vayu Purana), besides
other names for each age. But they are identical with the Manasa or Rajasas, and
these with our incarnating Dhyan Chohans. They are all classes of the
Gnana-devas.
Yes;
besides those beings, who, like the Yakshas, Gandharvas, Kinaras, etc., etc.,
taken in their individualities, inhabit the astral plane, there are real
Devagnanams, and to these classes of Devas belong the Adityas, the Vairajas,
the Kumaras, the Asuras, and all those high celestial beings whom Occult
teaching calls Manaswin, the Wise, foremost of all, and who would have made all
men the self-conscious spiritually intellectual beings they will be, had they
not been "cursed" to fall into generation, and to be reborn
themselves as mortals for their neglect of duty.
-------
STANZA
IV. -- (Continued.)
15.
SEVEN TIMES SEVEN SHADOWS (chhayas) OF FUTURE MEN (or Amanasas) (a) WERE (thus)
BORN, EACH OF HIS OWN COLOUR (complexion) AND KIND (b). EACH (also) INFERIOR TO
HIS FATHER (creator). THE FATHERS, THE BONELESS, COULD GIVE NO LIFE TO BEINGS
WITH
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[[Vol.
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BONES.
THEIR PROGENY WERE BHUTA (phantoms) WITH NEITHER FORM NOR MIND, THEREFORE THEY
WERE CALLED THE CHHAYA (image or shadow) RACE (c).
(a)
Manu, as already remarked, comes from the root "man" to think, hence
"a thinker." It is from this Sanskrit word very likely that sprung
the Latin "mens," mind, the Egyptian "Menes," the
"Master-Mind," the Pythagorean Monas, or conscious "thinking
unit," mind also, and even our "Manas" or mind, the fifth
principle in man. Hence these shadows are called amanasa, "mindless."
With
the Brahmins the Pitris are very sacred, because they are the Progenitors,* or
ancestors of men -- the first Manushya on this Earth -- and offerings are made
to them by the Brahmin when a son is born unto him. They are more honoured and
their ritual is more important than the worship of the gods (See the "Laws
of Manu," Bk. III., p. 203).
May
we not now search for a philosophical meaning in this dual group of
progenitors?
The
Pitris being divided into seven classes, we have here the mystic number again.
Nearly all the Puranas agree that three of these are arupa, formless, while
four are corporeal; the former being intellectual and spiritual, the latter
material and devoid of intellect. Esoterically, it is the Asuras who form the
first three classes of Pitris -- "born in the body of night" --
whereas the other four were produced from the body of twilight. Their fathers,
the gods, were doomed to be born fools on Earth, according to Vayu Purana. The
legends are purposely mixed up and made very hazy: the Pitris being in one the
sons of the gods, and, in another those of Brahma; while a third makes them
instructors of their own fathers. It is the Hosts of the four material classes
who create men simultaneously on the seven zones.
Now,
with regard to the seven classes of Pitris, each of which is again divided into
seven, a word to students and a query to the profane. That class of the
"Fire Dhyanis," which we identify on undeniable grounds with the
Agnishwattas, is called in our school the "Heart" of the
Dhyan-Chohanic Body; and it is said to have incarnated in the third race of men
and made them perfect. The esoteric Mystagogy speaks of the mysterious relation
existing between the hebdomadic essence or substance of this angelic Heart and
that of man, whose
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This was hinted at in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., p. xxxviii., though the full
explanation could not then be given: "The Pitris are not the ancestors of
the present living men, but those of the first human kind or Adamic race; the
spirits of human races, which, on the great scale of descending evolution,
preceded our races of men, and were physically as well as spiritually, far
superior to our modem pigmies. In Manava-Dharma-Sastra they are called the
Lunar ancestors."
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[[Vol.
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every
physical organ, and psychic, and spiritual function, is a reflection, so to
say, a copy on the terrestrial plane of the model or prototype above. Why, it
is asked, should there be such a strange repetition of the number seven in the
anatomical structure of man? Why should the heart have four lower
"cavities and three higher divisions," answering so strangely to the
septenary division of the human principles, separated into two groups, the
higher and the lower; and why should the same division be found in the various
classes of Pitris, and especially our Fire Dhyanis? For, as already stated,
these Beings fall into four corporeal (or grosser) and three incorporeal (or
subtler) "principles," or call them by any other name you please. Why
do the seven nervous plexuses of the body radiate seven rays? Why are there
these seven plexuses, and why seven distinct layers in the human skin?
"Having
projected their shadows and made men of one element (ether), the progenitors
re-ascend to Maha-loka, whence they descend periodically, when the world is
renewed, to give birth to new men.
"The
subtle bodies remain without understanding (Manas) until the advent of the
Suras (Gods) now called Asuras (not Gods)," says the Commentary.
"Not-gods,"
for the Brahmins, perhaps, but the highest Breaths, for the Occultist; since
those progenitors (Pitar), the formless and the intellectual, refuse to build
man, but endow him with mind; the four corporeal classes creating only his
body.
This
is very plainly shown in various texts of the Rig Veda -- the highest authority
for a Hindu of any sect whatever. Therein Asura means "spiritual
divine," and the word is used as a synonym for Supreme Spirit, while in
the sense of a "God," the term "Asura" is applied to Varuna
and Indra and pre-eminently to Agni -- the three having been in days of old the
three highest gods, before Brahmanical Theo-Mythology distorted the true
meaning of almost everything in the Archaic Scriptures. But, as the key is now
lost, the Asuras are hardly mentioned.
In
the Zendavesta the same is found. In the Mazdean, or Magian, religion,
"Asura" is the lord Asura Visvavedas, the "all-knowing" or
"omniscient Lord"; and Asura-Mazdha, become later Ahura-Mazdha, is,
as Benfey shows, "the Lord who bestows Intelligence" -- Asura-Medha
and Ahura-Mazdao. Elsewhere in this work it is shown, on equally good
authority, that the Indo-Iranian Asura was always regarded as sevenfold. This
fact, combined with the name Mazdha, as above, which makes of the sevenfold
Asura the "Lord," or "Lords" collectively "who bestow
Intelligence," connects the Amshaspends with the Asuras and with our
incarnating Dhyan Chohans, as well as with the Elohim, and the seven informing
gods of Egypt, Chaldea, and every other country.
Why
these "gods" refused to create men is not, as stated in exoteric
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[[Vol.
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accounts,
because their pride was too great to share the celestial power of their essence
with the children of Earth, but for reasons already suggested. However,
allegory has indulged in endless fancies and theology taken advantage thereof
in every country to make out its case against these first-born, or the logoi,
and to impress it as a truth on the minds of the ignorant and credulous.
(Compare also what is said about Makara and the Kumaras in connection with the
Zodiac.)
The
Christian system is not the only one which has degraded them into demons.
Zoroastrianism and even Brahmanism have profited thereby to obtain hold over
the people's mind. Even in Chaldean exotericism, Beings who refuse to create,
i.e., who are said to oppose thereby the Demiurgos, are also denounced as the
Spirits of Darkness. The Suras, who win their intellectual independence, fight
the Suras who are devoid thereof, who are shown as passing their lives in
profitless ceremonial worship based on blind faith -- a hint now ignored by the
orthodox Brahmins -- and forthwith the former become A-Suras. The first and
mind-born Sons of the Deity refuse to create progeny, and are cursed by Brahma
to be born as men. They are hurled down to Earth, which, later on, is
transformed, in theological dogma, into the infernal regions. Ahriman destroys
the Bull created by Ormazd -- which is the emblem of terrestrial illusive life,
the "germ of sorrow" -- and, forgetting that the perishing finite
seed must die, in order that the plant of immortality, the plant of spiritual,
eternal life, should sprout and live, Ahriman is proclaimed the enemy, the opposing
power, the devil. Typhon cuts Osiris into fourteen pieces, in order to prevent
his peopling the world and thus creating misery; and Typhon becomes, in the
exoteric, theological teaching, the Power of Darkness. But all this is the
exoteric shell. It is the worshippers of the latter who attribute to
disobedience and rebellion the effort and self-sacrifice of those who would
help men to their original status of divinity through self-conscious efforts;
and it is these worshippers of Form who have made demons of the Angels of
Light.
Esoteric
philosophy, however, teaches that one third* of the Dhyanis -- i.e., the three
classes of the Arupa Pitris, endowed with intelligence, "which is a
formless breath, composed of intellectual not elementary substances" (see
Harivamsa, 932) -- was simply doomed by the law of Karma and evolution to be
reborn (or incarnated) on Earth.** Some
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whence the subsequent assertions of St. John's vision, referred to in his
Apocalypse, about "the great red Dragon having seven heads and ten horns,
and seven crowns upon his heads," whose "tail drew the third part of
the stars of heaven and did cast them to the earth" (ch. xii.).
**
The verse "did cast them to the Earth," plainly shows its origin in
the grandest and oldest allegory of the Aryan mystics, who, after the
destruction of the Atlantean [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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of
these were Nirmanakayas from other Manvantaras. Hence we see them, in all the
Puranas, reappearing on this globe, in the third Manvantara, as Kings, Rishis
and heroes (read Third Root-Race). This tenet, being too philosophical and
metaphysical to be grasped by the multitudes, was, as already stated,
disfigured by the priesthood for the purpose of preserving a hold over them
through superstitious fear.
The
supposed "rebels," then, were simply those who, compelled by Karmic
law to drink the cup of gall to its last bitter drop, had to incarnate anew,
and thus make responsible thinking entities of the astral statues projected by
their inferior brethren. Some are said to have refused, because they had not in
them the requisite materials -- i.e., an astral body -- since they were arupa.
The refusal of others had reference to their having been Adepts and Yogis of
long past preceding Manvantaras; another mystery. But, later on, as
Nirmanakayas, they sacrificed themselves for the good and salvation of the
Monads which were waiting for their turn, and which otherwise would have had to
linger for countless ages in irresponsible, animal-like, though in appearance
human, forms. It may be a parable and an allegory within an allegory. Its
solution is left to the intuition of the student, if he only reads that which
follows with his spiritual eye.
As
to their fashioners or "Ancestors" -- those Angels who, in the
exoteric legends, obeyed the law -- they must be identical with the Barhishad
Pitris, or the Pitar-Devata, i.e., those possessed of the physical creative
fire. They could only create, or rather clothe, the human Monads with their own
astral Selves, but they could not make man in their image and likeness.
"Man must not be like one of us," say the creative gods, entrusted
with the fabrication of the lower animal but higher; (see Gen. and Plato's
Timaeus). Their creating the semblance of men out of their own divine Essence
means, esoterically, that it is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] giants and sorcerers, concealed the truth --
astronomical, physical, and divine, as it is a page out of pre-cosmic theogony
-- under various allegories. Its esoteric, true interpretation is a veritable
Theodice of the "Fallen Angels," so called; the willing and the
unwilling, the creators and those who refused to create, being now mixed up
most perplexingly by Christian Catholics, who forget that their highest Archangel,
St. Michael, who is shown to conquer (to master and to assimilate) the DRAGON
OF WISDOM and of divine Self-sacrifice (now miscalled and calumniated as
Satan), WAS THE FIRST TO REFUSE TO CREATE! This led to endless confusion. So
little does Christian theology understand the paradoxical language of the East
and its symbolism, that it even explains, in its dead letter sense, the Chinese
Buddhist and Hindu exoteric rite of raising a noise during certain eclipses to
scare away the "great red Dragon," which laid a plot to carry away
the light! But here "Light" means esoteric Wisdom, and we have
sufficiently explained the secret meaning of the terms Dragon, Serpent, etc.,
etc., all of which refer to Adepts and Initiates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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they
who became the first Race, and thus shared its destiny and further evolution.
They would not, simply because they could not, give to man that sacred spark
which burns and expands into the flower of human reason and self-consciousness,
for they had it not to give. This was left to that class of Devas who became
symbolised in Greece under the name of Prometheus, to those who had nought to
do with the physical body, yet everything with the purely spiritual man. (See
Part II of this volume, "The Fallen Angels"; also "The Gods of
Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness.")
Each
class of Creators endows man with what it has to give: the one builds his
external form; the other gives him its essence, which later on becomes the
Human Higher Self owing to the personal exertion of the individual; but they
could not make men as they were themselves -- perfect, because sinless;
sinless, because having only the first, pale shadowy outlines of attributes,
and these all perfect -- from the human standpoint -- white, pure and cold as
the virgin snow. Where there is no struggle, there is no merit. Humanity,
"of the Earth earthy," was not destined to be created by the angels
of the first divine Breath: therefore they are said to have refused to do so,
and man had to be formed by more material creators,* who, in their turn, could
give only what they had in their own natures, and no more. Subservient to
eternal law, the pure gods could only project out of themselves shadowy men, a
little less ethereal and spiritual, less divine and perfect than themselves --
shadows still. The first humanity, therefore, was a pale copy of its
progenitors; too material, even in its ethereality, to be a hierarchy of gods;
too spiritual and pure to be MEN, endowed as it is with every negative
(Nirguna) perfection. Perfection, to be fully such, must be born out of
imperfection, the incorruptible must grow out of the corruptible, having the
latter as its vehicle and basis and contrast. Absolute light is absolute
darkness, and vice versa. In fact, there is neither light nor
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In spite of all efforts to the contrary, Christian theology -- having burdened
itself with the Hebrew esoteric account of the creation of man, which is
understood literally -- cannot find any reasonable excuse for its "God,
the Creator," who produces a man devoid of mind and sense; nor can it
justify the punishment following an act, for which Adam and Eve might plead non
compos. For if the couple is admitted to be ignorant of good and evil before
the eating of the forbidden fruit, how could it be expected to know that
disobedience was evil? If primeval man was meant to remain a half-witted, or rather
witless, being, then his creation was aimless and even cruel, if produced by an
omnipotent and perfect God. But Adam and Eve are shown, even in Genesis, to be
created by a class of lower divine Beings, the Elohim, who are so jealous of
their personal prerogatives as reasonable and intelligent creatures, that they
will not allow man to become "as one of us." This is plain, even from
the dead-letter meaning of the Bible. The Gnostics, then, were right in
regarding the Jewish God as belonging to a class of lower, material and not
very holy denizens of the invisible World.
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[[Vol.
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darkness
in the realms of truth. Good and Evil are twins, the progeny of Space and Time,
under the sway of Maya. Separate them, by cutting off one from the other, and
they will both die. Neither exists per se, since each has to be generated and
created out of the other, in order to come into being; both must be known and appreciated
before becoming objects of perception, hence, in mortal mind, they must be
divided.
Nevertheless,
as the illusionary distinction exists, it requires a lower order of creative
angels to "create" inhabited globes -- especially ours -- or to deal with
matter on this earthly plane. The philosophical Gnostics were the first to
think so, in the historical period, and to invent various systems upon this
theory. Therefore in their schemes of creation, one always finds their Creators
occupying a place at the very foot of the ladder of spiritual Being. With them,
those who created our earth and its mortals were placed on the very limit of
mayavic matter, and their followers were taught to think -- to the great
disgust of the Church Fathers -- that for the creation of those wretched races,
in a spiritual and moral sense, which grace our globe, no high divinity could
be made responsible, but only angels of a low hierarchy,* to which class they
relegated the Jewish God, Jehovah.
Mankinds
different from the present are mentioned in all the ancient Cosmogonies. Plato
speaks, in the Phaedrus, of a winged race of men. Aristophanes (in Plato's
Banquet), speaks of a race androgynous and with round bodies. In Pymander, all
the animal kingdom even is double-sexed. Thus in § 18, it is said: "The
circuit having been accomplished, the knot was loosened. . . . and all the
animals, which were equally androgynous, were untied (separated) together with
man. . . . ." for. . . . "the causes had to produce effects on
earth."** Again, in the ancient Quiche Manuscript, the Popol Vuh --
published by the late Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg -- the first men are described
as a race "whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all things at
once": thus showing the divine knowledge of Gods, not mortals. The Secret
Doctrine, correcting the unavoidable exaggerations of popular fancy, gives the
facts as they are recorded in the Archaic symbols.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In Isis Unveiled several of these Gnostic systems are given. One is taken from
the Codex Nazaraeus, the Scriptures of the Nazarenes, who, although they
existed long before the days of Christ, and even before the laws of Moses, were
Gnostics, and many of them Initiates. They held their "Mysteries of
Life" in Nazara (ancient and modern Nazareth), and their doctrines are a
faithful echo of the teachings of the Secret Doctrine -- some of which we are
now endeavouring to explain.
**
See the translation from the Greek by Francois, Monsieur de Foix, Evesque
d'Ayre: the work dedicated to Marguerite de France, Reine de Navarre. Edition
of 1579, Bordeaux.
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[[Vol.
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(b)
These "shadows" were born "each of his own colour and
kind," each also "inferior to his creator," because the latter
was a complete being of his kind. The Commentaries refer the first sentence to
the colour or complexion of each human race thus evolved. In Pymander, the
Seven primitive men, created by Nature from the "heavenly Man," all
partake of the qualities of the "Seven Governors," or Rulers, who
loved Man -- their own reflection and synthesis.
In
the Norse Legends, one recognizes in Asgard, the habitat of the gods, as also
in the Ases themselves, the same mystical loci and personifications woven into
the popular "myths," as in our Secret Doctrine; and we find them in
the Vedas, the Puranas, the Mazdean Scriptures and the Kabala. The Ases of
Scandinavia, the rulers of the world which preceded ours, whose name means
literally the "pillars of the world," its "supports," are
thus identical with the Greek Cosmocratores, the "Seven Workmen or
Rectors" of Pymander, the seven Rishis and Pitris of India, the seven
Chaldean gods and seven evil spirits, the seven Kabalistic Sephiroth
synthesised by the upper triad, and even the seven Planetary Spirits of the
Christian mystics. The Ases create the earth, the seas, the sky and the clouds,
the whole visible world, from the remains of the slain giant Ymir; but they do
not create MAN, but only his form from the Ask or ash-tree. It is Odin who
endows him with life and soul, after Lodur had given him blood and bones, and
finally it is Honir who furnishes him with his intellect (manas) and with his
conscious senses. The Norse Ask, the Hesiodic Ash-tree, whence issued the men
of the generation of bronze, the Third Root-Race, and the Tzite tree of the
Popol-Vuh, out of which the Mexican third race of men was created, are all
one.* This may be plainly seen by any reader. But the Occult reason why the
Norse Yggdrasil, the Hindu Aswatha, the Gogard, the Hellenic tree of life, and
the Tibetan Zampun, are one with the Kabalistic Sephirothal Tree, and even with
the Holy Tree made by Ahura Mazda, and the Tree of Eden -- who among the
western scholars can tell?** Nevertheless, the fruits of all those
"Trees," whether Pippala or Haoma or yet the more prosaic apple, are
the "plants of life," in fact and verity. The prototypes of our races
were all enclosed in the microcosmic tree, which grew and developed within and
under the great mundane macrocosmic tree***; and the mystery is half revealed
in the Dirghotamas, where it is said: "Pippala, the sweet fruit of that
tree upon which come spirits who
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Max Muller's review of the Popol-Vuh.
**
Mr. James Darmesteter, the translator of the Vendidad, speaking of it, says:
"The tree, whatever it is . . ." (p. 209).
***
Plato's "Timaeus."
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[[Vol.
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love
the science, and where the gods produce all marvels." As in the Gogard,
among the luxuriant branches of all those mundane trees, the
"Serpent" dwells. But while the Macroscosmic tree is the Serpent of
Eternity and of absolute Wisdom itself, those who dwell in the Microcosmic tree
are the Serpents of the manifested Wisdom. One is the One and All; the others
are its reflected parts. The "tree" is man himself, of course, and
the Serpents dwelling in each, the conscious Manas, the connecting link between
Spirit and Matter, heaven and earth.
Everywhere,
it is the same. The creating powers produce Man, but fail in their final
object. All these logoi strive to endow man with conscious immortal spirit,
reflected in the Mind (manas) alone; they fail, and they are all represented as
being punished for the failure, if not for the attempt. What is the nature of
the punishment? A sentence of imprisonment in the lower or nether region, which
is our earth; the lowest in its chain; an "eternity" -- meaning the
duration of the life-cycle -- in the darkness of matter, or within animal Man.
It has pleased the half ignorant and half designing Church Fathers to disfigure
the graphic symbol. They took advantage of the metaphor and allegory found in
every old religion to turn them to the benefit of the new one. Thus man was
transformed into the darkness of a material hell; his divine consciousness,
obtained from his indwelling Principle (the Manasa), or the incarnated Deva,
became the glaring flames of the infernal region; and our globe that Hell
itself. Pippala, Haoma, the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, were denounced as
the forbidden fruit, and the "Serpent of Wisdom," the Voice of reason
and consciousness, remained identified for ages with the Fallen Angel, which is
the old Dragon, the Devil! (Vide Part II., "The Evil Spirit, who, or
what?")
The
same for the other high symbols. The Svastica, the most sacred and mystic symbol
in India, the "Jaina-Cross" as it is now called by the Masons,
notwithstanding its direct connection, and even identity with the Christian
Cross, has become dishonoured in the same manner. It is the "devil's
sign," we are told by the Indian missionaries. "Does it not shine on
the head of the great Serpent of Vishnu, on the thousand headed Sesha-Ananta,
in the depths of Patala, the Hindu Naraka or Hell"? It does: but what is
Ananta? As Sesha, it is the almost endless Manvantaric cycle of time, and becomes
infinite Time itself, when called Ananta, the great seven-headed Serpent, on
which rests Vishnu, the eternal Deity, during Pralayic inactivity. What has
Satan to do with this highly metaphysical symbol? The Svastica is the most
philosophically scientific of all symbols, as also the most comprehensible. It
is the summary in a few lines of the whole work of creation, or evolution, as
one should rather say, from Cosmo-theogony down to Anthro-
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[[Vol.
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pogony,
from the indivisible unknown Parabrahm to the humble moneron of materialistic
science, whose genesis is as unknown to that science as is that of the
All-Deity itself. The Svastica is found heading the religious symbols of every
old nation. It is the "Worker's Hammer" in the Chaldean Book of
Numbers, the "Hammer" just referred to in the "Book of Concealed
Mystery" (Ch. I., §§ 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), "which striketh sparks from
the flint" (Space), those sparks becoming worlds. It is "Thor's
Hammer," the magic weapon forged by the dwarfs against the Giants, or the
pre-cosmic Titanic forces of Nature, which rebel and, while alive in the region
of matter, will not be subdued by the Gods, the Agents of Universal Harmony,
but have first to be destroyed. This is why the world is formed out of the
relics of the murdered Ymir. The Svastica is the Miolnir, the
"storm-hammer"; and therefore it is said that when the Ases, the holy
gods, after having been purified by fire (the fire of passions and suffering in
their life-incarnations), become fit to dwell in Ida in eternal peace, then
Miolnir will become useless. This will be when the bonds of Hel (the
goddess-queen of the region of the Dead) will bind them no longer, for the
kingdom of evil will have passed away. "Surtur's flames had not destroyed
them, nor yet had the raging waters" of the several deluges. . . . .
"Then came the sons of Thor. They brought Miolnir with them, no longer as
a weapon of war, but as the hammer with which to consecrate the new heaven and
the new Earth. . . . . "*
Verily
many are its meanings! In the Macrocosmic work, the "HAMMER OF
CREATION," with its four arms bent at right angles, refers to the
continual motion and revolution of the invisible Kosmos of Forces. In that of
the manifested Kosmos and our Earth, it points to the rotation in the cycles of
Time of the world's axes and their equatorial belts; the two lines forming the
Svastica [[diagram]] meaning Spirit and Matter, the four hooks suggesting the
motion in the revolving cycles. Applied to the Microcosm, Man, it shows him to
be a link between heaven and Earth: the right hand being raised at the end of a
horizontal arm, the left pointing to the Earth. In the Smaragdine Tablet of
Hermes, the uplifted right hand is inscribed with the word "Solve,"
the left with the word "Coagula." It is at one and the same time an
Alchemical, Cosmogonical, Anthropological, and Magical sign, with seven keys to
its inner meaning. It is not too much to say that the compound symbolism of
this universal and most suggestive of signs contains the key to the seven great
mysteries of Kosmos. Born in the mystical conceptions of the early Aryans, and
by them placed at the very threshold of eternity, on the head of the serpent
Ananta, it found
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Asgard and the Gods": "The renewal of the World."
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[[Vol.
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its
spiritual death in the scholastic interpretations of mediaeval
Anthropomorphists. It is the Alpha and the Omega of universal creative Force,
evolving from pure Spirit and ending in gross Matter. It is also the key to the
cycle of Science, divine and human; and he who comprehends its full meaning is
for ever liberated from the toils of Mahamaya, the great Illusion and Deceiver.
The light that shines from under the divine hammer, now degraded into the
mallet or gavel of the Grand Masters of Masonic Lodges, is sufficient to
dissipate the darkness of any human schemes or fictions.
How
prophetic are the songs of the three Norse Goddesses, to whom the ravens of
Odin whisper of the past and the future, as they flutter around in their abode
of crystal beneath the flowing river. The songs are all written down in the
"Scrolls of Wisdom," of which many are lost but some still remain:
and they repeat in poetical allegory the teachings of the archaic ages. To
summarise from Dr. Wagner's "Asgard and the Gods," the "renewal
of the world," which is a prophecy about the seventh Race of our Round
told in the past tense.
The
Miolnir had done its duty in this Round, and:--
".
. . . on the field of Ida, the field of resurrection (for the Fifth Round), the
sons of the highest gods assembled, and in them their fathers rose again (the
Egos of all their past incarnations). They talked of the Past and the Present,
and remembered the wisdom and prophecies of their ancestor which had all been
fulfilled. Near them, but unseen of them, was the strong, the mighty One, who
rules all things. . . . and ordains the eternal laws that govern the world.
They all knew he was there, they felt his presence and his power, but were
ignorant of his name. At his command the new Earth rose out of the Waters of
Space. To the South above the Field of Ida, he made another heaven called
Audlang, and further off, a third, Widblain. Over Gimil's cave, a wondrous
palace was erected, covered with gold and shining bright in the sun."
These are the three gradually ascending planets of our "Chain." There
the Gods were enthroned, as they used to be. . . . From Gimil's heights (the
seventh planet or globe, the highest and the purest), they looked down upon the
happy descendants of LIF and LIFTHRASIR (the coming Adam and Eve of purified
humanity), and signed to them to CLIMB up higher, to rise in knowledge and
wisdom, step by step, from one "heaven to another," until they were
at last fit to be united to the Gods in the house of All-Father (p. 305).
He
who knows the doctrines of Esoteric Budhism, (or Wisdom), though so imperfectly
sketched hitherto, will see clearly the allegory contained in the above.
Its
more philosophical meaning will be better understood if the reader thinks carefully
over the myth of Prometheus. It is examined
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[[Vol.
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further
on in the light of the Hindu Pramantha. Degraded into a purely physiological
symbol by some Orientalists, and taken in connection with terrestrial fire
only, their interpretation is an insult to every religion, including
Christianity, whose greatest mystery is thus dragged down to matter. The
"friction" of divine Pramantha and Arani could suggest itself under
this image only to the brutal conceptions of the German materialists -- than
whom there are none worse. It is true that the Divine babe, Agni with the
Sanskrit-speaking Race, who became Ignis with the Latins, is born from the
conjunction of Pramantha and Arani (Svastica) during the sacrificial ceremony.
But what of that? Twashtri (Viswakarman) is the "divine artist and
carpenter"* and is also the Father of the gods and of creative fire in the
Vedas. So ancient is the symbol and so sacred, that there is hardly an
excavation made on the sites of old cities without its being found. A number of
such terra cotta discs, called fusaiolos, were found by Dr. Schliemann under
the ruins of ancient Troy. Both these forms [[diagram]] and [[diagram]] were
excavated in great abundance, their presence being one more proof that the
ancient Trojans and their ancestors were pure Aryans.
(c)
Chhaya, as already explained, is the astral image. It bears this meaning in
Sanskrit works. Thus Sanjna (Spiritual Consciousness), the wife of Surya, the
Sun, is shown retiring into the jungle to lead an ascetic life, and leaving
behind to her husband her Chhaya, shadow or image.
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Father of the Sacred Fire," writes Prof. Jolly, "is
Twashtri . . . his mother was Maya. He himself was styled Akta (anointed,
[[christos]]), after the priest had poured upon his head the spirituous (?)
SOMA, and on his body butter purified by sacrifice"; ("Man before
Metals," p. 190). The source of his information is not given by the French
Darwinist. But the lines are quoted to show that light begins to dawn even upon
the materialists. Adalbert Kuhn, in his "Die Herabkunft des Feuers,"
identifies the two signs [[diagram]] and [[diagram]] with Arani, and designates
them under this name. He adds: "This process of kindling fire naturally
led men to the idea of sexual reproduction," etc. Why could not a more
dignified idea, and one more occult, have led man to invent that symbol, in so
far as it is connected, in one of its aspects, with human reproduction? But its
chief symbolism refers to Cosmogony.
"Agni,
in the condition of Akta, or anointed, is suggestive of Christ," remarks
Prof. Jolly. "Maya, Mary, his mother; Twastri, St. Joseph, the carpenter
of the Bible." In the Rig Veda, Viswakarman is the highest and oldest of
the Gods and their "Father." He is the "carpenter or
builder," because God is called even by the monotheists, "the
Architect of the Universe." Still, the original idea is purely
metaphysical, and had no connection with the later Phallicism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 102 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
16.
HOW ARE THE (real) MANUSHYAS BORN? THE MANUS WITH MINDS, HOW ARE THEY MADE? (a)
THE FATHERS (Barhishad (?)) CALL TO THEIR HELP THEIR OWN FIRE (the Kavyavahana,
electric fire), WHICH IS THE FIRE WHICH BURNS IN EARTH. THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH
CALLED TO HIS HELP THE SOLAR FIRE (Suchi, the spirit in the Sun). THESE THREE
(the Pitris and the two fires) PRODUCED IN THEIR JOINT EFFORTS A GOOD RUPA. IT
(the form) COULD STAND, WALK, RUN, RECLINE AND FLY. YET IT WAS STILL BUT A
CHHAYA, A SHADOW WITH NO SENSE (b) . . . . . .
(a)
Here an explanation again becomes necessary in the light, and with the help of
the exoteric added to the esoteric scriptures. The "Manushyas" (men)
and the Manus are here equivalent to the Chaldean "Adam" -- this term
not meaning at all the first man, as with the Jews, or one solitary individual,
but mankind collectively, as with the Chaldeans and Assyrians. It is the four
orders or classes of Dhyan Chohans out of the seven, says the Commentary,
"who were the progenitors of the concealed man," i.e., the subtle
inner man. The "Lha" of the Moon, the lunar spirits, were, as already
stated, only the ancestors of his form, i.e., of the model according to which
Nature began her external work upon him. Thus primitive man was, when he
appeared, only a senseless Bhuta* or a "Phantom." This
"creation" was a failure, the reason of which will be explained in
the Commentary on Sloka 20.
(b)
This attempt was again a failure. It allegorizes the vanity of physical
nature's unaided attempts to construct even a perfect animal -- let alone man.
For the "Fathers," the lower Angels, are all Nature-Spirits and the
higher Elementals also possess an intelligence of their own; but this is not
enough to construct a THINKING man. "Living Fire" was needed, that
fire which gives the human mind its self-perception and self-consciousness, or
Manas; and the progeny of Parvaka and Suchi are the animal electric and solar
fires, which create animals, and could thus furnish but a physical living
constitution to that first astral model of man. The first creators, then, were
the Pygmalions of primeval man: they failed to animate the statue --
intellectually.
This
Stanza we shall see is very suggestive. It explains the mystery of, and fills
the gap between, the informing principle in man -- the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is not clear why "Bhutas" should be rendered by the Orientalists
as meaning "evil Spirits" in the Puranas. In the Vishnu Purana, Book
I, ch. 5, the Sloka simply says: "Bhutas -- fiends, frightful from being
monkey-coloured and carnivorous"; and the word in India now means ghosts,
ethereal or astral phantoms, while in esoteric teaching it means elementary
substances, something made of attenuated, noncompound essence, and,
specifically, the astral double of any man or animal. In this case these
primitive men are the doubles of the first ethereal Dhyanis or Pitris.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 103 THE DIVINE REBELS.
HIGHER
SELF or human Monad -- and the animal Monad, both one and the same, although
the former is endowed with divine intelligence, the latter with instinctual
faculty alone. How is the difference to be explained, and the presence of that
HIGHER SELF in man accounted for?
"The
Sons of MAHAT are the quickeners of the human Plant. They are the Waters
falling upon the arid soil of latent life, and the Spark that vivifies the
human animal. They are the Lords of Spiritual Life eternal." . . . .
"In the beginning (in the Second Race) some (of the Lords) only breathed
of their essence into Manushya (men); and some took in man their abode."
This
shows that not all men became incarnations of the "divine Rebels,"
but only a few among them. The remainder had their fifth principle simply
quickened by the spark thrown into it, which accounts for the great difference
between the intellectual capacities of men and races. Had not the "sons of
Mahat," speaking allegorically, skipped the intermediate worlds, in their
impulse toward intellectual freedom, the animal man would never have been able
to reach upward from this earth, and attain through self-exertion his ultimate
goal. The cyclic pilgrimage would have to be performed through all the planes
of existence half unconsciously, if not entirely so, as in the case of the
animals. It is owing to this rebellion of intellectual life against the morbid
inactivity of pure spirit, that we are what we are -- self-conscious, thinking
men, with the capabilities and attributes of Gods in us, for good as much as for
evil. Hence the REBELS are our saviours. Let the philosopher ponder well over
this, and more than one mystery will become clear to him. It is only by the
attractive force of the contrasts that the two opposites -- Spirit and Matter
-- can be cemented on Earth, and, smelted in the fire of self-conscious
experience and suffering, find themselves wedded in Eternity. This will reveal
the meaning of many hitherto incomprehensible allegories, foolishly called
"fables." (Vide infra, "The Secret of Satan.")
It
explains, to begin with, the statement made in Pymander: that the
"heavenly MAN," the "Son of the Father," who partook of the
nature and essence of the Seven Governors, or creators and Rulers of the
material world, "peeped through the Harmony and, breaking through the
Seven Circles of Fire, made manifest the downward-born nature."* It
explains every verse in that Hermetic narrative, as also the Greek allegory of
Prometheus. Most important of all, it explains the many allegorical accounts
about the "Wars in Heaven," including that of Revelation with respect
to the Christian dogma of the fallen angels. It explains the
"rebellion" of the oldest and highest Angels, and the meaning of
their being cast down from Heaven into the depths of Hell,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Pymander," Bk. II., verses 17 to 29.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 104 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
i.e.,
MATTER. It even solves the recent perplexity of the Assyriologists, who express
their wonder through the late George Smith.
"My
first idea of this part" (of the rebellion), he says, "was that the
wars with the powers of Evil preceded the Creation; I now think it followed the
account of the fall" (Chaldean Account of Genesis, p. 92). In this work
Mr. George Smith gives an engraving, from an early Babylonian cylinder, of the
Sacred Tree, the Serpent, man and woman. The tree has seven branches: three on
the man's side, four on that of the female. These branches are typical of the
seven Root-Races, in the third of which, at its very close, occurred the
separation of the sexes and the so-called FALL into generation. The three
earliest Races were sexless, then hermaphrodite; the other four, male and female,
as distinct from each other. "The Dragon," says Mr. G. Smith,
"which in the Chaldean account of the creation leads man to sin, is the
creation of Tiamat, the living principle of the Sea, or Chaos . . . which was
opposed to the deities at the creation of the world." This is an error.
The Dragon is the male principle, or Phallus, personified, or rather
animalized; and Tiamat, "the embodiment of the Spirit of Chaos," of
the deep, or Abyss, is the female principle, the Womb. The "Spirit of
Chaos and Disorder" refers to the mental perturbation which it led to. It
is the sensual, attractive, magnetic principle which fascinates and seduces,
the ever living active element which throws the whole world into disorder,
chaos, and sin. The Serpent seduces the woman, but it is the latter who seduces
man, and both are included in the Karmic curse, though only as a natural result
of a cause produced. Says George Smith: "It is clear that the Dragon is
included in the curse for the Fall, and that the Gods" (the Elohim, jealous
at seeing the man of clay becoming a Creator in his turn, like all the
animals,) "invoke on the head of the human Race all the evils which
afflict humanity. Wisdom and knowledge shall injure him, he shall have family
quarrels, he will anger the gods, he shall submit to tyranny. . . . he shall be
disappointed in his desires, he shall pour out useless prayers, he shall commit
future sin. . No doubt subsequent lines continue this topic, but again our
narrative is broken, and it re-opens only where the gods are preparing for war
with the powers of evil, which are led by Tiamat (the woman). . . . "
(Babylonian Legend of Creation, p. 92.)
This
account is omitted in Genesis, for monotheistic purposes. But it is a mistaken
policy -- born no doubt of fear, and regard for dogmatic religion and its
superstitions -- to have sought to restore the Chaldean fragments by Genesis,
whereas it is the latter, far younger than any of the fragments, which ought to
be explained by the former.
-------
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 105 MAN'S FATHER, THE SUN.
17.
THE BREATH (human Monad) NEEDED A FORM; THE FATHERS GAVE IT. THE BREATH NEEDED
A GROSS BODY; THE EARTH MOULDED IT. THE BREATH NEEDED THE SPIRIT OF LIFE; THE
SOLAR LHAS BREATHED IT INTO ITS FORM. THE BREATH NEEDED A MIRROR OF ITS BODY
(astral shadow); "WE GAVE IT OUR OWN," SAID THE DHYANIS. THE BREATH
NEEDED A VEHICLE OF DESIRES (Kama Rupa); "IT HAS IT," SAID THE DRAINER
OF WATERS (Suchi, the fire of passion and animal instinct). THE BREATH NEEDS A
MIND TO EMBRACE THE UNIVERSE; "WE CANNOT GIVE THAT," SAID THE
FATHERS. "I NEVER HAD IT," SAID THE SPIRIT OF THE EARTH. "THE
FORM WOULD BE CONSUMED WERE I TO GIVE IT MINE," SAID THE GREAT (solar)
FIRE . . . . (nascent) MAN REMAINED AN EMPTY, SENSELESS BHUTA . . . . THUS HAVE
THE BONELESS GIVEN LIFE TO THOSE WHO BECAME (later) MEN WITH BONES IN THE THIRD
(race) (a).
As
a full explanation is found in Stanza V. (Vide paragraph (a)), a few remarks will
now suffice. The "Father" of primitive physical man, or of his body,
is the vital electric principle residing in the Sun. The Moon is its Mother,
because of that mysterious power in the Moon which has as decided an influence
upon human gestation and generation, which it regulates, as it has on the
growth of plants and animals. The "Wind" or Ether, standing in this
case for the agent of transmission by which those influences are carried down
from the two luminaries and diffused upon Earth, is referred to as the
"nurse"; while "Spiritual Fire" alone makes of man a divine
and perfect entity.
Now
what is that "Spiritual Fire"? In alchemy it is HYDROGEN, in general;
while in esoteric actuality it is the emanation or the Ray which proceeds from
its noumenon, the "Dhyan of the first Element." Hydrogen is gas only
on our terrestrial plane. But even in chemistry hydrogen "would be the
only existing form of matter, in our sense of the term,"* and is very
nearly allied to protyle, which is our layam. It is the father and generator,
so to say, or rather the Upadhi (basis), of both AIR and WATER, and is
"fire, air and water," in fact: one under three aspects; hence the
chemical and alchemical trinity. In the world of manifestation or matter it is
the objective symbol and the material emanation from the subjective and purely
spiritual entitative Being in the region of noumena. Well might Godfrey Higgins
have compared Hydrogen to, and even identified it with, the To ON, the
"One" of the Greeks. For, as he remarks, Hydrogen is not Water,
though it generates it; Hydrogen is not fire, though it manifests or creates
it; nor is it Air, though air may be regarded as a product of the union of
Water and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Genesis of the Elements," by Prof. W. Crookes, p. 21.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 106 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Fire
-- since Hydrogen is found in the aqueous element of the atmosphere. It is
three in one.
If
one studies comparative Theogony, it is easy to find that the secret of these
"Fires" was taught in the Mysteries of every ancient people,
pre-eminently in Samothrace. There is not the smallest doubt that the Kabeiri,
the most arcane of all the ancient deities, gods and men, great deities and
Titans, are identical with the Kumaras and Rudras headed by Kartikeya -- a
Kumara also. This is quite evident even exoterically; and these Hindu deities
were, like the Kabeiri, the personified sacred Fires of the most occult powers
of Nature. The several branches of the Aryan Race, the Asiatic and the
European, the Hindu and the Greek, did their best to conceal their true nature,
if not their importance. As in the case of the Kumaras, the number of the Kabeiri
is uncertain. Some say that there were three or four only; others say seven.
Aschieros, Achiosersa, Achiochersus, and Camillus may very well stand for the
alter egos of the four Kumaras -- Sanat-Kumara, Sananda, Sanaka, and Sanatana.
The former deities, whose reputed father was Vulcan, were often confounded with
the Dioscuri, Corybantes, Anaces, etc.; just as the Kumara, whose reputed
father is Brahma, (or rather, the "Flame of his Wrath," which
prompted him to perform the ninth or Kumara creation, resulting in Rudra or
Nilalohita (Siva) and the Kumaras), were confounded with the Asuras, the
Rudras, and the Pitris, for the simple reason that they are all one -- i.e.,
correlative Forces and Fires. There is no space to describe these
"fires" and their real meaning here, though we may attempt to do so
if the third and fourth volumes of this work are ever published. Meanwhile a
few more explanations may be added.
The
foregoing are all mysteries which must be left to the personal intuition of the
student for solution, rather than described. If he would learn something of the
secret of the FIRES, let him turn to certain works of the Alchemists, who very
correctly connect fire with every element, as do the Occultists. The reader
must remember that the ancients considered religion, and the natural sciences
along with philosophy, to be closely and inseparably linked together.
AEsculapius was the Son of Apollo -- the Sun or FIRE of Life; at once Helios,
Pythios, and the god of oracular Wisdom. In exoteric religions, as much as in
esoteric philosophy, the Elements -- especially fire, water, and air -- are
made the progenitors of our five physical senses, and hence are directly
connected (in an occult way) with them. These physical senses pertain even to a
lower creation than the one called in the Puranas Pratisarga, or secondary
Creation. "Liquid fire proceeds from indiscrete fire," says an Occult
axiom.
"The
Circle is the THOUGHT; the diameter (or the line) is the WORD;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 107 BATH-KOL, DAUGHTER OF THE VOICE.
and
their union is LIFE." In the Kabala, Bath-Kol is the daughter of the
Divine Voice, or primordial light, Shekinah. In the Puranas and Hindu
exotericism, Vach (the Voice) is the female Logos of Brahma -- a permutation of
Aditi, primordial light. And if Bath-Kol, in Jewish mysticism, is an articulate
praeternatural voice from heaven, revealing to the "chosen people"
the sacred traditions and laws, it is only because Vach was called, before
Judaism, the "Mother of the Vedas," who entered into the Rishis and
inspired them by her revelations; just as Bath-Kol is said to have inspired the
prophets of Israel and the Jewish High-Priests. And both exist to this day, in
their respective sacred symbologies, because the ancients associated sound or
Speech with the Ether of Space, of which Sound is the characteristic. Hence
Fire, Water and Air are the primordial Cosmic Trinity. "I am thy Thought,
thy God, more ancient than the moist principle, the light that radiates within
Darkness (Chaos), and the shining Word of God (Sound) is the Son of the
Deity." ("Pymander," § 6.)*
Thus
we have to study well the "Primary creation," before we can understand
the Secondary. The first Race had three rudimentary elements in it; and no fire
as yet; because, with the Ancients, the evolution of man, and the growth and
development of his spiritual and physical senses, were subordinate to the
evolution of the elements on the Cosmic plane of this Earth. All proceeds from
Prabhavapyaya, the evolution of the creative and sentient principles in the
gods, and even of the so-called creative deity himself. This is found in the
names and appellations given to Vishnu in exoteric scriptures. As the
Protologos (the Orphic), he is called Purvaja, "pregenetic," and then
the other names connect him in their descending order more and more with
matter.
The
following order on parallel lines may be found in the evolution of the Elements
and the Senses; or in Cosmic terrestrial "MAN" or "Spirit,"
and mortal physical man:--
1.
Ether ... Hearing ... Sound.
2.
Air ... Touch ... Sound and Touch.
3.
Fire, or Light ... Sight ... Sound, Touch and Colour.
4.
Water ... Taste ... Sound, Touch, Colour and Taste.
5.
Earth ... Smell ... Sound, Touch, Colour, Taste and Smell.
As
seen, each Element adds to its own characteristics, those of its
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The opponents of Hinduism may call the above Pantheism, Polytheism, or anything
they may please. If Science is not entirely blinded by prejudice, it will see
in this account a profound knowledge of natural Sciences and Physics, as well
as of Metaphysics and Psychology. But to find this out, one has to study the
personifications, and then convert them into chemical atoms. It will then be
found to satisfy both physical and even purely materialistic Science, as well
as those who see in evolution the work of the "Great Unknown Cause"
in its phenomenal and illusive aspects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 108 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
predecessor;
as each Root-Race adds the characterizing sense of the preceding Race. The same
is true in the septenary creation of man, who evolves gradually in seven
stages, and on the same principles, as will be shown further on.
Thus,
while Gods or Dhyan Chohans (Devas) proceed from the First Cause -- which is
not Parabrahm, for the latter is the ALL CAUSE, and cannot be referred to as
the "First Cause," -- which First Cause is called in the Brahmanical
Books Jagad-Yoni, "the womb of the world," mankind emanates from
these active agents in Kosmos. But men, during the first and the second races,
were not physical beings, but merely rudiments of the future men: Bhutas, which
proceeded from Bhutadi, "origin," or the "original place whence
sprung the Elements." Hence they proceeded with all the rest from
Prabhavapyaya, "the place whence is the origination, and into which is the
resolution of all things," as explained by the Commentator. Whence also
our physical senses. Whence even the highest "created" deity itself,
in our philosophy. As one with the Universe, whether we call him Brahma,
Iswara, or Purusha, he is a manifested deity, -- hence created, or limited and
conditioned. This is easily proven, even from the exoteric teachings.
After
being called the incognizable, eternal Brahma (neuter or abstract), the
Punda-Rikaksha, "supreme and imperishable glory," once that instead
of Sadaika-Rupa, "changeless" or "immutable" Nature, he is
addressed as Ekanaka-Rupa, "both single and manifold," he, the cause,
becomes merged with his own effects; and his names, if placed in esoteric order,
show the following descending scale:--
1.
Mahapurusha or Paramatman ........ Supreme Spirit.
2.
Atman or Purvaja (Protologos) .... The living Spirit of Nature.
3.
Indriyatman, or Hrishikesa ....... Spiritual or intellectual soul (One with the
senses).
5.
Bhutatman ........................ The living, or Life Soul.
6.
Kshetrajna ....................... Embodied soul, or the Universe of Spirit and
Matter.
7.
Bhrantidarsanatah ................ False perception -- Material Universe.
The
last name means something perceived or conceived of, owing to false and
erroneous apprehension, as a material form; but, in fact, only Maya, illusion,
as all is in our physical universe.
It
is in strict analogy with ITS attributes in both the spiritual and material
worlds, that the evolution of the Dhyan Chohanic Essences takes place; the
characteristics of the latter being reflected, in their turn, in Man,
collectively, and in each of his principles; every one of which contains in
itself, in the same progressive order, a portion of their various
"fires" and elements.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 109 THE TABULA SMARAGDINA.
STANZA
V.
THE
EVOLUTION OF THE SECOND RACE.
-------
§§
(18) The Sons of Yoga. (19) The Sexless Second Race. (20) The Sons of the Sons
of Twilight. (21) The "Shadow," or the Astral Man, retires within,
and man develops a physical body.
---------------------
18.
THE FIRST (Race) WERE THE SONS OF YOGA. THEIR SONS, THE CHILDREN OF THE YELLOW
FATHER AND THE WHITE MOTHER.
In
the later Commentary, the sentence is translated:--
"The
Sons of the Sun and of the Moon, the nursling of ether (or the wind ) (a) . . .
. . . .
"They
were the shadows of the shadows of the Lords (b). They (the shadows) expanded.
The Spirits of the Earth clothed them; the solar Lhas warmed them (i.e.
preserved the vital fire in the nascent physical forms). The Breaths had life,
but had no understanding. They had no fire nor water of their own (c).
(a)
Remember in this connection the Tabula Smaragdina of Hermes, the esoteric
meaning of which has seven keys to it. The Astro-Chemical is well known to
students, the anthropological may be given now. The "One thing"
mentioned in it is MAN. It is said: "The Father of THAT ONE ONLY THING is
the Sun; its Mother the Moon; the Wind carries it in his bosom, and its nurse
is the Spirituous Earth." In the occult rendering of the same it is added:
"and Spiritual Fire is its instructor (Guru)."
This
fire is the higher Self, the Spiritual Ego, or that which is eternally
reincarnating under the influence of its lower personal Selves, changing with
every re-birth, full of Tanha or desire to live. It is a strange law of Nature
that, on this plane, the higher (Spiritual) Nature should be, so to say, in
bondage to the lower. Unless the Ego takes refuge in the Atman, the ALL-SPIRIT,
and merges entirely into the essence thereof, the personal Ego may goad it to
the bitter end. This cannot be thoroughly understood unless the student makes
himself familiar with the mystery of evolution, which proceeds on triple lines
-- spiritual, psychic and physical.
That
which propels towards, and forces evolution, i.e., compels the growth and
development of Man towards perfection, is (a) the MONAD,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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or
that which acts in it unconsciously through a force inherent in itself; and (b)
the lower astral body or the personal SELF. The former, whether imprisoned in a
vegetable or an animal body, is endowed with, is indeed itself, that force.
Owing to its identity with the ALL-FORCE, which, as said, is inherent in the
Monad, it is all-potent on the Arupa, or formless plane. On our plane, its
essence being too pure, it remains all-potential, but individually becomes
inactive: e.g., the rays of the Sun, which contribute to the growth of
vegetation, do not select this or that plant to shine upon. Uproot the plant
and transfer it to a piece of soil where the sunbeam cannot reach it, and the
latter will not follow it. So with the Atman: unless the higher Self or EGO
gravitates towards its Sun the Monad -- the lower Ego, or personal Self, will
have the upper hand in every case. For it is this Ego, with its fierce
Selfishness and animal desire to live a Senseless life (Tanha), which is
"the maker of the tabernacle," as Buddha calls it in Dhammapada (153
and 154). Hence the expression, "the Spirits of the Earth clothed the
shadows and expanded them." To these "Spirits" belong
temporarily the human astral selves; and it is they who give, or build, the
physical tabernacle of man, for the Monad and its conscious principle, Manas,
to dwell in. But the "Solar" Lhas, Spirits, warm them, the shadows.
This is physically and literally true; metaphysically, or on the psychic and
spiritual plane, it is equally true that the Atman alone warms the inner man;
i.e., it enlightens it with the ray of divine life and alone is able to impart
to the inner man, or the reincarnating Ego, its immortality. Thus, as we shall
find, for the first three and a half Root-Races, up to the middle or turning
point, it is the astral shadows of the "progenitors," the lunar
Pitris, which are the formative powers in the Races, and which build and
gradually force the evolution of the physical form towards perfection -- this,
at the cost of a proportionate loss of spirituality. Then, from the turning
point, it is the Higher Ego, or incarnating principle, the nous or Mind, which
reigns over the animal Ego, and rules it whenever it is not carried down by the
latter. In short, Spirituality is on its ascending arc, and the animal or
physical impedes it from steadily progressing on the path of its evolution only
when the selfishness of the personality has so strongly infected the real inner
man with its lethal virus, that the upward attraction has lost all its power on
the thinking reasonable man. In sober truth, vice and wickedness are an
abnormal, unnatural manifestation, at this period of our human evolution -- at
least they ought to be so. The fact that mankind was never more selfish and
vicious than it is now, civilized nations having succeeded in making of the
first an ethical characteristic, of the second an art, is an additional proof
of the exceptional nature of the phenomenon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 111 THE SHELLS OF SHEBA HACHALOTH.
The
entire scheme is in the "Chaldean Book of Numbers," and even in the
Zohar, if one only understood the meaning of the apocalyptic hints. First comes
En-Soph, the "Concealed of the Concealed," then the Point, Sephira
and the later Sephiroth; then the Atzilatic World, a World of Emanations that
gives birth to three other worlds -- called the Throne, the abode of pure
Spirits; the second, the World of Formation, or Jetzira, the habitat of the
Angels who sent forth the Third, or World of Action, the Asiatic World, which
is the Earth or our World; and yet it is said of it that this world, also
called Kliphoth, containing the (six other) Spheres, [[hebrew]], and matter, is
the residence of the "Prince of Darkness." This is as clearly stated
as can be; for Metatron, the Angel of the second or Briatic World, means
Messenger [[angelos]], Angel, called the great Teacher; and under him are the
Angels of the third World, Jetzira, whose ten and seven classes are the
Sephiroth,* of whom it is said that "they inhabit and vivify this world as
Essential Entities and Intelligences, whose correlatives and contraries inhabit
the third or Asiatic World." These "Contraries" are called
"the Shells," [[hebrew]], or demons,** who inhabit the seven
habitations called Sheba Hachaloth, which are simply the seven zones of our
globe. Their prince is called in the Kabala Samael, the Angel of Death, who is
also the seducing serpent Satan; but that Satan is also Lucifer, the bright
angel of Light, the Light and Life-bringer, the "Soul" alienated from
the Holy Ones, the other angels, and for a period, anticipating the time when
they would have descended on Earth to incarnate in their turn.
"The
Souls (Monads) are pre-existent in the world of Emanations," (Book of
Wisdom viii., 20); and the Zohar teaches that in the "Soul" "is
the real man, i.e., the Ego and the conscious I AM: 'Manas.' "
"They
descend from the pure air to be chained to bodies," says Josephus
repeating the belief of the Essenes (De Bello Judaeo, 11, 12). "The air is
full of Souls," states Philo, "they descend to be tied to mortal
bodies, being desirous to live in them." (De Gignat, 222 c.; De Somniis,
p. 455)***; because through, and in, the human form they will become
progressive beings, whereas the nature of the angel is purely intransitive,
therefore man has in him the potency of transcending the faculties of the
Angels. Hence the Initiates in India say that it is the Brahmin, the
twice-born, who rules the gods or devas; and Paul repeated it in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Vol. I. Part III., "Gods, Monads and Atoms." It is symbolised in
the Pythagorean Triangle, the 10 dots within, and the seven points of the
Triangle and the Cube.
**
Whence the Kabalistic name of Shells given to the astral form, the body called
Kama Rupa, left behind by the higher angels in the shape of the higher Manas,
when the latter leaves for Devachan, forsaking its residue.
***
Which shows that the Essenes believed in re-birth and many reincarnations on
Earth, as Jesus himself did, a fact we can prove from the New Testament itself.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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I
Corinthians vi., 3: "Know ye not that we (the Initiates) shall judge
angels"?
Finally,
it is shown in every ancient scripture and Cosmogony that man evolved primarily
as a luminous incorporeal form, over which, like the molten brass round the
clay model of the sculptor, the physical frame of his body was built by,
through, and from, the lower forms and types of animal terrestrial life.
"The Soul and the Form when descending on Earth put on an earthly
garment," says the Zohar. His protoplastic body was not formed of that
matter of which our mortal frames are fashioned. "When Adam dwelt in the garden
of Eden, he was clothed in the celestial garment, which is the garment of
heavenly light. . . . light of that light which was used in the garden of
Eden," (Zohar II 229 B). "Man (the heavenly Adam) was created by the
ten Sephiroth of the Jetziric world, and by the common power they (the seven
angels of a still lower world) engendered the earthly Adam . . . . First Samael
fell, and then deceiving (?) man, caused his fall also."
(b)
The sentence: "They were the shadows of the shadows of the Lords," i.e.,
the progenitors created man out of their own astral bodies, explains an
universal belief. The Devas are credited in the East with having no shadows of
their own. "The devas cast no shadows," and this is the sure sign of
a good holy Spirit.
Why
had they "no fire or water of their own"?* Because:--
(c)
That which Hydrogen is to the elements and gases on the objective plane, its
noumenon is in the world of mental or subjective phenomena; since its
trinitarian latent nature is mirrored in its three
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is corroborated, however, as we have shown, by the esotericism of Genesis.
Not only are the animals created therein after the "Adam of Dust,"
but vegetation is shown in the Earth before "the heavens and the Earth
were created." "Every plant of the field before it (the day that the
heavens and the Earth were made, v. 4) was in the Earth" (v. 5). Now,
unless the Occult interpretation is accepted, which shows that in this 4th Round
the Globe was covered with vegetation, and the first (astral) humanity was
produced before almost anything could grow and develop thereon, what can the
dead letter mean? Simply that the grass was in the earth of the Globe before
that Globe was created? And yet the meaning of verse 6, which says that
"there went up a mist from the Earth" and watered the whole face of
the Earth before it rained, and caused the trees, etc., to grow, is plain
enough. It shows also in what geological period it occurred, and further what
is meant by "Heaven and Earth." It meant the firmament and dry
incrustated land, separated and ridden of its vapours and exhalations.
Moreover, the student must bear in mind that, as Adam Kadmon, "the male
and female being" of Genesis, ch. I., is no physical human being but the
host of the Elohim, among which was Jehovah himself -- so the animals mentioned
in that chapter as "created" before man in the dead letter text, were
no animals, but the Zodiacal signs and other sidereal bodies.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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active
emanations from the three higher principles in man, namely, "Spirit, Soul,
and Mind," or Atma, Buddhi, and Manas. It is the spiritual and also the
material human basis. Rudimentary man, having been nursed by the
"air" or the "wind," becomes the perfect man later on;
when, with the development of "Spiritual fire," the noumenon of the
"Three in One" within his Self, he acquires from his inner Self, or
Instructor, the Wisdom of Self-Consciousness, which he does not possess in the
beginning. Thus here again divine Spirit is symbolised by the Sun or Fire;
divine Soul by Water and the Moon, both standing for the Father and Mother of
Pneuma, human Soul, or Mind, symbolised by the Wind or air, for Pneuma, means
"breath."
Hence
in the Smaragdine Tablet, disfigured by Christian hands:--
"The
Superior agrees with the Inferior; and the Inferior with the Superior; to
effect that one truly wonderful Work" -- which is MAN. For the secret work
of Chiram, or King Hiram in the Kabala, "one in Essence, but three in
Aspect," is the Universal Agent or Lapis Philosophorum. The culmination of
the Secret Work is Spiritual Perfect Man, at one end of the line; the union of
the three elements is the Occult Solvent in the "Soul of the World,"
the Cosmic Soul or Astral Light, at the other; and, on the material plane, it
is Hydrogen in its relation to the other gases. The To ON, truly; the ONE
"whom no person has seen except the Son"; this sentence applying both
to the metaphysical and physical Kosmos, and to the spiritual and material Man.
For how could the latter understand the To ON the "One Father," if
his Manas, the "Son," does not become (as) "One with the
Father," and through this absorption receive enlightenment from the
"divine instructor," Guru -- Atma-Buddhi?
"If
thou would'st understand the SECONDARY ("Creation," so-called), oh
Lanoo, thou should'st first study its relation to the PRIMARY."
(Commentary, Book of Dzyan, III. 19.)
The
first Race had three elements, but no living Fire. Why? Because:--
"We
say four elements, my Son, but ought to say three," says Hermes
Trismegistus. "In the Primary Circle" (creation) that which is marked
[[diagram]] reads "Root," as in the Secondary likewise.
Thus
in Alchemy or Western Hermetism (a variant on Eastern Esotericism) we find:--
X.
. . . . . . . . [[diagram]] . . . . . . X.
Sulphur
. . . . . . Flamma . . . . . . Spiritus
Hydrargyum
. . . . . Natura . . . . . . Aqua
Sal
. . . . . . . . Mater . . . . . . Sanguis
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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And
these three are all quaternaries completed by their Root, Fire. The Spirit,
beyond manifested Nature, is the fiery BREATH in its absolute Unity. In the
manifested Universe, it is the Central Spiritual Sun, the electric Fire of all
Life. In our System it is the visible Sun, the Spirit of Nature, the
terrestrial god. And in, on, and around the Earth, the fiery Spirit thereof --
air, fluidic fire; water, liquid fire; Earth, solid fire. All is fire -- ignis,
in its ultimate constitution, or I, the root of which is O (nought) in our
conceptions, the All in nature and its mind. Pro-Mater is divine fire. It is
the Creator, the Destroyer, the Preserver. The primitive names of the gods are
all connected with fire, from AGNI, the Aryan, to the Jewish god who "is a
consuming fire." In India, God is called in various dialects, Eashoor,
Esur, Iswur, and Is'Vara, in Sanskrit the Lord, from Isa, but this is primarily
the name of Siva, the Destroyer; and the three Vedic chief gods are Agni
(ignis), Vayu, and Surya -- Fire, Air, and the Sun, three occult degrees of
fire. In the Hebrew [[hebrew]] (aza), means to illuminate, and [[hebrew]]
(asha) is fire. In Occultism, "to kindle a fire" is synonymous to
evoking one of the three great fire-powers, or "to call on God." In
Sanskrit Osch or Asch is fire or heat; and the Egyptian word Osiris is compounded
(as shown by Schelling) of the two primitives aish and asr, or a
"fireenchanter." Aesar in the old Etruscan meant a God (being perhaps
derived from Asura of the Vedas). Aeswar and Eswara are analogous terms, as Dr.
Kenealy thought. In the Bhagavad Gita we read, "Iswara resides in every
mortal being and puts in motion, by his supernatural power, all things which
mount on the Wheel of Time." It is the creator and the destroyer, truly.
"The primitive fire was supposed to have an insatiable appetite for
devouring. Maximus of Tyre relates that the ancient Persians threw into the
fire combustible matter crying: 'Devour, oh Lord!' In the Irish language Easam,
or Asam, means 'to create,' and Aesar was the name of an ancient Irish god,
meaning 'to light a fire' " (Kenealy). The Christian Kabalists and
symbologists who disfigured Pymander -- prominent among them the Bishop of
Ayre, Francois de Tours, in the 16th century -- divide the elements in this
way:--
The
four elements formed from divine substances and the Spirits of the Salts of
Nature represented by --
[[diagram]].
. St. Matthew. . Angel-Man. . Water. . (Jesus-Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael)
A
- [[diagram]] . St. Mark. . .The Lion . . Fire
E
- Y . . . . . . St. Luke. . . The Bull . . Earth
I
- O . . . . . . St. John. . . The Eagle . . Air*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To those who would inquire "What has Hydrogen to do with air or oxygena-
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 115 SONS OF YOGA.
H,
THE QUINTESSENCE, [[HEPHLOX]], FLAMMA-VIRGO (virgin oil), FLAMMA DURISSIMA,
VIRGO, LUCIS AETERNA MATER.
The
first race of men were, then, simply the images, the astral doubles, of their Fathers,
who were the pioneers, or the most progressed Entities from a preceding though
lower sphere, the shell of which is now our Moon. But even this shell is
all-potential, for, having generated the Earth, it is the phantom of the Moon
which, attracted by magnetic affinity, sought to form its first inhabitants,
the pre-human monsters, (vide supra, Stanza II.). To assure himself of this,
the student has again to turn to the Chaldean Fragments, and read what Berosus
says. Berosus obtained his information, he tells us, from Ea, the male-female
deity of Wisdom. While the gods were generated in its androgynous bosom
(Svabhavat, Mother-space) its (the Wisdom's) reflections became on Earth the
woman Omoroka, who is the Chaldean Thavatth, or the Greek Thalassa, the Deep or
the Sea, which esoterically and even exoterically is the Moon. It was the Moon
(Omoroka) who presided over the monstrous creation of nondescript beings which
were slain by the Dyanis. (Vide Hibbert Lectures, p. 370 et seq.; also in Part
II. "Adam-Adami.")
Evolutionary
law compelled the lunar "Fathers" to pass, in their monadic
condition, through all the forms of life and being on this globe; but at the
end of the Third Round, they were already human in their divine nature, and
were thus called upon to become the creators of the forms destined to fashion
the tabernacles of the less progressed Monads, whose turn it was to incarnate.
These "Forms" are called "Sons of Yoga," because Yoga
(union with Brahma exoterically) is the supreme condition of the passive
infinite deity, since it contains all the divine energies and is the essence of
Brahma, who is said (as Brahma) to create everything through Yoga power.
Brahma, Vishnu and Siva are the most powerful energies of God, Brahma, the
Neuter, says a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] tion?" it is answered: "Study first
the ABC of Occult Alchemy." In their anxiety, however, to identify
Pymander, "the mouth of Mystery," with St. John the Baptist
prophetically, they thus identified also the 7 Kabeiri and the Assyrian Bulls
with the Cherubs of the Jews and the Apostles. Having, moreover, to draw a line
of demarcation between the four and the three -- the latter being the Fallen
Angels; and furthermore to avoid connecting these with the "Seven Spirits
of the Face," the Archangels, they unceremoniously threw out all they did
not choose to recognise. Hence the perversion in the order of the Elements, in
order to make them dovetail with the order of the Gospels, and to identify the
Angel-Man with Christ. With the Chaldees, the Egyptians, from whom Moses
adopted the Chroub (Cherubs in their animal form), and the Ophites; with all
these, the Angels, the Planets, and the Elements, were symbolized mystically
and alchemically by the Lion (Mikael); the Bull (Uriel); the Dragon (Raphael);
the Eagle (Gabriel); the Bear (Thot-Sabaoth); the Dog (Erataoth); the Mule
(Uriel or Thartharaoth). All these have a qualificative meaning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Puranic
text. Yoga here is the same as Dhyana, which word is again synonymous with Yoga
in the Tibetan text, where the "Sons of Yoga" are called "Sons
of Dhyana," or of that abstract meditation through which the
Dhyani-Buddhas create their celestial sons, the Dhyani-Bodhisattvas. All the
creatures in the world have each a superior above. "This superior, whose
inner pleasure it is to emanate into them, cannot impart efflux until they have
adored" -- i.e., meditated as during Yoga. (Sepher M'bo Ska-arim,
translated by Isaac Myer, Qabbalah, pp. 109-111.)
-------
19.
THE SECOND RACE (was) THE PRODUCT BY BUDDING AND EXPANSION; THE A-SEXUAL (form)
FROM THE SEXLESS (shadow). THUS WAS, O LANOO, THE SECOND RACE PRODUCED (a).
(a)
What will be most contested by scientific authorities is this a-sexual Race,
the Second, the fathers of the "Sweat-born" so-called, and perhaps
still more the Third Race, the "Egg-born" androgynes. These two modes
of procreation are the most difficult to comprehend, especially for the Western
mind. It is evident that no explanation can be attempted for those who are not
students of Occult metaphysics. European language has no words to express things
which Nature repeats no more at this stage of evolution, things which therefore
can have no meaning for the materialist. But there are analogies. It is not
denied that in the beginning of physical evolution there must have been
processes in Nature, spontaneous generation, for instance, now extinct, which
are repeated in other forms. Thus we are told that microscopic research shows
no permanence of any particular mode of reproducing life. For "it shows
that the same organism may run through various metamorphoses in the course of
its life-cycle, during some of which it may be sexual, and in others a-sexual;
i.e., it may reproduce itself alternately by the co-operation of two beings of
opposite sex, and also by fissure or budding from one being only, which is of
no sex."* "Budding" is the very word used in the Stanza. How
could these Chhayas reproduce themselves otherwise; viz., procreate the Second
Race, since they were ethereal, a-sexual, and even devoid, as yet, of the
vehicle of desire, or Kama Rupa, which evolved only in the Third Race? They
evolved the Second Race unconsciously, as do some plants. Or, perhaps, as the
Amoeba, only on a more ethereal, impressive, and larger scale. If, indeed, the
cell-theory applies equally to Botany and Zoology, and extends to Morphology,
as well as to the Physiology of organisms,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Laing's "Modern Science and Modern Thought," p. 90.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and
if the microscopic cells are looked upon by physical science as independent
living beings -- just as Occultism regards the "fiery lives"* -- there
is no difficulty in the conception of the primitive process of procreation.
Consider
the first stages of the development of a germ-cell. Its nucleus grows, changes,
and forms a double cone or spindle, thus, [[diagram]] within the cell. This
spindle approaches the surface of the cell, and one half of it is extruded in
the form of what are called the "polar cells." These polar cells now
die, and the embryo develops from the growth and segmentation of the remaining
part of the nucleus which is nourished by the substance of the cell. Then why
could not beings have lived thus, and been created in this way -- at the very
beginning of human and mammalian evolution?
This
may, perhaps, serve as an analogy to give some idea of the process by which the
Second Race was formed from the First.
The
astral form clothing the Monad was surrounded, as it still is, by its
egg-shaped sphere of aura, which here corresponds to the substance of the
germ-cell or ovum. The astral form itself is the nucleus, now, as then, instinct
with the principle of life.
When
the season of reproduction arrives, the sub-astral "extrudes" a
miniature of itself from the egg of surrounding aura. This germ grows and feeds
on the aura till it becomes fully developed, when it gradually separates from
its parent, carrying with it its own sphere of aura; just as we see living
cells reproducing their like by growth and subsequent division into two.
The
analogy with the "polar cells" would seem to hold good, since their
death would now correspond to the change introduced by the separation of the
sexes, when gestation in utero, i.e., within the cell, became the rule.
"The
early Second (Root) Race were the Fathers of the 'Sweat-born'; the later Second
(Root) Race were 'Sweat-born' themselves."
This
passage from the Commentary refers to the work of evolution from the beginning
of a Race to its close. The "Sons of Yoga," or the primitive astral
race, had seven stages of evolution racially, or collectively; as every
individual Being in it had, and has now. It is not Shakespeare only who divided
the ages of man into a series of seven, but Nature herself. Thus the first
sub-races of the Second Race were born at first by the process described on the
law of analogy; while the last began gradually, pari passu with the evolution
of the human body, to be formed otherwise. The process of reproduction had
seven stages also
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Book I. Part I. Stanza VII Commentary 10.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
each Race, each covering aeons of time. What physiologist or biologist could
tell whether the present mode of generation, with all its phases of gestation,
is older than half a million, or at most one million of years, since their
cycle of observation began hardly half a century ago.
Primeval
human hermaphrodites are a fact in Nature well known to the ancients, and form
one of Darwin's greatest perplexities. Yet there is certainly no impossibility,
but, on the contrary, a great probability that hermaphroditism existed in the
evolution of the early races; while on the grounds of analogy, and on that of
the existence of one universal law in physical evolution, acting indifferently
in the construction of plant, animal, and man, it must be so. The mistaken
theories of mono-genesis, and the descent of man from the mammals instead of
the reverse, are fatal to the completeness of evolution as taught in modern
schools on Darwinian lines, and they will have to be abandoned in view of the
insuperable difficulties which they encounter. Occult tradition -- if the terms
Science and Knowledge are denied in this particular to antiquity -- can alone
reconcile the inconsistencies and fill the gap. "If thou wilt know the
invisible, open thine eye wide on the visible," says a Talmudic axiom.
In
the "Descent of Man"* occurs the following passage; which shows how
near Darwin came to the acceptance of this ancient teaching.
"It
has been known that in the vertebrate kingdom one sex bears rudiments of
various accessory parts appertaining to the reproductive system, which properly
belong to the opposite sex. . . . Some remote progenitor of the whole
vertebrate kingdom appears to have been hermaphrodite or androgynous** . . .
But here we encounter a singular difficulty. In the mammalian class the males
possess rudiments of a uterus with the adjacent passages in the Vesiculae
prostaticae; they bear also rudiments of mammae, and some male marsupials have
traces of a marsupial sac. Other analogous facts could be added. Are we then to
suppose that some extremely ancient mammal continued androgynous after it had
acquired the chief distinctions of its class, and therefore after it had diverged
from the lower classes of the vertebrate kingdom? This seems very
improbable,*** for we have to look to fishes, the lowest of all the classes, to
find any still existent androgynous forms."
Mr.
Darwin is evidently strongly disinclined to adopt the hypothesis which the
facts so forcibly suggest, viz., that of a primeval androgynous
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Second Edition, p. 161.
**
And why not all the progenitive first Races, human as well as animal; and why
one "remote progenitor"?
***
Obviously so, on the lines of Evolutionism, which traces the mammalia to some
amphibian ancestor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 119 THE BLASTEMA OF SCIENCE.
stem
from which the mammalia sprang. His explanation runs:-- "The fact that
various accessory organs proper to each sex, are found in a rudimentary
condition in the opposite sex may be explained by such organs having been
gradually acquired by the one sex and then transmitted in a more or less
imperfect condition to the other." He instances the case of "spurs,
plumes, and brilliant colours, acquired for battle or for ornament by male
birds" and only partially inherited by their female descendants. In the
problem to be dealt with, however, the need of a more satisfactory explanation
is evident, the facts being of so much more prominent and important a character
than the mere superficial details with which they are compared by Darwin. Why
not candidly admit the argument in favour of the hermaphroditism which
characterises the old fauna? Occultism proposes a solution which embraces the
facts in a most comprehensive and simple manner. These relics of a prior
androgyne stock must be placed in the same category as the pineal gland, and
other organs as mysterious, which afford us silent testimony as to the reality
of functions which have long since become atrophied in the course of animal and
human progress, but which once played a signal part in the general economy of primeval
life.
The
occult doctrine, anyhow, can be advantageously compared with that of the most
liberal men of science, who have theorised upon the origin of the first man.
Long
before Darwin, Naudin, who gave the name of Blastema to that which the Darwinists
call protoplasm, put forward a theory half occult and half
scientifico-materialistic. He made Adam, the a-sexual, spring suddenly from the
clay, as it is called in the Bible, the Blastema of Science. "It is from
this larval form of mankind that the evolutive force effected the completion of
species. For the accomplishment of this great phenomenon, Adam had to pass
through a phase of immobility and unconsciousness, very analogous to the
nymphal state of animals undergoing metamorphosis," explains Naudin. For
the eminent botanist, Adam was not one man, however, but mankind, "which
remained concealed within a temporary organism . . . . distinct from all others
and never contracting alliance with any of these." He shows the
differentiation of sexes accomplished by "a process of germination similar
to that of Medusae and Ascidians." Mankind, thus constituted
physiologically, "would retain a sufficient evolutive force for the rapid
production of the various great human races."
De
Quatrefages criticises this position in the "Human Species." It is
unscientific, he says, or, properly speaking, Naudin's ideas "do not form
a scientific theory," inasmuch as primordial Blastema is connected
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
his theory with the First Cause, which is credited with having made potentially
in the Blastema all past, present, and future beings, and thus of having in
reality created these beings en masse; moreover, Naudin does not even consider
the secondary Causes, or their action in this evolution of the organic world.
Science, which is only occupied with Secondary Causes, has thus "nothing
to say to the theory of Naudin" (p. 125).
Nor
will it have any more to say to the occult teachings, which are to some extent
approached by Naudin. For if we but see in his "primordial Blastema"
the Dhyan-Chohanic essence, the Chhaya or double of the Pitris, which contains
within itself the potentiality of all forms, we are quite in accord. But there
are two real and vital differences between our teachings. M. Naudin declares
that evolution has progressed by sudden leaps and bounds, instead of extending
slowly over millions of years; and his primordial Blastema is endowed only with
blind instincts -- a kind of unconscious First Cause in the manifested Kosmos
-- which is an absurdity. Whereas it is our Dhyan Chohanic essence -- the
causality of the primal cause which creates physical man -- which is the
living, active and potential matter, pregnant per se with that animal
consciousness of a superior kind, such as is found in the ant and the beaver,
which produces the long series of physiological differentiations. Apart from
this his "ancient and general process of creation" from proto-organisms
is as occult as any theory of Paracelsus or Khunrath could be.
Moreover,
the Kabalistic works are full of the proof of this. The Zohar, for instance,
says that every type in the visible has its prototype in the invisible
Universe. "All that which is in the lower (our) world is found in the
upper. The Lower and the Upper act and react upon each other." (Zohar,
fol. 186.) Vide infra, Part II., "Esoteric Tenets corroborated in every
Scripture."
-------
20.
THEIR FATHERS WERE THE SELF-BORN. THE SELF-BORN, THE CHHAYA FROM THE BRILLIANT
BODIES OF THE LORDS, THE FATHERS, THE SONS OF TWILIGHT (a).
(a)
The "shadows," or Chhayas, are called the sons of the
"self-born," as the latter name is applied to all the gods and Beings
born through the WILL, whether of Deity or Adept. The Homunculi of Paracelsus
would, perhaps, be also given this name, though the latter process is on a far
more material plane. The name "Sons of Twilight" shows that the
"Self-born" progenitors of our doctrine are identical with the Pitris
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
the Brahmanical system, as the title is a reference to their mode of birth,
these Pitris being stated to have issued from Brahma's "body of
twilight." (See the Puranas.)
-------
21.
WHEN THE RACE BECAME OLD, THE OLD WATERS MIXED WITH THE FRESHER WATERS (a);
WHEN THE DROPS BECAME TURBID, THEY VANISHED AND DISAPPEARED, IN THE NEW STREAM,
IN THE HOT STREAM OF LIFE. THE OUTER OF THE FIRST BECAME THE INNER OF THE
SECOND. (b). THE OLD WING BECAME THE SHADOW, AND THE SHADOW OF THE WING (c).
(a)
The old (primitive) Race merged in the second race, and became one with it.
(b)
This is the mysterious process of transformation and evolution of mankind. The
material of the first forms -- shadowy, ethereal, and negative -- was drawn or
absorbed into, and thus became the complement of the forms of the Second Race.
The Commentary explains this by saying that, as the First Race was simply
composed of the astral shadows of the creative progenitors, having of course
neither astral nor physical bodies of their own -- this Race never died. Its
"men" melted gradually away, becoming absorbed in the bodies of their
own "sweat-born" progeny, more solid than their own. The old form
vanished and was absorbed by, disappeared in, the new form, more human and
physical. There was no death in those days of a period more blissful than the
Golden Age; but the first, or parent material was used for the formation of the
new being, to form the body and even the inner or lower principles or bodies of
the progeny.
(c)
When the shadow retires, i.e. when the astral body becomes covered with more
solid flesh, man develops a physical body. The "wing," or the ethereal
form that produced its shadow and image, became the shadow of the astral body
and its own progeny. The expression is queer but original.
As
there may be no occasion to refer to this mystery later, it is as well to point
out at once the dual meaning contained in the Greek myth bearing upon this
particular phase of evolution. It is found in the several variants of the
allegory of Leda and her two sons Castor and Pollux, which variants have each a
special meaning. Thus in Book XI. of the Odyssey, Leda is spoken of as the
spouse of Tyndarus, who gave birth by her husband "to two sons of valiant
heart" -- Castor
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[[Vol.
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and
Pollux. Jupiter endows them with a marvellous gift and privilege. They are
semi-immortal; they live and die, each in turn, and every alternate day;
[[eteremeroi*]]. As the Tyndaridae, the twin brothers are an astronomical
symbol, and stand for Day and Night; their two wives, Phoebe and Hilasira, the
daughters of Apollo or the Sun, personifying the Dawn and the Twilight.**
Again, in the allegory where Zeus is shown as the father of the two heroes --
born from the egg to which Leda gives birth -- the myth is entirely
theogonical. It relates to that group of cosmic allegories in which the world
is described as born from an egg. For Leda assumes in it the shape of a white
swan when uniting herself to the Divine Swan.*** Leda is the mythical bird,
then, to which, in the traditions of various peoples of the Aryan race, are
attributed various ornithological forms of birds which all lay golden eggs.****
In the Kalevala (the Epic Poem of Finland), the beauteous daughter of the
Ether, "the Water Mother," creates the world in conjunction with a
"Duck" (another form of the Swan or Goose, Kalahansa), who lays six
golden eggs, and the seventh, "an egg of iron," in her lap. But the
variant of the Leda allegory which has a direct reference to mystic man is
found in Pindar***** only, with a slighter reference to it in the Homeric
hymns.****** Castor and Pollux are in it no longer the Dioscuri (of Apollodorus
III. 10, 7); but become the highly significant symbol of the dual man, the
Mortal and the Immortal. Not only this, but as will now be seen, they are also
the symbol of the Third Race, and its transformation from the animal man into a
god-man with only an animal body.
Pindar
shows Leda uniting herself in the same night to her husband and also to the
father of the gods -- Zeus. Thus Castor is the son of the Mortal, Pollux the
progeny of the Immortal. In the allegory made up for the occasion, it is said
that in a riot of vengeance against the Apherides******* Pollux kills Lynceus
-- "of all mortals he whose sight is the most penetrating" -- but
Castor is wounded by Idas, "he who sees and knows." Zeus puts an end
to the fight by hurling his thunderbolt and killing the last two combatants.
Pollux finds his brother dying.******** In
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Odyssey," xi. 298 to 305; "Iliad," iii., 243.
**
Chants Cypriaques, Hyg. Tal., 80. Ovid, "Fasti," etc. See Decharme's
"Mythologie de la Grece Antique."
***
See Brahma Kalahamsa in Book I. Stanza III., p. 78.
****
See Decharme's "Mythologie," etc., p. 652.
*****
Nem., x., 80 et seq. Theocras, xxiv., 131.
******
xxxiv., v. 5; Theocritus, xxii., 1.
*******
Apollodorus, III. ii., 1.
********
Castor's tomb was shown in Sparta, in days of old, says Pausanias (III., 13,
1); and Plutarch says that he was called at Argos the demi-mortal or demi-hero
[[mizarchagetas]]. (See Plutarch, Quaestiones Graecae, 23.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 123 THE ALLEGORY OF CASTOR AND POLLUX.
his
despair he calls upon Zeus to slay him also. "Thou canst not die
altogether," answers the master of the Gods; "thou art of a divine
race." But he gives him the choice: Pollux will either remain immortal,
living eternally in Olympus; or, if he would share his brother's fate in all
things, he must pass half his existence underground, and the other half in the
golden heavenly abodes. This semi-immortality, which is also to be shared by
Castor, is accepted by Pollux.* And thus the twin brothers live alternately,
one during the day, and the other during the night.**
Is
this a poetical fiction only? An allegory, one of those "solar myth"
interpretations, higher than which no modern Orientalist seems able to soar?
Indeed, it is much more. Here we have an allusion to the "Egg-born,"
Third Race; the first half of which is mortal, i.e., unconscious in its
personality, and having nothing within itself to survive***; and the latter
half of which becomes immortal in its individuality, by reason of its fifth
principle being called to life by the informing gods, and thus connecting the
Monad with this Earth. This is Pollux; while Castor represents the personal,
mortal man, an animal of not even a superior kind, when unlinked from the
divine individuality. "Twins" truly; yet divorced by death forever,
unless Pollux, moved by the voice of twinship, bestows on his less favoured
mortal brother a share of his own divine nature, thus associating him with his
own immortality.
Such
is the occult meaning of the metaphysical aspect of the allegory. The widely
spread modern interpretation of it -- so celebrated in antiquity, Plutarch
tells us,**** as symbolical of brotherly devotion -- namely, that it was an
image borrowed from the spectacle of Nature -- is weak and inadequate to
explain the secret meaning. Besides the fact that the Moon, with the Greeks,
was feminine in exoteric mythology, and could therefore hardly be regarded as
Castor -- and at the same time be identified with Diana -- ancient symbologists
who held the Sun, the King of all sidereal orbs, as the visible image of the
highest deity, would not have personified it by Pollux, a demi-god only.*****
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pindar. Nem. x., 60, Dissen.
**
Schol. Eurip. "Orestes," 463, Dindorf. See Decharme's
"Mythol.," etc., p. 654.
***
The Monad is impersonal and a god per se, albeit unconscious on this plane.
For, divorced from its third (often called fifth) principle, Manas, which is
the horizontal line of the first manifested triangle or trinity, it can have no
consciousness or perception of things on this earthly plane. "The highest
sees through the eye of the lowest" in the manifested world; Purusha
(Spirit) remains blind without the help of Prakrit (matter) in the material
spheres; and so does Atma-Buddhi without Manas.
****
"Morals," p. 484 f.
*****
This strange idea and interpretation are accepted by Decharme in his
"Mythologie de la Grece Antique." "Castor and Pollux," he
says, "are nothing but the Sun and [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 124 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
If
from Greek mythology we pass to the Mosaic allegories and symbolism, we shall
find a still more striking corroboration of the same tenet under another form.
Unable to trace in Genesis the "Egg-born," we shall still find there
unmistakably the androgynes, and the first three races of the Secret Doctrine
hidden under most ingenious symbology in the first four chapters of Genesis.
-------
THE
DIVINE HERMAPHRODITE.
An
impenetrable veil of secrecy was thrown over the occult and religious mysteries
taught, after the submersion of the last remnant of the Atlantean race, some
12,000 years ago, lest they should be shared by the unworthy, and so
desecrated. Of these sciences several have now become exoteric -- such as
Astronomy, for instance, in its purely mathematical and physical aspect. Hence
their dogmas and tenets, being all symbolised and left to the sole guardianship
of parable and allegory, have been forgotten, and their meaning has become
perverted. Nevertheless, one finds the hermaphrodite in the scriptures and
traditions of almost every nation; and why such unanimous agreement if the
statement is only a fiction?
It
is this secrecy which led the Fifth Race to the establishment, or rather the
re-establishment of the religious mysteries, in which ancient truths might be
taught to the coming generations under the veil of allegory and symbolism.
Behold the imperishable witness to the evolution of the human races from the
divine, and especially from the androgynous Race -- the Egyptian Sphinx, that
riddle of the Ages! Divine wisdom incarnating on earth, and forced to taste of
the bitter fruit of personal experience of pain and suffering, generated under
the shade of the tree of the knowledge of Good and Evil -- a secret first known
only to the Elohim, the SELF-INITIATED, "higher gods" -- on earth
only.*
In
the Book of Enoch we have Adam,** the first divine androgyne,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Moon, conceived as twins . . . The Sun, the immortal
and powerful being that disappears every evening from the horizon and descends
under the Earth, as though he would make room for the fraternal orb which comes
to life with night, is Pollux, who sacrifices himself for Castor; Castor, who,
inferior to his brother, owes to him his immortality: for the Moon, says
Theophrastus, is only another, but feebler Sun." (De Ventis 17. See
Decharme, p. 655.)
*
See "Book of Enoch."
**
Adam (Kadmon) is, like Brahma and Mars, the symbol of the generative and creative
power typifying Water and Earth -- an alchemical secret. "It takes Earth
and Water to create a human soul," said Moses. Mars is the Hindu Mangala,
the planet Mars, identical with Kartikeya, the "War-God," born of
Gharma-ja (Siva's sweat) and of the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 125 JAH-HOVAH ANDROGYNOUS.
separating
into man and woman, and becoming JAH-HEVA in one form, or Race, and Cain and
Abel* (male and female) in its other form or Race -- the double-sexed Jehovah**
-- an echo of its Aryan prototype, Brahma-Vach. After which come the Third and
Fourth Root-Races of mankind*** -- that is to say, Races of men and women, or
individuals of opposite sexes, no longer sexless semi-spirits and androgynes,
as were the two Races which precede them. This fact is hinted at in every
Anthropogony. It is found in fable and allegory, in myth and revealed
Scriptures, in legend and tradition. Because, of all the great Mysteries,
inherited by Initiates from hoary antiquity, this is one of the greatest. It
accounts for the bi-sexual element found in every creative deity, in
Brahma-Viraj-Vach, as in Adam-Jehovah-Eve, also in
"Cain-Jehovah-Abel." For "The Book of the Generations of
Adam" does not even mention Cain and Abel, but says only: "Male and
female created he them. . . and called their name Adam" (ch. v. 5). Then
it proceeds to say: "And Adam begat a son in his own likeness, after his
image, and called his name Seth" (v. 3); after which he begets other sons
and daughters, thus proving that Cain and Abel are his own allegorical
permutations. Adam stands for the primitive human race, especially in its
cosmo-sidereal sense. Not so, however, in its theo-anthropological meaning. The
compound name of Jehovah, or Jah-Hovah, meaning male life and female life --
first androgynous, then separated into sexes -- is used in this sense in
Genesis from ch. v. onwards. As the author of "The Source of
Measures" says (p. 159): "The two words of which Jehovah is composed
make up the original idea of male-female, as the birth originators"; for
the Hebrew letter Jod was the membrum virile and Hovah was Eve, the mother of
all living, or the procreatrix, Earth and Nature. The author believes, therefore,
that "It is seen that the perfect one" (the perfect female circle or
Yoni, 20612, numerically), "as originator of measures, takes also the form
of birth-origin, as Hermaphrodite one; hence the phallic form and use."
Precisely;
only "the phallic form and use" came long ages later; and the first
and original meaning of Enos, the son of Seth, was the First Race born in the
present usual way from man and woman --for Seth is no man, but a race. Before
him humanity was hermaphrodite.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Earth. He is Lokita, the red, like Brahma also
and Adam. The Hindu Mars is, like Adam, born from no woman and mother. With the
Egyptians, Mars was the primeval generative Principle, and so are Brahma, in
exoteric teaching, and Adam, in the Kabala.
*
Abel is Chebel, meaning "Pains of Birth," conception.
**
See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II, p. 398, where Jehovah is shown to be
Adam and Eve blended, and Hevah, and Abel, the feminine serpent.
***
See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. I., 305: "The union of the two create
a third Race, etc."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 126 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
While
Seth is the first result (physiologically) after the FALL, he is also the first
man; hence his son Enos is referred to as the "Son of man." (Vide
infra.) Seth represents the later Third Race.
To
screen the real mystery name of AIN-SOPH -- the Boundless and Endless No-Thing --
the Kabalists have brought forward the compound attribute-appellation of one of
the personal creative Elohim, whose name was Yak and Jab, the letters i or j or
y being interchangeable, or Jah-Hovah, i.e. male and female;* Jah-Eve an
hermaphrodite, or the first form of humanity, the original Adam of Earth, not
even Adam Kadmon, whose " mind-born son" is the earthly Jah-Hovah,
mystically. And knowing this, the crafty Rabbin-Kabalist has made of it a name
so secret, that he could not divulge it later on without exposing the whole
scheme; and thus he was obliged to make it sacred.
How
close is the identity between Brahma-Prajapati and Jehovah-Sephiroth, between
Brahma-Viraj and Jehovah-Adam, the Bible and the Puranas compared can alone
show. Analysed and read in the same light, they afford cogent evidence that
they are two copies of the same original -- made at two periods far distant
from each other. Compare once more in relation to this subject Genesis ch. 4.
verses 1 and 26 and Manu I., and they will both yield their meaning. In Manu
(Book I. 32) Brahma, who is also both man and god, and divides his body into
male and female, stands in his esoteric meaning, as does Jehovah or Adam in the
Bible, for the symbolical personification of creative and generative power,
both divine and human. The Zohar affords still more convincing proof of
identity, while some Rabbins repeat word for word certain original Puranic
expressions; e.g., the "creation" of the world is generally
considered in the Brahmanical books to be the Lila, delight or sport, the
amusement of the Supreme Creator, "Vishnu being thus discrete and
indiscrete substance, spirit, and time, sports like a playful boy in
frolics." (Vishnu Purana, Book I., ch. ii.) Now compare this with what is
said in the Book, "Nobeleth' Hokhmah": "The Kabalists say that
the entering into existence of the worlds happens through delight, in that
Ain-Soph (? !) rejoiced in Itself, and flashed and beamed from Itself to Itself
. . . . which are all called delight," etc. (Quoted in Myer's
"Qabbalah," p. 110). Thus it is not a "curious idea of the
Qabbalists," as the author just quoted remarks, but a purely Puranic,
Aryan idea. Only, why make of Ain-Soph a Creator?
The
"Divine Hermaphrodite" is then Brahma-Vach-Viraj; and that of the
Semites, or rather of the Jews, is Jehovah-Cain-Abel. Only the
"Heathen" were, and are, more sincere and frank than were the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Jod in the Kabala has for symbol the hand, the forefinger and the lingham,
while numerically it is the perfect one; but it is also the number 10, male and
female, when divided.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 127 SETH OUR PROGENITOR.
later
Israelites and Rabbis, who undeniably knew the real meaning of their exoteric
deity. The Jews regard the name given to them -- the Yah-oudi -- as an insult.
Yet they have, or would have if they only wished it, as undeniable a right to
call themselves the ancient Yah-oudi, "Jah-hovians," as the Brahmins
have to call themselves Brahmins, after their national deity. For Jah-hovah is
the generic name of that group or hierarchy of creative planetary angels, under
whose star their nation has evolved. He is one of the planetary Elohim of the
regent group of Saturn. Verse 26 of Genesis, ch. iv., when read correctly,
would alone give them such a right, for it calls the new race of men sprung
from Seth and Enos, Jehovah, something quite different from the translation
adopted in the Bible:-- "To him also, was born a son, Enos; then began men
to call themselves Jah or Yah-hovah," to with men and women, the
"lords of creation." One has but to read the above-mentioned verse in
the original Hebrew text and by the light of the Kabala, to find that, instead
of the words as they now stand translated, it is:-- "Then began men to
call themselves Jehovah," which is the correct translation, and not
"Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord"; the latter being
a mistranslation, whether deliberate or not. Again the well-known passage:
"I have gotten a man from the Lord," should read: "I have gotten
a man, even Jehovah."* Luther translated the passage one way, the Roman
Catholics quite differently. Bishop Wordsworth renders it: "Cain -- I have
gotten Kain, from Kanithi, I have gotten." Luther: "I have gotten a
man 0-- even the Lord" (Jehovah); and the author of "The Source of
Measures": "I have measured a man, even Jehovah." The last is
the correct rendering, because (a) a famous Rabbin, a Kabalist, explained the
passage to the writer in precisely this way, and (b) because this rendering is
identical with that in the Secret Doctrine of the East with regard to Brahma.
In "Isis Unveiled,"** it was explained by the writer that "Cain
. . . is the son of the 'Lord' not of Adam (Genesis iv. I)" The
"Lord" is Adam Kadmon, the "father" of Yodcheva,
"Adam-Eve," or Jehovah, the son of sinful thought, not the progeny of
flesh and blood. Seth, on the other hand, is the leader and the progenitor of
the Races of the Earth; for he is the son of Adam, exoterically, but
esoterically he is the progeny of Cain and Abel, since Abel or Hebel is a
female, the counterpart and female half of the male Cain, and Adam is the
collective name for man and woman: "male and female (Zachar va Nakobeh)
created he them . . . and called their name Adam." The verses in Genesis
from chs. i. to v., are purposely mixed up for Kabalistic reasons. After MAN of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Source of Measures," p. 227.
**
Vol. II., p. 264, et seq.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 128 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Genesis
ch. i. 26 and Enos, Son of Man of ch. iv. v. 26, after Adam, the first androgyne,
after Adam Kadmon, the sexless (the first) Logos, Adam and Eve once separated,
come finally Jehovah-Eve and Cain-Jehovah. These represent distinct Root-Races,
for millions of years elapsed between them.
Hence
the Aryan and the Semitic Theo-anthropographies are two leaves on the same
stem; their respective personifications and symbolic personages standing in
relation to each other in this way.
I.
The Unknowable, referred to in various ways in Rig Vedic verse, such as
"Nought Was," called, later on "Parabrahm;" the [[diagram]]
(Ain, nothing, or the "Ain-Soph" of the Kabalists), and again, the
"Spirit" (of God) that moves upon the face of the waters, in Genesis.
All these are identical. Moreover, in Genesis, ch. i., v. 2, is placed as verse
1 in the secret Kabalistic texts, where it is followed by the Elohim
"creating the Heaven and the Earth." This deliberate shifting of the
order of the verses was necessary for monotheistic and Kabalistic purposes.
Jeremiah's curse against those Elohim (gods) who have not created the Heavens
and the Earth, ch. x., v. 11, shows that there were other Elohim who had.
II.
The "Heavenly" Manu-Swayambhuva, who sprang from Swayambhu-Narayana,
the "Self-existent," and Adam Kadmon of the Kabalists, and the
androgyne MAN of Genesis ch. 1 are also identical.
III.
Manu-swayambhuva is Brahma, or the Logos; and he is Adam Kadmon, who in Genesis
iv., 5, separates himself into two halves, male and female, thus becoming
Jah-Hovah or Jehovah-Eve; as Manu Swayambhuva or Brahma separates himself to
become "Brahma-Viraj and Vach-Viraj," male and female; all the rest
of the texts and versions being blinds.
IV.
Vach is the daughter of Brahma and is named Sata-Rupa, "the
hundred-formed," and Savitri, "generatrix," the mother of the
gods and of all living. She is identical with Eve, "the mother (of all the
lords or gods or) of all living." Besides this there are many other occult
meanings.
What
is written in "Isis," although scattered about and very cautiously
expressed at the time, is correct:
Explaining
esoterically Ezekiel's wheel,* it is said of Jodhevah or Jehovah: -
"When
the ternary is taken in the beginning of the Tetragram, it expresses the divine
creation spiritually, without any carnal sin; taken at its opposite end it
expresses the latter: it is feminine. The name of Eva is composed of three
letters, that of the primitive or heavenly
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 462.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 129 THE JEWISH GOD-NAME.
Adam,
is written with one letter, Jod or Yodh; therefore it must not be read Jehovah
but Ieva, or Eve. The Adam of the first chapter is the spiritual, therefore
pure, androgyne Adam Kadmon. When woman issues from the rib of the second Adam
(of dust), the pure Virgo is separated, and falling "into
generation," or the downward cycle, becomes Scorpio, emblem of sin and
matter. While the ascending cycle points to the purely spiritual races, or the
ten prediluvian patriarchs, the Prajapatis and Sephiroth are led on by the
creative Deity itself, who is Adam Kadmon or Yod-cheva. Spiritually, the lower
one (Jehovah) is that of the terrestrial races, led on by Enoch or Libra, the
seventh; who, because he is half-divine, half-terrestrial, is said to have been
taken by God alive. Enoch, Hermes, and Libra, are one."
This
is only one of the several meanings. No need to remind the scholar that Scorpio
is the astrological sign of the organs of reproduction. Like the Indian Rishis,
the Patriarchs are all convertible in their numbers, as well as
interchangeable. According to the subject to which they relate they become ten,
twelve, seven or five, and even fourteen, and they have the same esoteric meaning
as the Manus or Rishis.
Moreover,
Jehovah, as may be shown, has a variety of etymologies, but only those are true
which are found in the Kabala. [[hebrew]] (Ieve) is the Old Testament term, and
was pronounced Ya-va. Inman suggests that it is contracted from the two words
[[hebrew]] Yaho-Iah, Jaho-Jah, or Jaho is Jah. Punctuated it is [[hebrew]]
which is, however, a Rabbinical caprice to associate it with the name Adoni or
[[hebrew]], which has the same points. It is curious, and indeed hardly
conceivable, that the Jews anciently read the name [[hebrew]] (Adoni), when
they had so many names of which Jeho and Jah and Iah constituted a part. But so
it was; and Philo Byblus, who gives us the so-called fragment of Sanchoniathon,
spelt it in Greek letters [[IEUO]], Javo or Jevo. Theodoret says that the
Samaritans pronounced Yahva, and the Jews Yaho. Prof. Gibbs, however, suggests
its punctuation thus: [[hebrew]] (Ye-hou-vih); and he cut the Gordian knot of
its true occult meaning. For in this last form, as a Hebrew verb, it means
"he will -- be."* It was also derived from the Chaldaic verb
[[hebrew]] or [[hebrew]] eue (eva) or eua (Eva) "to be." And so it
was, since from Enosh, the "Son of Man," only, were the truly human
races to begin and "to be," as males and females. This statement
receives further corroboration, inasmuch as Parkhurst makes the verb [[hebrew]]
to mean: (1) "To
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See for comparison Hosea, xii. 6, where it is so punctuated.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 130 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
fall
down" (i.e. into generation or matter); and (2) "To be, to continue
" -- as a Race. The aspirate of the word eua (Eva) "to be" being
[[hebrew]] Heve (Eve), which is the feminine of [[hebrew]] and the same as
Hebe, the Grecian goddess of youth and the Olympian bride of Heracles, makes
the name Jehovah appear still more clearly in its primitive double-sexed form.
Finding
in Sanskrit such syllables as Jah and Yah, e.g., Jah (navi) "Ganges"
and Jagan-natha, "Lord of the World," it becomes clear why Mr.
Rawlinson is so very confident in his works of an Aryan or Vedic influence on
the early mythology of Babylon. Nor is it to be much wondered at that the
alleged ten tribes of Israel disappeared during the captivity period, without
leaving a trace behind them, when we are informed that the Jews had de facto
but two tribes -- those of Judah and of Levi. The Levies, moreover, were not a
tribe at all, but a priestly caste. The descendants have only followed their
progenitors, the various patriarchs, into thin, sidereal air. There were Brahms
and A-brahms, in days of old, truly, and before the first Jew had been born.
Every nation held its first god and gods to be androgynous; nor could it be
otherwise, since they regarded their distant primeval progenitors, their
dual-sexed ancestors, as divine Beings and Gods, just as do the Chinese to this
day. And they were divine in one sense, as also were their first human progeny,
the "mind-born" primitive humanity, which were most assuredly
bi-sexuals as all the more ancient symbols and traditions show. Under the
emblematical devices and peculiar phraseology of the priesthood of old, lie
latent hints of sciences as yet undiscovered during the present cycle. Well
acquainted as may be a scholar with the hieratic writing and hieroglyphical
system of the Egyptians, he must first of all learn to sift their records. He
has to assure himself, compasses and rule in hand, that the picture writing he
is examining fits, to a line, certain fixed geometrical figures which are the
hidden keys to such records, before he ventures on an interpretation."
"But
there are myths which speak for themselves. In this class we may include the
double-sexed first creators of every Cosmogony. The Greek Zeus-Zen (AEther),
and Chthonia (the chaotic earth) and Metis (water), his wives; Osiris and
Isis-Latona -- the former god also representing AEther, the first emanation of
the Supreme Deity, Amun, the primeval source of Light; the goddess Earth and
Water again; Mithras, the rock-born god, the symbol of the male mundane fire,
or the personified primordial light, and Mithra, the fire goddess, at once his
mother and his wife; the pure element of fire (the active, or male principle)
regarded as light and heat, in conjunction with Earth and Water, or Matter, the
female or passive element of cosmical generation" -- all these are records
of the primeval divine Hermaphrodite.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 131 THE SWAN AND THE EGG.
STANZA
VI.
THE
EVOLUTION OF THE "SWEAT-BORN."
-------
§§
(22) The evolution of the three races continued. (23) The second race creates
the Third and perishes.
---------------------
22.
THEN THE SECOND EVOLVED THE SWEAT-BORN, THE THIRD (Race). THE SWEAT GREW, ITS
DROPS GREW, AND THE DROPS BECAME HARD AND ROUND. THE SUN WARMED IT; THE MOON
COOLED AND SHAPED IT; THE WIND FED IT UNTIL ITS RIPENESS. THE WHITE SWAN FROM THE
STARRY VAULT (the Moon), OVERSHADOWED THE BIG DROP. THE EGG OF THE FUTURE RACE,
THE MAN-SWAN (Hamsa) OF THE LATER THIRD (a). FIRST MALE-FEMALE, THEN MAN AND
WOMAN (b).
(a)
The text of the Stanza clearly implies that the human embryo was nourished ab
extra by Cosmic forces, and that the "Father-Mother" furnished
apparently the germ that ripened: in all probability a "sweat-born
egg," to be hatched out, in some mysterious way, disconnected from the
"double" parent. It is comparatively easy to conceive of an oviparous
humanity, since even now man is, in one sense, "egg-born." Magendie,
moreover, in his Precis Elementaire de Physiologie, citing "a case where
the umbilical cord was ruptured and perfectly cicatrized," yet the infant
was born alive, pertinently asks, "How was the circulation carried on in
this organ?" On the next page he says: "Nothing is at present known
respecting the use of digestion in the foetus;" and respecting its
nutrition, propounds this query: "What, then, can we say of the nutrition
of the foetus? Physiological works contain only vague conjectures on this
point." "Ah, but," the sceptic may urge, "Magendie's book
belongs to the last generation, and Science has since made such strides that
his stigma of ignorance can no longer be fixed upon the profession."
Indeed; then let us turn to a very great authority upon Physiology, viz., Sir
M. Foster (Text-Book of Physiology, third edition, 1879, p. 623); and to the
disadvantage of modern Science we shall find him saying, "Concerning the
rise and development of the functional activities of the embryo, our knowledge
is almost a blank. We know scarcely anything about the various steps by which
the primary fundamental qualities of the protoplasm of the ovum are
differentiated into the complex phenomena which we have attempted in
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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this
book to explain." The students of Trin. Coll. Cantab. will now kindly draw
a veil before the statue of Hygeia and bandage the eyes of the busts of Galen
and Hippocrates, lest they look reproachfully at their degenerate descendants.
One further fact we must note. Sir M. Foster is discreetly silent about the
case of the ruptured umbilical cord cited by his great French confrere.
This
is a very curious statement as explained in the Commentaries. To make it clear:
The First Race having created the Second by "budding," as just
explained, the Second Race gives birth to the Third -- which itself is
separated into three distinct divisions, consisting of men differently
procreated. The first two of these are produced by an oviparous method,
presumably unknown to modern Natural History. While the early sub-races of the
Third Humanity procreated their species by a kind of exudation of moisture or
vital fluid, the drops of which coalescing formed an oviform ball -- or shall
we say egg? -- which served as an extraneous vehicle for the generation therein
of a foetus and child, the mode of procreation by the later races changed, in
its results at all events. The little ones of the earlier races were entirely
sexless -- shapeless even for all one knows*; but those of the later races were
born androgynous. It is in the Third Race that the separation of sexes
occurred. From being previously a-sexual, Humanity became distinctly
hermaphrodite or bi-sexual; and finally the man-bearing eggs began to give
birth, gradually and almost imperceptibly in their evolutionary development,
first, to Beings in which one sex predominated over the other, and, finally, to
distinct men and women. And now let us search for corroboration of these
statements in the religious legends of East and West. Let us take the
"Egg-born Race" first. Think of Kasyapa, the Vedic sage, and the most
prolific of creators. He was the son of Marichi, Brahma's mind-born son; and he
is made to become the father of the Nagas, or Serpents, among other beings.
Exoterically, the Nagas are semi-divine beings which have a human face and the
tail of a serpent. Yet there was a race of Nagas, said to be a thousand in
number only, born or rather sprung from Kadra, Kasyapa's wife, for the purpose
of peopling Patala, which is undeniably America, as will be shown; and there
was a NAGA-Dwipa, one of the seven divisions of Bharata-Varsha, India,
inhabited by a people bearing the same name, who are allowed, even by some
Orientalists, to be historical, and to have left many a trace behind them to
this day.
Now
the point most insisted upon at present is that, whatever origin be claimed for
man, his evolution took place in this order: (1) Sexless, as all the earlier
forms are; (2) then, by a natural transition, he became,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the "Timaeus."
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[[Vol.
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"a
solitary hermaphrodite," a bi-sexual being; and (3) finally separated and
became what he is now. Science teaches us that all the primitive forms, though
sexless, "still retained the power of undergoing the processes of A-Sexual
multiplication;" why, then, should man be excluded from that law of
Nature? Bi-sexual reproduction is an evolution, a specialized and perfected
form on the scale of matter of the fissiparous act of reproduction. Occult
teachings are pre-eminently panspermic, and the early history of humanity is
hidden only "from ordinary mortals;" nor is the history of the
primitive Races buried from the Initiates in the tomb of time, as it is for
profane science. Therefore, supported on the one hand by that science which
shows to us progressive development and an internal cause for every external
modification, as a law in Nature; and, on the other hand, by an implicit faith
in the wisdom -- we may say pansophia even -- of the universal traditions
gathered and preserved by the Initiates, who have perfected them into an almost
faultless system -- thus supported, we venture to state the doctrine clearly.
In
an able article, written some fifteen years ago, our learned and respected
friend Prof. Alex. Wilder, of New York, shows the absolute logic and necessity
of believing "The Primeval Race Double-Sexed," and gives a number of
scientific reasons for it.* He argues firstly, "that a large part of the
vegetable creation exhibits the phenomenon of bisexuality . . . the Linnaean
classification enumerating thus almost all plants. This is the case in the
superior families of the vegetable kingdoms as much as in the lower forms, from
the Hemp to the Lombardy Poplar and Ailanthus. In the animal kingdom, in insect
life, the moth generates a worm, as in the Mysteries the great secret was
expressed: "Taurus Draconem genuit, et Taurum Draco." The
coral-producing family, which, according to Agassiz, 'has spent many hundreds
of thousands of years, during the present geological period, in building out
the peninsula of Florida . . . . produce their offspring from themselves like
the buds and ramifications in a tree.' Bees are somewhat in the same line . . .
. The Aphides or plant lice keep house like Amazons, and virgin parents
perpetuate the Race for ten successive generations."
What
say the old sages, the philosopher-teachers of antiquity. Aristophanes speaks
thus on the subject in Plato's "Banquet": "Our nature of old was
not the same as it is now. It was androgynous, the form and name partaking of,
and being common to both the male and female. . . . Their bodies were round,
and the manner of their running
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Extracts from that Essay in "The Theosophist," of February, 1883.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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circular.*
They were terrible in force and strength and had prodigious ambition. Hence
Zeus divided each of them into two, making them weaker; Apollo, under his
direction, closed up the skin."
Meshia
and Meshiane were but a single individual with the old Persians. "They also
taught that man was the product of the tree of life, growing in androgynous
pairs, till they were separated at a subsequent modification of the human
form.**"
In
the Toleduth (generation) of Adam, the verse "God created (bara, brought
forth) man in his image, in the image of God created he him, male and female
created he them," if read esoterically will yield the true sense, viz.:
"The Elohim (Gods) brought forth from themselves (by modification) man in
their image . . . . created they him (collective humanity, or Adam), male and
female created he (collective deity) them."*** This will show the esoteric
point. The sexless Race was their first production, a modification of and from
themselves, the pure spiritual existences; and this was Adam solus. Thence came
the second Race: Adam-Eve or Jod-Heva, inactive androgynes; and finally the
Third, or the "Separating Hermaphrodite," Cain and Abel, who produce
the Fourth, Seth-Enos, etc. It is that Third, the last semi-spiritual race,
which was also the last vehicle of the divine and innate Wisdom, ingenerate in
the Enochs, the Seers of that Mankind. The Fourth, which had tasted from the
fruit of the Tree of Good and Evil -- Wisdom united already to earthy, and
therefore impure, intelligence **** had consequently to acquire that Wisdom by
initiation and great struggle. And the union of Wisdom and Intelligence, the
former ruling the latter, is called in the Hermetic books "the God
possessing the double fecundity of the two sexes." Mystically Jesus was held
to be man-woman. See also in the Orphic hymns, sung during the Mysteries, we
find:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Compare Ezekiel's vision (chap. i) of the four divine beings who "had the
likeness of a man" and yet had the appearance of a wheel, "when they
went they went upon their four sides . . . . for the spirit of the living
creature was in the wheel."
**
See Prof. Wilder's Essay "The Primeval Race Double-Sexed."
***
Eugibinus, a Christian, and the Rabbis Samuel, Manasseh ben Israel, and
Maimonides taught that "Adam had two faces and one person, and from the
beginning he was both male and female -- male on one side and female on the
other (like Manu's Brahma), but afterwards the parts were separated." The
one hundred and thirty-ninth Psalm of David recited by Rabbi Jeremiah ben
Eliazar is evidence of this. "Thou hast fashioned me behind and
before," not beset as in the Bible, which is absurd and meaningless, and
this shows, as Prof. Wilder thinks, "that the primeval form of mankind was
androgynous."
****
See the union of Chochmah, Wisdom, with Binah, Intelligence, or Jehovah, the
Demiurge, called Understanding in the Proverbs of Solomon, ch. vii. Unto men
Wisdom (divine occult Wisdom) crieth: "Oh, ye simple, understand Wisdom;
and ye fools, be of an understanding heart." It is spirit and matter, the
nous and the psyche; of the latter of which St. James says that it is
"earthly, sensual, and devilish."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Zeus
is a male, Zeus is an immortal maid." The Egyptian Ammon was the goddess
Neith, in his other half. Jupiter has female breasts, Venus is bearded in some
of her statues, and Ila, the goddess, is also Su-Dyumna, the god, as
Vaivasvata's progeny.
"The
name Adam," says Professor A. Wilder, "or man, itself implies this
double form of existence. It is identical with Athamas, or Thomas (Tamil Tam),
which is rendered by the Greek Didumos, a twin; if, therefore, the first woman
was formed subsequently to the first man, she must, as a logical necessity, be
'taken out of man' . . . and the side which the Elohim had taken from man,
'made he a woman' (Gen. ii.). The Hebrew word here used is Tzala, which bears
the translation we have given. It is easy to trace the legend in Berosus, who
says that Thalatth (the Omoroca, or Lady of Urka) was the beginning of
creation. She was also Melita, the queen of the Moon. . . . The two twin births
of Genesis, that of Cain and Abel, and of Esau and Jacob, shadow the same idea.
The name 'Hebel' is the same as Eve, and its characteristic seems to be
feminine," continues the author. "Unto thee shall be his
desire," said the Lord God to Cain, "and thou shalt rule over him."
The same language had been uttered to Eve: "Thy desire shall be to thy
husband, and he shall rule over thee." . . .
Thus
the pristine bi-sexual unity of the human Third Root-Race is an axiom in the
Secret Doctrine. Its virgin individuals were raised to "Gods,"
because that Race represented their "divine Dynasty." The moderns are
satisfied with worshipping the male heroes of the Fourth Race, who created gods
after their own sexual image, whereas the gods of primeval mankind were
"male and female."
As
stated in Book I, the humanities developed coordinately, and on parallel lines
with the four Elements, every new Race being physiologically adapted to meet
the additional element. Our Fifth Race is rapidly approaching the Fifth Element
-- call it interstellar ether, if you will -- which has more to do, however,
with psychology than with physics. We men have learned to live in every
climate, whether frigid or tropical, but the first two Races had nought to do
with climate, nor were they subservient to any temperature or change therein.
And thus, we are taught, men lived down to the close of the Third Root-Race,
when eternal spring reigned over the whole globe, such as is now enjoyed by the
inhabitants of Jupiter; a "world," says M. Flammarion, "which is
not subject like our own to the vicissitudes of seasons nor to abrupt
alternations of temperature, but which is enriched with all the treasures of
eternal spring." ("Pluralite des Mondes," p. 69.) Those
astronomers who maintain that Jupiter is in a molten condition, in our sense of
the term, are invited to settle their dispute with this learned French
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Astronomer.*
It must, however, be always borne in mind that the "eternal spring"
referred to is only a condition cognised as such by the Jovians. It is not
"spring" as we know it. In this reservation is to be found the
reconciliation between the two theories here cited. Both embrace partial
truths.
It
is thus a universal tradition that mankind has evolved gradually into its
present shape from an almost transparent condition of texture, and neither by
miracle nor by sexual intercourse. Moreover, this is in full accord with the
ancient philosophies; from those of Egypt and India with their Divine Dynasties
down to that of Plato. And all these universal beliefs must be classed with the
"presentiments" and "obstinate conceptions," some of them
ineradicable, in popular faiths. Such beliefs, as remarked by Louis Figuier,
are "frequently the outcome of the wisdom and observation of an infinite
number of generations of men." For, "a tradition which has an uniform
and universal existence,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An hypothesis evolved in 1881 by Mr. Mattieu Williams seems to have impressed
Astronomers but little. Says the author of "The Fuel of the Sun," in
Knowledge, Dec. 23, 1881: "Applying now the researches of Dr. Andrews to
the conditions of Solar existence . . . I conclude that the Sun has no nucleus,
either solid, liquid, or gaseous, but is composed of dissociated matter in the
critical state, surrounded, first, by a flaming envelope, due to the
recombination of the dissociated matter, and outside of this, by another
envelope of vapours due to this combination."
This
is a novel theory to be added to other hypotheses, all scientific and orthodox.
The meaning of the "critical state" is explained by Mr. M. Williams
in the same journal (Dec. 9, 1881), in an article on "Solids, Liquids, and
Gases." Speaking of an experiment by Dr. Andrews on carbonic acid, the
scientist says that "when 88 [[degrees]] is reached, the boundary between
liquid and gas vanished; liquid and gas have blended into one mysterious
intermediate fluid; an indefinite fluctuating something is there filling the
whole of the tube -- an etherealised liquid or a visible gas. Hold a red-hot
poker between your eye and the light; you will see an upflowing wave of
movement of what appears like liquid air. The appearance of the hybrid fluid in
the tube resembles this, but is sensibly denser, and evidently stands between
the liquid and gaseous states of matter, as pitch or treacle stands between
solid and liquid."
The
temperature at which this occurs has been named by Dr. Andrews the
"critical temperature"; here the gaseous and the liquid states are
"continuous," and it is probable that all other substances capable of
existing in both states have their own particular critical temperatures.
Speculating
further upon this "critical" state, Mr. Mattieu Williams emits some
quite occult theories about Jupiter and other planets. He says: "Our
notions of solids, liquids, and gases are derived from our experiences of the
state of matter here upon this Earth. Could we be removed to another planet,
they would be curiously changed. On Mercury water would rank as one of the
condensible gases; on Mars, as a fusible solid; but what on Jupiter?"
"Recent
observations justify us in regarding this as a miniature sun, with an external
envelope of cloudy matter, apparently of partially-condensed water, but
red-hot, or probably still hotter within. His vaporous atmosphere is evidently
of enormous depth, and the force of gravitation being on his visible outer
surface two-and-a-half [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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has
all the weight of scientific testimony."* And there is more than one such
tradition in the Puranic allegories, as has been shown. Moreover, the doctrine
that the first Race of mankind was formed out of the chhayas (astral images) of
the Pitris, is fully corroborated in the Zohar. "In the Tzalam (shadow
image) of Elohim (the Pitris), was made Adam (man). (Cremona, Ed. iii., 76a;
Brody, Ed. iii., 159a; "Qabbalah," Isaac Myer, p. 420.)
It
has been repeatedly urged as an objection that, however high the degree of
metaphysical thought in ancient India, yet the old Egyptians had nothing but
crass idolatry and zoolatry to boast of; Hermes, as alleged, being the work of
mystic Greeks who lived in Egypt. To this, one answer can be given -- a direct
proof that the Egyptians believed in the Secret Doctrine is, that it was taught
to them at Initiation. Let the objectors open the "Eclogae Physicae et
Ethicae" of Stobaeus, the Greek compiler of ancient fragments, who lived
in the fifth century, A.D. The following is a transcription by him of an old
Hermetic fragment, showing the Egyptian theory of the Soul. Translated word for
word, it says:--
"From
one Soul, that of ALL, spring all the Souls, which spread themselves as if
purposely distributed through the world. These souls undergo many
transformations; those which are already creeping creatures turn into aquatic
animals; from these aquatic animals are derived land animals; and from the
latter the birds. From the beings who live aloft in the air (heaven) men are
born. On reaching that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] times greater than that on our Earth's surface,
the atmospheric pressure, in descending below this visible surface, must soon
reach that at which the vapour of water would be brought to its critical
condition. Therefore we may infer that the oceans of Jupiter are neither of
frozen, liquid, nor gaseous water, but are oceans or atmospheres of critical
water. If any fish or birds swim or fly therein, they must be very critically
organized."
As
the whole mass of Jupiter is 300 times greater than that of the Earth, and its
compressing energy towards the centre proportional to this, its materials, if
similar to those of the Earth, and no hotter, would be considerably more dense,
and the whole planet would have a higher specific gravity; but we know by the
movement of its satellites that, instead of this, its specific gravity is less
than a fourth of that of the Earth. This justifies the conclusion that it is
intensely hot; for even hydrogen, if cold, would become denser than Jupiter
under such pressure.
"As
all elementary substances may exist as solids, liquids, or gases, or,
critically, according to the conditions of temperature and pressure, I am
justified in hypothetically concluding that Jupiter is neither a solid, a liquid,
nor a gaseous planet, but a critical planet, or an orb composed internally of
associated elements in the critical state, and surrounded by a dense atmosphere
of their vapours and those of some of their compounds such as water. The same
reasoning applies to Saturn and other large and rarified planets."
It
is gratifying to see how scientific imagination approaches every year more
closely to the borderland of our occult teachings.
*
"The Day After Death," p. 23.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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status
of men, the Souls receive the principle of (conscious) immortality, become
Spirits, then pass into the choir of gods."
--------
23.
THE SELF-BORN WERE THE CHHAYAS, THE SHADOWS FROM THE BODIES OF THE SONS OF
TWILIGHT. NEITHER WATER NOR FIRE COULD DESTROY THEM. THEIR SONS WERE (so
destroyed) (a).
(a)
This verse cannot be understood without the help of the Commentaries. It means
that the First Root-Race, the "Shadows" of the Progenitors, could not
be injured, or destroyed by death. Being so ethereal and so little human in
constitution, they could not be affected by any element -- flood or fire. But
their "Sons," the Second Root-Race, could be and were so destroyed.
As the "progenitors" merged wholly in their own astral bodies, which
were their progeny; so that progeny was absorbed in its descendants, the
"Sweat-born." These were the second Humanity -- composed of the most
heterogeneous gigantic semi-human monsters -- the first attempts of material
nature at building human bodies. The ever-blooming lands of the Second
Continent (Greenland, among others) were transformed, in order, from Edens with
their eternal spring, into hyperborean Hades. This transformation was due to the
displacement of the great waters of the globe, to oceans changing their beds;
and the bulk of the Second Race perished in this first great throe of the
evolution and consolidation of the globe during the human period. Of such great
cataclysms there have already been four.* And we may expect a fifth for
ourselves in due course of time.
-------
A
FEW WORDS ABOUT "DELUGES" AND "NOAHS."
The
accounts in the various Puranas about our Progenitors are as contradictory in
their details as everything else. Thus while, in the Rig Veda, Ida (or Ila) is
called the Instructress of Vaivasvata Manu, Sayana makes of her a goddess
presiding over the Earth, and the Sathapatha Brahmana shows her to be the
Manu's daughter, an offering of his sacrifice, and, later on, his (Vaivasvata's)
wife, by whom he begat the race of Manus. In the Puranas, again, she is
Vaivasvata's daughter, yet the wife of Budha (Wisdom), the illegitimate son of
the Moon (Soma) and the planet Jupiter's (Brihhaspati's) wife, Tara. All this,
which seems a jumble to the profane, is full of philosophical meaning to the
Occultist. On the very face of the narrative a secret and sacred meaning is
per-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The first occurred when what is now the North Pole was separated from the later
Continents.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ceivable,
all the details, however, being so purposely mixed up that the experienced eye of
an Initiate alone can follow them and place the events in their proper order.
The
story as told in the "Mahabharata" strikes the key-note, and yet it
needs to be explained by the secret sense contained in the Bhagavad Gita. It is
the prologue to the drama of our (Fifth) Humanity. While Vaivasvata was engaged
in devotion on the river bank, a fish craves his protection from a bigger fish.
He saves and places it in a jar, where, growing larger and larger, it
communicates to him the news of the forthcoming deluge. It is the well-known
"Matsya Avatar," the first Avatar of Vishnu, the Dagon* of the
Chaldean Xisuthrus, and many other things besides. The story is too well known
to need repetition. Vishnu orders a ship to be built, in which Manu is said to
be saved along with the seven Rishis, the latter, however, being absent from
other texts. Here the seven Rishis stand for the seven Races, the seven
principles, and various other things; for there is again a double mystery
involved in this manifold allegory.
We
have said elsewhere that the great Flood had several meanings, and that it
referred, as also does the FALL, to both spiritual and physical, cosmic and
terrestrial, events: as above, so it is below. The ship or ark -- navis -- in
short, being the symbol of the female generative principle, is typified in the
heavens by the Moon, and on Earth by the Womb: both being the vessels and
bearers of the seeds of life and being, which the sun, or Vishnu, the male
principle, vivifies and fructifies.** The First Cosmic Flood refers to
primordial creation, or the formation of Heaven and the Earths; in which case
Chaos and the great Deep stand for the "Flood," and the Moon for the
"Mother," from whom proceed all the life-germs.*** But the
terrestrial Deluge and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We must remember that at the head of all the Babylonian gods were Ea, Anu, and
the primeval Bel; and that Ea, the first, was the God of Wisdom, the great
"God of Light" and of the DEEP, and that he was identified with
Oannes, or the Biblical Dagon -- the man-fish who rose out of the Persian Gulf.
**
See Part. II. § "The Holy of Holies."
***
It is far later on that the Moon became a male god; with the Hindus it was
Soma, with the Chaldeans Nannak or Nannar, and Sin, the son of Mulil, the older
Bel. The "Akkadians" called him the "Lord of Ghosts"; and
he was the god of Nipoor (Niffer) in northern Babylonia. It is Mulil who caused
the waters of the Flood to fall from heaven on Earth, for which Xisuthrus would
not allow him to approach his altar. As the modern Assyriologists have now
ascertained, it is the northern Nipoor which is the centre whence Chaldean
(black) magic spread; and Eridu (the Southern) which was the primitive seat of
the worship of the culture god, the god of divine wisdom -- the Sun-God being
the supreme deity everywhere. With the Jews, the Moon is connected with
Israel's Jehovah and his seed, because Ur was the chief seat of the worship of
the Moon-god, and because Abraham is said to have come from Ur, when from
A-bra(h)m, he becomes Abraham.
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[[Vol.
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its
story has also its dual application. In one case it has reference to that mystery
when mankind was saved from utter destruction, by the mortal woman being made
the receptacle of the human seed at the end of the Third Race,* and in the
other to the real and historical Atlantean submersion. In both cases the
"Host" -- or the Manu which saved the seed -- is called Vaivasvata
Manu. Hence the diversity between the Puranic and other versions; while in the
Sathapatha Brahmana, Vaivasvata produces a daughter and begets from her the
race of Manu; which is a reference to the first human Manushyas, who had to
create women by will (Kriyasakti), before they were naturally born from the
hermaphrodites as an independent sex, and who were, therefore, regarded as
their creator's daughters. The Puranic accounts make of her (Ida or Ila) the
wife of Budha (Wisdom), the latter version referring to the events of the
Atlantean flood, when Vaivasvata, the great Sage on Earth, saved the Fifth
Root-race from being destroyed along with the remnants of the Fourth.
This
is shown very clearly in the Bhagavad Gita, where Krishna is made to say:--
"The
Seven great Rishis, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my essence, were
born from my mind: from them sprung (were born) the human races and the
world." (Chapter X., verse 6).
Here
the four preceding "Manus," out of the seven, are the four Races**
which have already lived, since Krishna belongs to the Fifth Race, his death
having inaugurated the Kali Yuga. Thus Vaivasvata
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
When Narada, the virgin-ascetic, threatened to put an end to the human race by
preventing Daksha's sons from procreating it.
**
This is corroborated by a learned Brahmin. In his most excellent lectures on
the Bhagavad Gita (see "Theosophist," April, 1887, p. 444) the
lecturer says: "There is a peculiarity to which I must call your
attention. He (Krishna) speaks here of four Manus. Why does he speak of four?
We are now in the seventh Manvantara, that of Vaivasvata. If he is speaking of
the past Manus, he ought to speak of six, but he only mentions four. In some
commentaries an attempt has been made to interpret this in a peculiar manner.
The word 'Chatvaraha' is separated from the word 'Manavaha,' and is made to
refer to Sanaka, Sanandana, Sanatkumara, and Sanatsujata, who are also included
among the mind-born sons of Prajapati. But this interpretation will lead to a
most absurd conclusion, and make the sentence contradict itself. The persons
alluded to in the text have a qualifying clause in the sentence. It is well
known that Sanaka and the other three refused to create, though the other sons
had consented to do so; therefore, in speaking of those persons from whom
humanity has sprung into existence, it would be absurd to include those four
also in the list. The passage must be interpreted without splitting the
compound into two nouns. The number of Manus will then be four, and the
statement would then contradict the Puranic account, though it would be in
harmony with the occult theory. You will recollect that it is stated (in
Occultism) that we are now in the Fifth Root-Race. Each Root-Race is considered
as the Santhathi of a particular Manu. Now, the Fourth Race has passed, or, in
other words, there have been four past Manus. . . . . "
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Manu,
the son of Surya (the Sun), and the saviour of our Race, is connected with the
Seed of Life, both physically and spiritually. But, at present, while speaking
of all, we have to concern ourselves only with the first two.
The
"Deluge" is undeniably an universal tradition. "Glacial
periods" were numerous, and so were the "Deluges," for various
reasons. Stockwell and Croll enumerate some half dozen Glacial Periods and
subsequent Deluges -- the earliest of all being dated by them 850,000, and the
last about 100,000, years ago.* But which was our Deluge? Assuredly the former,
the one which to this date remains recorded in the traditions of all the
peoples, from the remotest antiquity; the one that finally swept away the last
peninsulas of Atlantis, beginning with Ruta and Daitya and ending with the
(comparatively) small island mentioned by Plato. This is shown by the agreement
of certain details in all the legends. It was the last of its gigantic
character. The little deluge, the traces of which Baron Bunsen found in Central
Asia, and which he places at about 10,000 years B.C., had nothing to do with
either the semi-universal Deluge, or Noah's flood -- the latter being a purely
mythical rendering of old traditions -- nor even with the submersion of the
last Atlantean island; at least, only a moral connection.
Our
Fifth Race (the non-initiated portions), hearing of many deluges, confused
them, and now know of but one. This one altered the whole aspect of the globe
in its interchange and shifting of land and sea.
We
may compare the traditions of the Peruvians:-- "The Incas, seven in
number, have repeopled the Earth after the deluge," they say (Coste I,
IV., p. 19); Humboldt mentions the Mexican version of the same legend, but
confuses somewhat the details of the still-preserved legend concerning the
American Noah. Nevertheless, the eminent Naturalist mentions twice seven
companions and the divine bird which preceded the boat of the Aztecs, and thus
makes fifteen elect instead of the seven and the fourteen. This was written
probably under some involuntary reminiscence of Moses, who is said to have
mentioned fifteen grandsons of Noah, who escaped with their grandsire. Then again
Xisuthrus, the Chaldean Noah, is saved and translated alive to heaven -- like
Enoch -- with the seven gods, the Kabirim, or the seven divine Titans; again
the Chinese Yao has seven figures which sail with him and which he will animate
when he lands, and use for "human seed." Osiris, when he enters the
ark, or solar boat, takes seven Rays with him, etc., etc.
Sanchoniathon
makes the Aletae or Titans (the Kabirim) contemporary
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge," xviii.; "American
Journal of Science," III., xi., 456; and Croll's "Climate and
Time." Lemuria was not submerged by a flood, but was destroyed by volcanic
action, and afterwards sank.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 142 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
with
Agruerus, the great Phoenician god (whom Faber sought to identify with Noah*);
further, it is suspected that the name of "Titan" is derived from
Tit-Ain -- "the fountains of the chaotic abyss"** (Tit-Theus, or
Tityus is "the divine deluge"); and thus the Titans, who are seven,
are shown to be connected with the Flood and the seven Rishis saved by
Vaivasvata Manu.***
They
are the sons of Kronos (Time) and Rhea (the Earth); and as Agruerus, Saturn and
Sydyk are one and the same personage, and as the seven Kabiri are said to be
the sons of Sydyk or Kronos-Saturn, the Kabiri and Titans are identical. For
once the pious Faber was right in his conclusions when he wrote: "I have
no doubt of the seven Titans and Kabiri being the same as the seven Rishis of
the Hindu mythology (?), who are said to have escaped in a boat along with
Manu, the head (?) of the family."
But
he is less fortunate in his speculations when he adds "The Hindoos, in
their wild legends have variously perverted the history of the Noachidae (? !),
yet it is remarkable that they seem to have religiously adhered to the number
seven."**** Hence Captain (Col.) Wilford very judiciously observes: that
"Perhaps the seven Manus, the seven Brahmadicas and the seven Rishis are
the same, and make only seven individual persons.***** The seven Brahmadicas
were Prajapatis, or lords 'of the prajas or creatures.' From them mankind was
born, and they are probably the same with the seven Manus. . . . These seven
grand ancestors of the human race were created for the purpose of replenishing
the Earth with inhabitants." (Asiatic Researches, Vol. V. p. 246); and
Faber adds that: "the mutual resemblance of the Kabirs, the Titans, the
Rishis, and the Noetic family, is too striking to be the effect of mere
accident."******
Faber
was led into this mistake, and subsequently built his entire theory concerning
the Kabiri, on the fact that the name of the scriptural
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Agruerus is Kronos, or Saturn, and the prototype of the Israelitish Jehovah. As
connected with Argha, the Moon or Ark of salvation, Noah is mythologically one
with Saturn. But then this cannot relate to the terrestrial flood. (But see
Faber's "Kabiri," Vol. I, pp. 35, 43, and 45.)
**
See ibid., Vol. II., p. 240.
***
Sanchoniathon says that the Titans were the sons of Kronos, and seven in
number; and he calls them fire-worshippers, Aletae (sons of Agni?), and
diluvians. Al-ait is the god of fire.
****
Of which seven, let us remark, the Aryans, and not the Semites, were the
originators, while the Jews got that number from the Chaldeans.
*****
Seven individual sons of God, or Pitars and Pitris; also in this case the sons
of Kronos or Saturn (Kala "time") and Arkites, like the Kabiri and
Titans, as their name -- "lunar ancestors" -- shows, the Moon being
the Ark, or Argha, on the watery abyss of space.
******
See "Kabiri," Vol. I., p. 131.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 143 THE ARKITE SYMBOLS.
Japhet
is on the list of the Titans contained in a verse of the Orphic hymns.
According to Orpheus the names of the seven "Arkite" Titans (whom
Faber refuses to identify with the impious Titans, their descendants) were
Koeus, Kroeus, Phorcys, Kronos, Oceanus, Hyperion, and Iapetus:--
[[Koion
te, Kroion te melan, Phorkun te krataion,
Kai
Kronon, Okeanon d, 'Huperioa te Iapeponet.]]
--
(Orph. apud Proclum. In Tim. lib. v. p. 295.
But
why could not the Babylonian Ezra have adopted the name of Iapetos for one of
Noah's sons? The Kabiri, who are the Titans, are also called Manes and their
mother Mania, according to Arnobius. (Adversum Gentes, lib. III., p. 124.) The
Hindus can therefore claim with far more reason that the Manes mean their
Manus, and that Mania is the female Manu. (See Ramayana.) Mania is Ila or Ida,
the wife and daughter of Vaivasvata Manu, from whom "he begat the race of
Manus." Like Rhea, the mother of the Titans, she is the Earth (Sayana
making her the goddess of the Earth), and she is but the second edition and
repetition of Vach. Both Ida and Vach are turned into males and females; Ida
becoming Sudyumna, and Vach, "the female Viraj," turning into a woman
in order to punish the Gandharvas; one version referring to cosmic and divine
theogony, the other to the later period. The Manes and Mania of Arnobius are
names of Indian origin, appropriated by the Greeks and Latins and disfigured by
them.
Thus
it is no accident, but the result of one archaic doctrine common to all, of
which the Israelites, through Ezra, the author of the modernised Mosaic books,
were the latest adapters. So unceremonious were they with other people's
property, that Berosus (Antiquitates Libyae, I, fol. 8), shows that Titea -- of
whom Diodorus makes the mother of the Titans or Diluvians (See Bibl. lib. III.
p. 170) -- was the wife of Noah. For this Faber calls him the
"pseudo-Berosus," yet accepts the information in order to register
one proof more that the pagans have borrowed all their gods from the Jews, by
transforming patriarchal material. According to our humble opinion, this is one
of the best proofs possible of exactly the reverse. It shows as clearly as
facts can show, that it is the Biblical pseudo-personages which are all
borrowed from pagan myths, if myths they must be. It shows, at any rate, that
Berosus was well aware of the source of Genesis, and that it bore the same
cosmic astronomical character as the allegories of Isis-Osiris, and the Ark,
and other older "Arkite" symbols. For, Berosus says that "Titea
magna" was afterwards called Aretia,* and worshipped with the Earth; and
this
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Aretia is the female form of Artes (Egyptian Mars). Thence the Chaldean (and
now Hebrew) word [[hebrew]] (Aretz) "Earth." The author of
"Beitrage zur Kenntniss" (Art. under "Artes" Mars) quotes:
"Addit Cedrenus (Salem I., 3): Stella Martis ab [[Footnote continued on
next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 144 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
identifies
"Titea," Noah's consort, with Rhea, the mother of the Titans, and
with Ida -- both being goddesses who preside over the Earth, and the mothers of
the Manus and Manes (or Tit-an-Kabiri). And "Titea-Aretia" was
worshipped as Horchia, says the same Berosus, and this is a title of Vesta,
goddess of the Earth. "Sicanus deificavit Aretiam, et nominavit eam lingua
Janigena Horchiam." (Ibid. lib. V. fol. 64.)
Scarce
an ancient poet of historic or prehistoric days who failed to mention the
sinking of the two continents -- often called isles -- in one form or another.
Hence the destruction, besides Atlantis, of the Phlegyae. (See Pausanias and
Nonus, who both tell how:
"From
its deep-rooted base the Phlegyan isle
Stern
Neptune shook, and plunged beneath the waves
Its
impious inhabitants. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."
--
Dionysius lib xviii. p. 319).
Faber
felt convinced that the "insulae Phlegyae" were Atlantis. But all
such allegories are more or less distorted echoes of the Hindu tradition about
that great Cataclysm, which befell the Fourth, really human, though gigantic,
Race, the one which preceded the Aryan. Yet, as just said, like all other
legends, that of "the Deluge has more than one meaning. It refers in
Theogony, to pre-cosmic transformations, to spiritual correlations -- however
absurd the term may sound to a scientific ear -- and also to subsequent Cosmogony;
to the great FLOOD of WATERS (matter) in CHAOS, awakened and fructified by
those Spirit-Rays which were swamped by, and perished in, the mysterious
differentiation -- a pre-cosmic mystery, the Prologue to the drama of Being.
Anu, Bel, and Noah preceded Adam Kadmon, Adam the Red, and Noah; just as
Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva preceded Vaivasvata and the rest." (See
"Isis Unveiled.," Vol. II., pp. 420 et seq., where one or two of the
seven meanings are hinted at.)
All
this goes to show that the semi-universal deluge known to geology (first
glacial period) must have occurred just at the time allotted to it by the
Secret Doctrine: namely, 200,000 years (in round numbers) after the
commencement of our FIFTH RACE, or about the time assigned by Messrs. Croll and
Stockwell for the first glacial period: i.e., about 850,000 years ago. Thus, as
the latter disturbance is attributed by geologists and astronomers to "an
extreme eccentricity of the Earth's
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Egyptiis vocatur Ertosi (plantare, generare).
Significat autem hoc omnis generis procreationem et vivificationem, omnisque
substantiae et materiae naturam et vim ordinantem atque procreantem." It
is Earth as "source of being"; or, as explained by the author of
"The Source of Measures," Arts is the same in Hebrew and Egyptian,
and both combine the primeval idea of Earth as source; precisely as in the
Hebrew itself, under another form, Adam and Madim, (Mars) are the same, and
combine the idea of Earth with Adam under the form of H-Adam-H.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 145 THE JEWISH NOAH AND THE CHALDEAN NUAH.
orbit,"
and as the Secret Doctrine attributes it to the same source, but with the
addition of another factor, the shifting of the Earth's axis -- a proof of
which may be found in the Book of Enoch,* if the veiled language of the Puranas
is not understood -- all this should tend to show that the ancients knew
something of the "modern discoveries" of Science. Enoch, when
speaking of "the great inclination of the Earth," which "is in
travail," is quite significant and clear.
Is
not this evident? Nuah is Noah, floating on the waters in his ark; the latter being
the emblem of the Argha, or Moon, the feminine principle; Noah is the
"spirit" falling into matter. We find him, as soon as he descends
upon the Earth, planting a vineyard, drinking of the wine, and getting drunk on
it, i.e., the pure spirit becomes intoxicated as soon as it is finally
imprisoned in matter. The seventh chapter of Genesis is only another version of
the First. Thus, while the latter reads: "and darkness was upon the face
of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters," in
ch. 7 it is said " . . . and the waters prevailed . . . and the ark went
(with Noah, the spirit) upon the face of the waters." Thus Noah, if
identical with the Chaldean Nuah, is the spirit vivifying matter, which latter
is Chaos, represented by the DEEP, or the Waters of the Flood. In the
Babylonian legend (the pre-cosmical blended with the terrestrial event) it is
Ishtar (Astaroth or Venus, the lunar goddess) who is shut up in the ark and
sends out "a dove in search of dry land." ("Isis Unveiled"
Vol. II, pp. 423 and 424).
George
Smith notes in the "Tablets," first the creation of the moon, and
then that of the sun: "Its beauty and perfection are extolled, and the
regularity of its orbit, which led to its being considered the type of a judge
and the regulator of the world." If this story related simply to a
cosmogonical cataclysm -- even were this latter universal -- why should the
goddess Ishtar or Astoreth, the Moon, speak of the creation of the sun after
the deluge? The waters might have reached as high as the mountain of Nizir
(Chaldean version), or Jebel Djudi (the deluge mountains of the Arabian
legend), or yet Ararat (of the Biblical narrative), and even the Himalaya (of
the Hindu tradition), and yet not reach the sun: the Bible itself stopped short
of such a miracle! It is evident that the deluge of the people who first
recorded it had another meaning, less problematical and far more philosophical
than that of an universal deluge, of which there are no geological traces
whatever.
As
all such Cataclysms are periodical and cyclical, and as Manu Vaivasvata figures
as a generic character, under various circumstances and events (vide infra:
"The Seven Manus of Humanity"), there seems to be no
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Chap. lxiv., Sect. xi.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 146 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
serious
objection to the supposition that the first "great flood" had an
allegorical, as well as a cosmic meaning, and that it happened at the end of
the Satya Yuga, the "age of Truth," when the Second Root Race,
"The Manu with bones," made its primeval appearance as "the
Sweat-Born."*
The
Second Flood -- the so-called "universal" -- which affected the Fourth
Root Race (now conveniently regarded by theology as "the accursed race of
giants," the CAINITES, and "the sons of Ham") is that flood
which was first perceived by geology. If one carefully compares the accounts in
the various legends of the Chaldees and other exoteric works of the nations, it
will be found that all of them agree with the orthodox narratives given in the
Brahmanical books. And it may be perceived that while, in the first account,
"there is no God or mortal yet on Earth," when Manu Vaivasvata lands
on the Himavan; in the second, the Seven Rishis are allowed to keep him
company: thus showing that whereas some accounts refer to the sidereal and
cosmic FLOOD before the so-called creation, the others treat, one of the Great
Flood of Matter on Earth, and the other of a real watery deluge. In the
Satapatha Brahmana, Manu finds that "the Flood had swept away all living
creatures, and he alone was left" -- i.e., the seed of life alone remained
from the previous dissolution of the Universe, or Mahapralaya, after a
"Day of Brahma"; and the Mahabharata refers simply to the geological
cataclysm which swept away nearly all the Fourth Race to make room for the
Fifth. Therefore is Vaivasvata Manu shown under three distinct attributes in
our esoteric Cosmogony:** (a) as the "Root-Manu"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
All such expressions are explained in the "Anthropogenesis" of this
Book, and elsewhere.
**
One has to remember that, in the Hindu philosophy, every differentiated unit is
such only through the cycles of Maya, being one in its essence with the Supreme
or One Spirit. Hence arises the seeming confusion and contradiction in the
various Puranas, and at times in the same Purana, about the same individual.
Vishnu -- as the many-formed Brahma, and as Brahma (neuter) -- is one, and yet
he is said to be all the 28 Vyasas (Vishnu Purana). "In every Dvapara
(third) age, Vishnu, in the person of Vyasa, divides the Veda, which is one,
into four and many portions. Twenty-eight times have the Vedas been arranged by
the great Rishis in the Vaivasvata Manvantara, in the Dvapara Yuga . . . and,
consequently, twenty-eight Vyasas have passed away . . . they who were all in
the form of Veda-Vyasas, who were the Vyasas of their respective eras. . . .
" (Book III., Ch. III.) "This world is Brahma in Brahma, from Brahma
. . . nothing further to be known." Then, again . . . "There were in
the First Manvantara seven celebrated sons of Vasishta, who in the Third Manvantara,
were sons of Brahma (i.e., Rishis), the illustrious progeny of Urja." This
is plain: the Humanity of the First Manvantara is that of the seventh and of
all the intermediate ones. The mankind of the First Root-Race is the mankind of
the second, third, fourth, fifth, etc. To the last it forms a cyclic and
constant reincarnation of the Monads belonging to the Dhyan Chohans of our
Planetary chain.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 147 AGREEMENT OF DATES.
on
Globe A in the First Round; (b) as the "seed of life" on Globe D in
the Fourth Round; and (c) as the "Seed of Man" at the beginning of
every Root-Race -- in our Fifth Race especially. The very commencement of the
latter witnesses, during the Dvapara Yuga,* the destruction of the accursed
sorcerers; "of that island (Plato speaking only of its last island) beyond
the Pillars of Hercules, in the Atlantic Ocean, from which there was an easy
transition to other islands in the neighbourhood of another large Continent"
(America). It is this "Atlantic" land which was connected with the
"White Island," and this White Island was Ruta; but it was not the
Atala and the "White Devil" of Colonel Wilford (see "Asiatic
Researches," Vol. VIII., p. 280), as already shown. It may well be
remarked here that the Dvapara Yuga lasts 864,000 years, according to the
Sanskrit texts; and that, if the Kali Yuga began only about 5,000 years ago,
that it is just 869,000 since that destruction took place. Again, these figures
are not very widely different from those given by the geologists, who place
their "glacial period" 850,000 years ago.
Then
"a woman was produced who came to Manu and declared herself his daughter,
with whom he lived and begat the offspring of Manu." This refers to the physiological
transformation of sexes during the Third Root-Race. And the allegory is too
transparently clear to need much explanation. Of course, as already remarked,
in the separation of sexes an androgyne being was supposed to divide his body
into two halves (as in the case of Brahma and Vach, and even of Adam and Eve),
and thus the female is, in a certain sense, his daughter, just as he will be
her son, "the flesh of his (and her) flesh and the bone of his (and her)
bone." Let it be also well remembered that not one of our Orientalists
have yet learned to discern in those "contradictions and amazing
nonsense," as some call the Puranas, that a reference to a Yuga may mean a
Round, a Root-Race, and often a Sub-Race, as well as form a page torn out of
pre-cosmic theogony. This double and triple meaning is proved by various
references to one and the same individual apparently, under an identical name,
while it refers, in fact, to events divided by entire Kalpas. A good instance
is that of Ila. She is first represented as one thing and then as another. In
the exoteric legends it is said that Manu Vaivasvata, desiring to create sons,
instituted a sacrifice to Mitra and Varuna; but, through a mistake of the
officiating
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Dvapara Yuga differs for each Race. All races have their own cycles, which
fact causes a great difference. For instance, the Fourth Sub-Race of the
Atlanteans was in its Kali-Yug, when destroyed, whereas the Fifth was in its Satya
or Krita Yuga. The Aryan Race is now in its Kali Yuga, and will continue to be
in it for 427,000 years longer, while various "family Races," called
the Semitic, Hamitic, etc., are in their own special cycles. The forthcoming
6th Sub Race -- which may begin very soon -- will be in its Satya (golden) age
while we reap the fruit of our iniquity in our Kali Yuga.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 148 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Brahman,
a daughter only was obtained -- Ila. Then, "through the favour of the
gods," her sex is changed and she becomes a man, Su-dyumna. Then she is
again turned into a woman, and so on; the fable adding that Siva and his
consort were pleased that "she would be male one month and female
another." This has a direct reference to the Third Root-Race, whose men
were androgynes. But some very learned Orientalists think (see "Hindu
Classical Dictionary") and have declared that "Ila was primarily
food, nourishment, or a libation of milk; thence a stream of praise,
personified as the goddess of speech." The "profane" are not
told, however, the reason why "a libation of milk," or "a stream
of praise," should be male and female by turn: unless, indeed there is
some "internal evidence" which the occultists fail to perceive.
In
their most mystical meanings, the union of Swayambhuva Manu with
Vach-Sata-Rupa, his own daughter (this being the first
"euhemerization" of the dual principle of which Vaivasvata Manu and
Ila are a secondary and a third form), stands in Cosmic symbolism as the
Root-life, the germ from which spring all the Solar Systems, the worlds, angels
and the gods. For, as says Vishnu:--
"From
Manu all creation, gods, Asuras, man must be produced,
By
him the world must be created, that which moves and moveth not. . . . ."
But
we may find worse opponents than even the Western Scientists and Orientalists.
If, on the question of figures, Brahmins may agree with our teaching, we are
not so sure that some of them, orthodox conservatives, may not raise objections
to the modes of procreation attributed to their Pitar Devatas. We shall be
called upon to produce the works from which we quote, while they will be
invited by us to read their own Puranas a little more carefully and with an eye
to the esoteric meaning. And then, we repeat again, they will find, under the
veil of more or less transparent allegories, every statement made herein
corroborated by their own works. One or two instances have already been given
as regards the appearance of the Second Race, which is called the
"Sweat-Born." This allegory is regarded as a fairy-tale, and yet it
conceals a psycho-physiological phenomenon, and one of the greatest mysteries
of Nature.
But
in view of the chronological statements made herein, it is natural to ask:--
COULD
MEN EXIST 18,000,000 YEARS AGO?
To
this Occultism answers in the affirmative, notwithstanding all scientific
objectors. Moreover, this duration covers only the Vaivasvata-Manu Man, i.e.,
the male and female entity already separated into
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 149 HOW OLD IS HUMANITY?
distinct
sexes. The two and a half Races that preceded that event may have lived
300,000,000 years ago for all that science can tell. For the geological and
physical difficulties in the way of the theory could not exist for the
primeval, ethereal man of the Occult teachings. The whole issue of the quarrel
between the profane and the esoteric sciences depends upon the belief in, and demonstration
of, the existence of an astral body within the physical, the former independent
of the latter. Paul d'Assier, the Positivist, seems to have proven the fact
pretty plainly,* not to speak of the accumulated testimony of the ages, and
that of the modern spiritualists and mystics. It will be found difficult to
reject this fact in our age of proofs, tests, and ocular demonstrations.
The
Secret Doctrine maintains that, notwithstanding the general cataclysms and disturbances
of our globe, which -- owing to its being the period of its greatest physical
development, for the Fourth Round is the middle-point of the life allotted to
it -- were far more terrible and intense than during any of the three preceding
Rounds (the cycles of its earlier psychic and spiritual life and of its
semi-ethereal conditions) physical Humanity has existed upon it for the last
18,000,000 years.** This period was preceded by 300,000,000 years of the
mineral and vegetable development. To this, all those who refuse to accept the
theory of a "boneless," purely ethereal, man, will object. Science,
which knows only of physical organisms, will feel indignant; and materialistic
theology still more so. The first will object on logical and reasonable
grounds, based on the preconception that all animate organisms have always
existed on the same plane of materiality in all the ages; the last on a tissue
of most absurd fictions. The ridiculous claim usually brought forward by
theologians, is based on the virtual assumption that mankind (read Christians)
on this planet have the honour of being the only human beings in the whole
Kosmos, who dwell on a globe, and that they are consequently, the best of their
kind.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Posthumous Humanity" -- translated by H. S. Olcott, London, 1887.
**
Professor Newcomb says: "The heat evolved by contraction would last only
18,000,000 years" ("Popular Astronomy," p. 500); but "a
temperature permitting the existence of water could not be reached earlier than
10,000,000 years ago" (Winchell's "World-Life," p. 356). But Sir
W. Thomson says that the whole age of the incrustation of the Earth is
18,000,000 years, though, this year, he has again altered his opinion and
allows only 15,000,000 years as the age of the Sun. As will be shown in the
Addenda, the divergence of scientific opinions is so great that no reliance can
ever be placed upon scientific speculation.
***
The essay on "The Plurality of Worlds" (1853) -- an anonymous work,
yet well known to have been the production of Dr. Whewell -- is a good proof of
this. No Christian ought to believe in either the plurality of worlds or the
geological age of the globe, argues the Author; because, if it is asserted that
this world is only one among the many of its kind, which are all the work of
God, as it is itself; that all are the seat [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 150 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
Occultists, who believe firmly in the teachings of the mother-philosophy, repel
the objections of both theologians and scientists. They maintain, on their
side, that, during those periods when there must have been insufferable heat,
even at the two poles, successive floods, upheaval of the valleys and constant
shifting of the great waters and seas, none of these circumstances could form
an impediment to human life and organization, such as is assigned by them to
the early mankind. Neither the heterogeneity of ambient regions, full of
deleterious gases, nor the perils of a crust hardly consolidated, could prevent
the First and Second Races from making their appearance even during the
Carboniferous, or the Silurian age itself.
Thus
the Monads destined to animate future Races were ready for the new
transformation. They had passed their phases of immetalization, of plant and
animal life, from the lowest to the highest, and were waiting for their human,
more intelligent form. Yet, what could the plastic modellers do but follow the
laws of evolutionary Nature? Could they, as claimed by the Biblical
dead-letter, form "Lord-God"-like, or as Pygmalion in the Greek
allegory, Adam-Galatea out of volcanic dust, and breathe a living soul into Man?
No: because the soul was already there, latent in its Monad, and needed but a
coating. Pygmalion, who fails to animate his statue, and Bahak-Zivo of the
Nazarean Gnostics, who fails to construct "a human soul in the
creature," are, as conceptions, far more philosophical and scientific than
Adam, taken in the dead-letter sense, or the Biblical Elohim-Creators. Esoteric
philosophy, which teaches spontaneous generation -- after the Sishta and
Prajapati have thrown the seed of life on the Earth -- shows the lower angels
able to construct physical man only, even with the help of Nature, after having
evolved the ethereal form out of themselves, and leaving the physical form to
evolve gradually from its ethereal, or what would now be called, protoplasmic
model.
This
will again be objected to: "Spontaneous Generation" is an exploded
theory, we shall be told. Pasteur's experiments disposed of it twenty years
ago, and Professor Tyndall is against it. Well, suppose he is? He ought to know
that, should spontaneous generation
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of life, all the realm and dwelling of
intelligent creatures endowed with will, subject to law and capable of
free-will; then, it would become extravagant to think that our world should
have been the subject of God's favours and His special interference, of His
communications and His personal visit. . . . . . . Can the Earth presume to be
considered the centre of the moral and religious Universe, he asks, if it has
not the slightest distinction to rely upon in the physical Universe? Is it not
as absurd to uphold such an assertion (of the plurality of inhabited worlds),
as it would be to-day to uphold the old hypothesis of Ptolemy, who placed Earth
in the centre of our system? . . . The above is quoted from memory, yet almost
textually. The author fails to see that he is bursting his own soap-bubble with
such a defence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 151 SPONTANEOUS GENERATION.
be
indeed proven impossible in our present world-period and actual conditions --
which the Occultists deny -- still it would be no demonstration that it could
not have taken place under different cosmic conditions, not only in the seas of
the Laurentian period, but even on the then convulsed Earth. It would be
interesting to know how Science could ever account for the appearance of
species and life on Earth, especially of Man, once that she rejects both the Biblical
teachings and spontaneous generation. Pasteur's observations, however, are far
from being perfect or proven. Blanchard and Dr. Lutaud reject their importance
and show that they have none. The question is so far left sub judice, as well
as that other one "when, at what period, life appeared on the Earth?"
As to the idea that Haeckel's Moneron -- a pinch of salt! -- has solved the
problem of the origin of life, it is simply absurd. Those materialists, who
feel inclined to pooh-pooh the theory of the "Self-existent," the
"Self-born heavenly man," represented as an ethereal, astral man,
must excuse even a tyro in Occultism laughing, in his turn, at some
speculations of modern thought. After proving most learnedly that the primitive
speck of protoplasm (moneron) is neither animal nor plant, but both, and that
it has no ancestors among either of these, since it is that moneron which
serves as a point of departure for all organized existence, we are finally told
that the Monera are their own ancestors. This may be very scientific, but it is
very metaphysical also; too much so, even for the Occultist.
If
spontaneous generation has changed its methods now, owing perhaps to
accumulated material on hand, so as to almost escape detection, it was in full
swing in the genesis of terrestrial life. Even the simple physical form and the
evolution of species show how Nature proceeds. The scale-bound, gigantic
sauria, the winged pterodactyl, the Megalosaurus, and the hundred-feet long
Iguanodon of the later period, are the transformations of the earliest
representatives of the animal kingdom found in the sediments of the primary
epoch. There was a time when all those above enumerated
"antediluvian" monsters appeared as filamentoid infusoria without
shell or crust, with neither nerves, muscles, organs nor sex, and reproduced
their kind by gemmation: as do microscopical animals also, the architects and
builders of our mountain ranges, agreeably to the teachings of science. Why not
man in this case? Why should he not have followed the same law in his growth,
i.e., gradual condensation? Every unprejudiced person would prefer to believe
that primeval humanity had at first an ethereal -- or, if so preferred, a huge
filamentoid, jelly-like form, evolved by gods or natural "forces," which
grew, condensed throughout millions of ages, and became gigantic in its
physical impulse and tendency, until it settled into the huge, physical form of
the Fourth Race Man, -- rather
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 152 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
than
believe him created of the dust of the Earth (literally), or from some unknown
anthropoid ancestor.
Nor
does our esoteric theory clash with scientific data, except on first
appearance, as Dr. A. Wilson, F.R.S., says, in a letter to
"Knowledge," (Dec. 23, 1881). "Evolution -- rather Nature, in
the light of evolution -- has only been studied for some twenty-five years or so.
That is, of course, a mere fractional space in the history of human
thought." And just because of that we do not lose all hope that
materialistic science will amend its ways, and will gradually accept the
esoteric teachings -- if even at first divorced from their (to science) too
metaphysical elements.
Has
the last word on the subject of human evolution yet been said? "Each . . .
. answer to the great Question (Man's Real Place in Nature), invariably
asserted by the followers of its propounder, if not by himself, to be complete
and final, remains in high authority and esteem, it may be for one century, it
may be for twenty," writes Prof. Huxley; "but, as invariably, time
proves each reply to have been a mere approximation to the truth -- tolerable
chiefly on account of the ignorance of those by whom it was accepted, and
wholly intolerable when tested by the larger knowledge of their
successors"! ! Will this eminent Darwinian admit the possibility of his
pithecoid ancestry being assignable to the list of "wholly intolerable
beliefs," in the "larger knowledge" of Occultists? But whence
the savage? Mere "rising to the civilized state" does not account for
the evolution of form.
In
the same letter, "The Evolution of Man," Dr. Wilson makes other
strange confessions. Thus, he observes, in answer to the queries put to
"Knowledge" by "G. M.":--
"
'Has evolution effected any change in man? If so, what change? If not, why
not?' . . . If we refuse to admit (as science does) that man was created a
perfect being, and then became degraded, there exists only another supposition
-- that of evolution. If man has arisen from a savage to a civilized state,
that surely is evolution. We do not yet know, because such knowledge is
difficult to acquire, if the human frame is subject to the same influences as
those of lower animals. But there is little doubt that elevation from savagery
to civilized life means and implies 'evolution,' and that of considerable
extent. Mentally, man's evolution cannot be doubted; the ever-widening sphere
of thought has sprung from small and rude beginnings, like language itself. But
man's ways of life, his power of adaptation to his surroundings, and countless
other circumstances, have made the facts and course of his 'evolution' very
difficult to trace."
This
very difficulty ought to make the Evolutionists more cautious in their
affirmations. But why is evolution impossible, if "man was created a
perfect being, and then became degraded?" At best it can only apply
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 153 ARISTOTLE DENIED HELIOCENTRICISM.
to
the outward, physical man. As remarked in "Isis Unveiled," Darwin's
evolution begins at the middle point, instead of commencing for man, as for
everything else, from the universals. The Aristotle-Baconian method may have
its advantages, but it has undeniably already demonstrated its defects.
Pythagoras and Plato, who proceeded from the Universals downwards, are now
shown more learned, in the light of modern science, than was Aristotle. For he
opposed and denounced the idea of the revolution of the earth and even of its
rotundity. "Almost all those," he wrote, "who affirm that they
have studied heaven in its uniformity, claim that the earth is in the centre,
but the philosophers of the Italian School, otherwise called the Pythagoreans,
teach entirely the contrary. . . ." Because (a) the Pythagoreans were
Initiates, and (b) they followed the deductive method. Whereas, Aristotle, the
father of the inductive system, complained of those who taught that "the
centre of our system was occupied by the Sun, and the earth was only a star,
which by a rotatory motion around the same centre, produces night and day"
(Vide De Caelo, Book II., c. 13.) The same with regard to man. The theory
taught in the Secret Doctrine, and now expounded, is the only one, which can --
without falling into the absurdity of a "miraculous" man created out
of the dust of the Earth, or the still greater fallacy of man evolving from a
pinch of lime-salt, (the ex-protoplasmic moneron) -- account for his appearance
on Earth.
Analogy
is the guiding law in Nature, the only true Ariadne's thread that can lead us,
through the inextricable paths of her domain, toward her primal and final
mysteries. Nature, as a creative potency, is infinite, and no generation of
physical scientists can ever boast of having exhausted the list of her ways and
methods, however uniform the laws upon which she proceeds. If we can conceive
of a ball of Fire-mist becoming gradually -- as it rolls through aeons of time
in the interstellar spaces -- a planet, a self-luminous globe, to settle into a
man-bearing world or Earth, thus having passed from a soft plastic body into a
rock-bound globe; and if we see on it everything evolving from the non-nucleated
jelly-speck that becomes the sarcode* of the moneron, then passes from its
protistic state** into the form of an animal, to grow into a gigantic reptilian
monster of the Mesozoic times; then dwindles again into the (comparatively)
dwarfish crocodile, now confined solely to tropical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Or what is more generally known as Protoplasm. This substance received its name
of "Sarcode" from Prof. Dujardin Beaumetz far earlier.
**
The Monera are indeed Protista. They are neither animals "nor
plants," writes Haeckel; " . . . the whole body of the Moneron
represents nothing more than a single thoroughly homogeneous particle of
albumen in a firmly adhesive condition." ("Journal of Microscopical
Science," Jan., 1869, p. 28.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 154 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
regions,
and the universally common lizard* -- how can man alone escape the general law?
"There were giants on earth in those days," says Genesis, repeating
the statement of all the other Eastern Scriptures; and the Titans are founded
on anthropological and physiological fact.
And,
as the hard-shelled crustacean was once upon a time a jelly-speck, "a
thoroughly homogeneous particle of albumen in a firmly adhesive
condition," so was the outward covering of primitive man, his early
"coat of skin," plus an immortal spiritual monad, and a psychic
temporary form and body within that shell. The modern, hard, muscular man
almost impervious to any climate, was, perhaps, some 25,000,000 years ago, just
what the Haeckelian Moneron is, strictly "an organism without
organs," an entirely homogeneous substance with a structureless albumen
body within, and a human form only outwardly.
No
man of science has the right, in this century, to find the figures of the
Brahmins preposterous in the question of Chronology; for their own calculations
often exceed by far the claims made by esoteric science. This may easily be
shown.
Helmholtz
calculated that the cooling of our Earth from a temperature of 2,000
[[degrees]] to 200' Cent. must have occupied a period of no less than
350,000,000 years. Western science (including geology) seems generally to allow
our globe an age of about 500,000,000 years altogether. Sir W. Thomson,
however, limits the appearance of the earliest vegetable life to 100,000,000
years ago -- a statement respectfully contradicted by the archaic records.
Speculations, furthermore, vary daily in the domains of science. Meanwhile,
some geologists are very much opposed to such limitation. "Volger . . . .
calculates, that the time requisite for the deposit of the strata known to us
must at least have amounted to 648 millions of years . . . . " Both time
and space are infinite and eternal. "The Earth, as a material existence,
is indeed infinite; the changes only which it has undergone can be determined
by finite periods of time" (Burmeister). "We must therefore assume
that the starry heaven is not merely in space, what no astronomer doubts, but
also in time, without beginning or end; that it never was created, and is
imperishable." (See Czolbe).**
Czolbe
repeats exactly what the Occultists say. But the Aryan Occultists, we may be
told, knew nothing of these later speculations. "They were even ignorant
of the globular form of our earth."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Behold the Iguanodon of the Mesozoic ages -- the monster 100 feet long -- now
transformed into the small Iguana lizard of South America. Popular traditions
about giants in days of old, and their mention in every mythology, including
the Bible, may some day be shown to be founded on fact. In nature, the logic of
analogy alone ought to make us accept these traditions as scientific verities.
**
"Force and Matter"; by L. Buchner, edited by J. F. Collingwood,
F.R.S.L., p. 61.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 155 THE SOLAR SYSTEM IN THE PURANAS.
(Coleman.)
To this the Vishnu Purana contains a reply, which has forced certain
Orientalists to open their eyes very widely.
.
. . "The Sun is stationed, for all time, in the middle of the day, and
over against midnight, in all the Dwipas (continents), Maitreya! But the rising
and the setting of the Sun being perpetually opposite to each other -- and in
the same way, all the cardinal points, and so the cross-points, Maitreya;
people speak of the rising of the Sun where they see it; and where the Sun
disappears, there, to them, is his setting. Of the Sun, which is always in one
and the same place, there is neither setting nor rising, for what is called
rising and setting are only the seeing and the not seeing the Sun."
(Vishnu Purana, Book IL, ch. viii.)
To
this Fitzedward Hall remarks, "The Heliocentricism taught in this passage
is remarkable. It is contradicted, however, a little further on."
Contradicted purposely, because it was a secret temple-teaching. Martin Haug
remarked the same teaching in another passage. It is useless to calumniate the
Aryans any longer.
To
return to the Chronology of the geologists and anthropologists. We are afraid
Science has no reasonable grounds on which she could oppose the views of the
Occultists in this direction. Except that "of man, the highest organic
being of creation, not a trace was found in the primary strata; only in the
uppermost, the so-called alluvial layer," is all that can be urged, so
far. That man was not the last member in the mammalian family, but the first in
this Round, is something that science will be forced to acknowledge one day. A
similar view also has already been mooted in France on very high authority.
That
man can be shown to have lived in the mid-Tertiary period, and in a geological age
when there did not yet exist one single specimen of the now known species of
mammals, is a statement that science cannot deny and which has now been proven
by de Quatrefages.* But even supposing his existence in the Eocene period is
not yet demonstrated, what period of time has elapsed since the Cretaceous
period? We are aware of the fact that only the boldest geologists dare to place
man further back than the Miocene age. But how long, we ask, is the duration of
those ages and periods since the Mesozoic time? On this, after a good deal of
speculation and wrangling, science is silent, the greatest authorities upon the
subject being compelled to answer to the question: "We do not know."
This ought to show that the men of science are no greater authorities in this
matter than are the profane. If, according to Prof. Huxley, "the time
represented by the coal formation would be six millions of years,** how many
more millions would be required to cover
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Introduction a l'Etude des Races Humaines."
**
"Modern Science and Modern Thought," by S. Laing, p. 32.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 156 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
time from the Jurassic period, or the middle of the so-called
"Reptilian" age (when the Third Race appeared), up to the Miocene,
when the bulk of the Fourth Race was submerged?*
The
writer is well aware that those specialists, whose computations of the ages of
the globe and man are the most liberal, always had the shyer majority against
them. But this proves very little, since the majority rarely, if ever, turns
out to be right in the long run. Harvey stood alone for many years. The
advocates for crossing the Atlantic with steamers were in danger of ending
their days in a lunatic asylum. Mesmer is classed to this day (in the
Encyclopaedias) along with Cagliostro, and St. Germain, as a charlatan and
impostor. And now that Messrs. Charcot and Richet have vindicated Mesmer's claims,
and that "Mesmerism" under its new name of Hypnotism -- a false nose
on a very old face -- is accepted by science, it does not strengthen one's
respect for that majority, when one sees the ease and unconcern with which its
members treat of "Hypnotism," "Telepathic Impacts," and its
other phenomena. They speak of it, in short, as if they had believed in it
since the days of Solomon, and had never called its votaries, only a few years
ago, "lunatics and impostors!"**
The
same revulsion of thought is in store for the long period of years, claimed by
esoteric philosophy as the age of sexual and physiological mankind. Therefore
even the Stanza which says:--
"The
mind-born, the boneless, gave being to the will-born with bones"; adding
that this took place in the middle of the Third Race 18,000,000 years ago --
has yet a chance of being accepted by future scientists.
As
far as XIXth century thought is concerned, we shall be told, even by some
personal friends who are imbued with an abnormal respect for the shifting
conclusions of science, that such a statement is absurd. How much more
improbable will appear our further assertion, to the effect that the antiquity
of the First Race dates back millions of years beyond this again. For, although
the exact figures are withheld, and it is out of the question to refer the
incipient evolution of the primeval Divine
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Esoteric Buddhism," p. 70.
**
The same fate is in store for spiritualistic phenomena and all the other
psychological manifestations of the inner Man. Since the days of Hume, whose
researches culminated in a nihilistic idealism, Psychology has gradually
shifted its position to one of crass materialism. Hume is regarded as a
psychologist, and yet he denied a priori the possibility of phenomena in which
millions now believe, including many men of science. The Hylo-idealists of
to-day are rank Annihilationists. The schools of Spencer and Bain are
respectively positivist and materialist, and not metaphysical at all. It is
psychism and not psychology; it reminds one as little of the Vedantic teaching
as the pessimism of Schopenhauer and von Hartmann recalls the esoteric
philosophy, the heart and soul of true Buddhism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 157 THE SLEIGHT-OF-HAND OF SCIENCE.
Races
with certainty to either the early Secondary, or the Primary ages of geology, one
thing is clear: that the figures 18,000,000 of years, which embrace the
duration of sexual, physical, man, have to be enormously increased if the whole
process of spiritual, astral and physical development is taken into account.
Many geologists, indeed, consider that the duration of the Quaternary and
Tertiary Ages demands the concession of such an estimate; and it is quite
certain that no terrestrial conditions whatever negative the hypothesis of an
Eocene Man, if evidence for his reality is forthcoming. Occultists, who
maintain that the above date carries us far back into the secondary or
"Reptilian" age, may refer to M. de Quatrefages in support of the
possible existence of man in that remote antiquity. But with regard to the
earliest Root-Races the case is very different. If the thick agglomeration of
vapours, charged with carbonic acid, that escaped from the soil or was held in
suspension in the atmosphere since the commencement of sedimentation, offered a
fatal obstacle to the life of human organisms as now known, how, it will be
asked, could the primeval men have existed? This consideration is, in reality,
out of court. Such terrestrial conditions as were then operative had no touch
with the plane on which the evolution of the ethereal astral races proceeded.
Only in relatively recent geological periods, has the spiral course of cyclic
law swept mankind into the lowest grade of physical evolution -- the plane of
gross material causation. In those early ages, astral evolution was alone in
progress, and the two planes, the astral and the physical,* though developing
on parallel lines, had no direct point of contact with one another. It is
obvious that a shadow-like ethereal man is related by virtue of his
organization -- if such it can be called -- only to that plane from which the
substance of his Upadhi is derived.
There
are things, perhaps, that may have escaped the far-seeing -- but not all-seeing
-- eyes of our modern naturalists; yet it is Nature herself who undertakes to
furnish the missing links. Agnostic speculative thinkers have to choose between
the version given by the Secret Doctrine of the East, and the hopelessly
materialistic Darwinian and Biblical accounts of the origin of man; between no
soul and no spiritual evolution, and the Occult doctrine which repudiates
"Special creation" and the "Evolutionist" Anthropogenesis
equally.
Again,
to take up the question of "Spontaneous generation"; life -- as
science shows -- has not always reigned on this terrestrial plane.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It must be noted that, though the astral and physical planes of matter ran
parallel with one another even in the earliest geological ages, yet they were
not in the same phases of manifestation in which they are now. The Earth did
not reach its present grade of density till 18,000,000 years ago. Since then
both the physical and astral planes have become grosser.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 158 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
There
was a time when even the Haeckelian Moneron -- that simple globule of
Protoplasm -- had not yet appeared at the bottom of the seas. Whence came the
Impulse which caused the molecules of Carbon, Nitrogen, Oxygen, etc., to group
themselves into the Urschleim of Oken, that organic "slime," now
christened protoplasm. What were the prototypes of the Monera? They, at least,
could not have fallen in meteorites from other globes already formed, Sir W.
Thomson's wild theory to this effect, notwithstanding. And if they have so
fallen; if our Earth got its supply of life-germs from other planets; who, or
what, had carried them into those planets? Here, again, unless the Occult
teaching is accepted, we are compelled once more to face a miracle; to accept
the theory of a personal, anthropomorphic Creator, the attributes and
definitions of whom, as formulated by the Monotheists, clash as much with
philosophy and logic, as they degrade the ideal of an infinite Universal deity,
before whose incomprehensible awful grandeur the highest human intellect feels
dwarfed. Let not the modern philosopher, while arbitrarily placing himself on
the highest pinnacle of human intellectuality hitherto evolved, show himself
spiritually and intuitionally so far below the conceptions of even the ancient
Greeks, themselves on a far lower level, in these respects, than the
philosophers of Eastern Aryan antiquity. Hylozoism, when philosophically
understood, is the highest aspect of Pantheism. It is the only possible escape
from idiotic atheism based on lethal materiality, and the still more idiotic
anthropomorphic conceptions of the monotheists; between which two it stands on
its own entirely neutral ground. Hylozoism demands absolute Divine Thought,
which would pervade the numberless active, creating Forces, or
"Creators"; which entities are moved by, and have their being in,
from, and through that Divine Thought; the latter, nevertheless, having no more
personal concern in them or their creations, than the Sun has in the sun-flower
and its seeds, or in vegetation in general. Such active "Creators"
are known to exist and are believed in, because perceived and sensed by the
inner man in the Occultist. Thus the latter says that an ABSOLUTE Deity, having
to be unconditioned and unrelated, cannot be thought of at the same time as an
active, creating, one living god, without immediate degradation of the ideal.*
A Deity that manifests in Space and Time -- these two being simply the forms of
THAT which is the Absolute ALL -- can be but a fractional part of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The conception and definition of the Absolute by Cardinal Cusa may satisfy only
the Western mind, prisoned, so unconsciously to itself, and entirely
degenerated by long centuries of scholastic and theological sophistry. But this
"Recent philosophy of the Absolute," traced by Sir W. Hamilton to
Cusa, would never satisfy the more acutely metaphysical mind of the Hindu
Vedantin.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 159 OCEANS OF CARBONIC ACID?
whole.
And since that "all" cannot be divided in its absoluteness, therefore
that sensed creator (we say Creators) can be at best but the mere aspect
thereof. To use the same metaphor -- inadequate to express the full idea, yet
well adapted to the case in hand -- these creators are like the numerous rays
of the solar orb, which remains unconscious of, and unconcerned in, the work;
while its mediating agents, the rays, become the instrumental media every
spring -- the Manvantaric dawn of the Earth -- in fructifying and awakening the
dormant vitality inherent in Nature and its differentiated matter. This was so
well understood in antiquity, that even the moderately religious Aristotle
remarked that such work of direct creation would be quite unbecoming to God --
[[aprepes toi theo]]. Plato and other philosophers taught the same: deity
cannot set its own hand to creation, -- [[autournein hapanta]]. This Cudworth
calls "Hylozoism." As old Zeno is credited by Laertius with having
said, "Nature is a habit moved from itself, according to seminal
principles; perfecting and containing those several things which in determinate
times are produced from it, and acting agreeably to that from which it was
secreted."*
Let
us return to our subject, pausing to think over it. Indeed, if there was
vegetable life during those periods that could feed on the then deleterious
elements; and if there was even animal life whose aquatic organization could be
developed, notwithstanding the supposed scarcity of Oxygen, why could there not
be human life also, in its incipient physical form, i.e., in a race of beings
adapted for that geological period and its surroundings? Besides, science
confesses that it knows nothing of the real length of "geological
periods."
But
the chief question before us is, whether it is quite certain that, from the
time of that which is called the "Azoic" age, there ever was such an
atmosphere as that hypothesised by the Naturalists. Not all the physicists
agree with this idea. Were the writer anxious to corroborate the teachings of
the Secret Doctrine by exact science, it would be easy to show, on the
admission of more than one physicist, that the atmosphere has changed little,
if at all, since the first condensation of the oceans -- i.e., since the
Laurentian period, the Pyrolithic age. Such, at any rate, is the opinion of
Blanchard, S. Meunier, and even of Bischof -- as the experiments of the latter
scientist with basalts have shown. For were we to take the word of the majority
of scientists as to the quantity of deadly gases, and of elements entirely
saturated with carbon and nitrogen, in which the vegetable and animal kingdoms
are shown to have lived, thriven, and developed, then one would have to come to
the curious conclusion that there were, in those days, oceans
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*Cudworth's
"Intellectual System," I. p. 328.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
liquid carbonic acid, instead of water. With such an element, it becomes
doubtful whether the Ganoids, or even the Primitive Trilobites themselves could
live in the oceans of the primary age -- let alone in those of the Silurian, as
shown by Blanchard.
The
conditions that were necessary for the earliest race of mankind, however,
require no elements, whether simple or compound. That which was stated at the
beginning is maintained. The spiritual ethereal Entity which lived in Spaces
unknown to Earth, before the first sidereal "jelly-speck" evolved in
the ocean of crude Cosmic Matter, -- billions and trillions of years before our
globular speck in infinity, called Earth, came into being and generated the
Moneron in its drops, called Oceans -- needed no "elements." The
"Manu with soft bones" could well dispense with calcic phosphate, as
he had no bones, save in a figurative sense. And while even the Monera, however
homogeneous their organism, still required physical conditions of life that
would help them toward further evolution, the being which became primitive Man
and the "Father of man," after evolving on planes of existence undreamt
of by science, could well remain impervious to any state of atmospheric
conditions around him. The primitive ancestor, in Brasseur de Bourbourg's
"Popul-Vuh," who -- in the Mexican legends -- could act and live with
equal ease under ground and water as upon the Earth, answers only to the Second
and early Third Races in our texts. And if the three kingdoms of Nature were so
different in pre-diluvian ages, why should not man have been composed of
materials and combinations of atoms now entirely unknown to physical science?
The plants and animals now known, in almost numberless varieties and species,
have all developed, according to scientific hypotheses, from primitive and far
fewer organic forms. Why should not the same have occurred in the case of man,
the elements, and the rest? "Universal Genesis starts from the one, breaks
into three, then five, and finally culminates into seven, to return into four,
three, and one." (Commentary.)
For
additional proofs consult Part II. of this Volume, "The Septenary in
Nature."
-------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
VII.
FROM
THE SEMI-DIVINE DOWN TO THE FIRST HUMAN RACES.
-------
§§
(24) The higher creators reject in their pride the forms evolved by the
"Sons of Yoga." (25) They will not incarnate in the early
"Egg-born." . . (26) They select the later androgynes. (27) The first
man endowed with mind.
---------------------
24.
THE SONS OF WISDOM, THE SONS OF NIGHT (issued from the body of Brahma when it
became Night), READY FOR RE-BIRTH, CAME DOWN. THEY SAW THE (intellectually)
VILE FORMS OF THE FIRST THIRD (still senseless Race) (a). "WE CAN
CHOOSE," SAID THE LORDS, "WE HAVE WISDOM." SOME ENTERED THE
CHHAYAS. SOME PROJECTED A SPARK. SOME DEFERRED TILL THE FOURTH (Race). FROM
THEIR OWN ESSENCE THEY FILLED (intensified) THE KAMA (the vehicle of desire).
THOSE WHO RECEIVED BUT A SPARK REMAINED DESTITUTE OF (higher) KNOWLEDGE. THE
SPARK BURNT LOW (b). THE THIRD REMAINED MIND-LESS. THEIR JIVAS (Monads) WERE
NOT READY. THESE WERE SET APART AMONG THE SEVEN (primitive human species). THEY
(became the) NARROW-HEADED. THE THIRD WERE READY. IN THESE SHALL WE DWELL, SAID
THE LORDS OF THE FLAME AND OF THE DARK WISDOM (c).
This
Stanza contains, in itself, the whole key to the mysteries of evil, the
so-called Fall of the angels, and the many problems that have puzzled the
brains of the philosophers from the time that the memory of man began. It
solves the secret of the subsequent inequalities of intellectual capacity, of
birth or social position, and gives a logical explanation to the
incomprehensible Karmic course throughout the aeons which followed. The best
explanation which can be given, in view of the difficulties of the subject,
shall now be attempted.
(a)
Up to the Fourth Round, and even to the later part of the Third Race in this
Round, Man -- if the ever-changing forms that clothed the Monads during the
first three Rounds and the first two and a half races of the present one can be
given that misleading name -- is, so far, only an animal intellectually. It is
only in the actual midway Round that he develops in himself entirely the fourth
principle as a fit vehicle for the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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fifth.
But Manas will be relatively fully developed only in the following Round, when
it will have an opportunity of becoming entirely divine until the end of the
Rounds. As Christian Schoettgen says in Horae Hebraic, etc., the first
terrestrial Adam "had only the breath of life," Nephesh, but not the
living Soul.
(b)
Here the inferior Races, of which there are still some analogues left -- as the
Australians (now fast dying out) and some African and Oceanic tribes -- are
meant. "They were not ready" signifies that the Karmic development of
these Monads had not yet fitted them to occupy the forms of men destined for
incarnation in higher intellectual Races. But this is explained later on.
(c)
The Zohar speaks of "Black Fire," which is Absolute Light-Wisdom. To
those who, prompted by old theological prejudice, may say: "But the Asuras
are the rebel Devas, the opponents of the Gods -- hence devils, and the spirits
of Evil," it is answered: Esoteric philosophy admits neither good nor evil
per se, as existing independently in nature. The cause for both is found, as
regards the Kosmos, in the necessity of contraries or contrasts, and with
respect to man, in his human nature, his ignorance and passions. There is no
devil or the utterly depraved, as there are no Angels absolutely perfect,
though there may be spirits of Light and of Darkness; thus LUCIFER -- the
spirit of Intellectual Enlightenment and Freedom of Thought -- is
metaphorically the guiding beacon, which helps man to find his way through the
rocks and sandbanks of Life, for Lucifer is the LOGOS in his highest, and the
"Adversary" in his lowest aspect -- both of which are reflected in
our Ego. Lactantius, speaking of the Nature of Christ, makes the LOGOS, the
Word, the first-born brother of Satan, the "first of all creatures."
(Inst. div. Book II., c. viii., "Qabbalah," 116.)
The
Vishnu Purana describes these primeval creatures (the Arvaksrota) with crooked
digestive canals: They were "endowed with inward manifestations, but
mutually in ignorance about their kind and nature." The twenty-eight kinds
of Badha, or imperfections, do not apply, as Wilson thought, to the animals now
known and specified by him,* for these did not exist in those geological
periods. This is quite plain in the said work, in which the first created (on
this globe) are the "five-fold immovable creation," minerals and
vegetables; then come those fabulous animals, Tiryaksrota, (the monsters of the
abyss slain by the "Lords," see Stanzas II. and III.); then the
Urdhwasrotas, the happy celestial beings, which feed on ambrosia; then lastly,
the Arvaksrotas, human beings -- Brahma's
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Book I., chap. v., p. 71.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 163 CREATORS AND SUB-CREATORS.
seventh
creation so-called. But these "creations," including the latter, did
not occur on this globe, wherever else they may have taken place. It is not
Brahma who creates things and men on this Earth, but the chief and Lord of the
Prajapati, the Lords of Being and terrestrial Creation.* Obeying the command of
Brahma, Daksha (the synthesis, or the aggregate, of the terrestrial creators
and progenitors, Pitris included) made superior and inferior (vara and avara)
things "referring to putra" progeny, and "bipeds and quadrupeds,
and subsequently by his will (the Sons of Will and Yoga) made females,"
i.e., separated the androgynes. Here again, we have "bipeds" or men,
created before the "quadrupeds" as in the esoteric teachings. (Vide
supra and Stanza XII as explained.)
Since,
in the exoteric accounts, the Asuras are the first beings created from the
"body of night," while the Pitris issue from that of Twilight; the
"gods" being placed by Parasara (Vishnu Purana) between the two, and
shown to evolve from the "body of the day," it is easy to discover a
determined purpose to veil the order of creation. Man is the Arvaksrota coming
from the "Body of the Dawn"; and elsewhere, man is again referred to,
when the creator of the world, Brahma, is shown "creating fierce beings,
denominated Bhutas and eaters of flesh," or as the text has it,
"fiends frightful from being monkey-coloured and carnivorous."**
Whereas the Rakshasas are generally translated by "Evil Spirits" and
"the enemies of the gods," which identifies them with the Asuras. In
the Ramayana, when Hanuman is reconnoitering the enemy in Lanka, he finds there
Rakshasas, some hideous, "while some were beautiful to look upon,"
and, in Vishnu Purana, there is a direct reference to their becoming the
Saviours of "Humanity," or of Brahma.
The
allegory is very ingenious. Great intellect and too much knowledge are a
two-edged weapon in life, and instruments for evil as well as for good. When
combined with Selfishness, they will make of the whole of Humanity a footstool
for the elevation of him who possesses them, and a means for the attainment of
his objects; while, applied to altruistic humanitarian purposes, they may
become the means of the salvation of many. At all events, the absence of
self-consciousness and intellect will make of man an idiot, a brute in human
form. Brahma is Mahat -- the universal Mind -- hence the too-selfish among the
Rakshasas showing the desire to become possessed of it all -- to
"devour" Mahat. The allegory is transparent.
At
any rate, esoteric philosophy identifies the pre-Brahmanical
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Vishnu Purana," Book I., chap. xv. of vol. 2.
**
Ibid., Book I., chap. v.
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[[Vol.
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Asuras,
Rudras,* Rakshasas and all the "Adversaries" of the Gods in the
allegories, with the Egos, which, by incarnating in the still witless man of
the Third Race, made him consciously immortal. They are, then, during the cycle
of Incarnations, the true dual Logos -- the conflicting and two-faced divine
Principle in Man. The Commentary that follows, and the next Stanzas may, no
doubt, throw more light on this very difficult tenet, but the writer does not
feel competent to give it out fully. Of the succession of Races, however, they
say:--
"First
come the SELF-EXISTENT on this Earth. They are the 'Spiritual Lives' projected
by the absolute WILL and LAW, at the dawn of every rebirth of the worlds. These
LIVES are the divine 'Sishta,' (the seed-Manus, or the Prajapati and the
Pitris)."
From
these proceed --
1.
The First Race, the "Self-born," which are the (astral) shadows of
their Progenitors.** The body was devoid of all understanding (mind,
intelligence, and will). The inner being (the higher self or Monad), though
within the earthly frame, was unconnected with it. The link, the Manas, was not
there as yet.
2.
From the First (race) emanated the second, called the "Sweat-born"***
and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whom Manu calls "our paternal grandfathers" (III., 284). The Rudras
are the seven manifestations of Rudra-Siva, "the destroying god," and
also the grand Yogi and ascetic.
**
See § II, §§ 1, Commentary.
***
To speak of life as having arisen, and of the human race as having originated,
in this absurdly unscientific way, in the face of the modern Pedigrees of Man,
is to court instantaneous annihilation. The esoteric doctrine risks the danger,
nevertheless, and even goes so far as to ask the impartial reader to compare
the above hypothesis (if it is one) with Haeckel's theory -- now fast becoming
an axiom with science -- which is quoted verbatim:--
".
. . How did life, the living world of organisms, arise? And, secondly, the
special question: How did the human race originate? The first of these two
inquiries, that as to the first appearance of living beings, can only be
decided empirically (! !) by proof of the so-called Archebiosis, or equivocal
generation, or the spontaneous production of organisms of the simplest
conceivable kind. Such are the Monera (Protogenes, Protamoeba, etc),
exceedingly simple microscopic masses of protoplasm without structure or
organisation, which take in nutriment and reproduce themselves by division.
Such a Moneron as that primordial organism discovered by the renowned English
zoologist Huxley, and named Bathybius Haeckelii, appears as a continuous thick
protoplasmic covering at the greatest depths of the ocean, between 3,000 and
30,000 feet. It is true that the first appearance of such Monera has not up to
the present moment been actually observed; but there is nothing intrinsically
improbable in such an evolution." (The "Pedigree of Man,"
Aveling's translation, p 33.)
The
Bathybius protoplasm having recently turned out to be no organic substance at
all, there remains little to be said. Nor, after reading this, does one need to
consume further time in refuting the further assertion that . . . . "in
that case man also [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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the
"Boneless." This is the Second Root-Race, endowed by the preservers
(Rakshasas)* and the incarnating gods (Asuras and the Kumaras) with the first
primitive and weak spark (the germ of intelligence) . . And from these in turn
proceeds:--
3.
The Third Root-Race, the "Two-fold" (Androgynes). The first Races
hereof are shells, till the last is "inhabited" (i.e., informed) by
the Dhyanis.
The
Second Race, as stated above, being also sexless, evolved out of itself, at its
beginning, the Third Androgyne Race by an analogous, but already more
complicated process. As described in the Commentary, the very earliest of that
race were:--
"The
'Sons of Passive Yoga.* They issued from the second Manushyas
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] has beyond a doubt (to the minds of Haeckel and
his like) arisen from the lower mammalia, apes and the earlier simian
creatures, the still earlier Marsupialia, Amphibia, Pisces, by progressive
transformations," all produced by "a series of natural forces working
blindly. . . . . . . . . aim, without design" (p. 36).
The
above-quoted passage bears its criticism on its own face. Science is made to
teach that which, up to the present time, "has never been actually
observed." She is made to deny the phenomenon of an intelligent nature and
a vital force independent of form and matter, and to find it more scientific to
teach the miraculous performance of "natural forces working blindly
without aim or design." If so, then we are led to think that the
physico-mechanical forces of the brains of certain eminent Scientists are
leading them on as blindly to sacrifice logic and common sense on the altar of
mutual admiration. Why should the protoplasmic Moneron producing the first
living creature through self-division be held as a very scientific hypothesis,
and an ethereal pre-human race generating the primeval men in the same fashion
be tabooed as unscientific superstition? Or has materialism obtained a sole
monopoly in Science?
*
The Rakshasas, regarded in Indian popular theology as demons, are called the
"Preservers" beyond the Himalayas. This double and contradictory
meaning has its origin in a philosophical allegory, which is variously rendered
in the Puranas. It is stated that when Brahma created the demons, Yakshas (from
Yaksh, to eat) and the Rakshasas, both of which kinds of demons, as soon as
born, wished to devour their creator, those among them that called out
"Not so! oh, let him be saved (preserved)" were named Rakshasas
(Vishnu Purana Book I. ch. v.). The Bhagavata Purana (III, 20, 19-21) renders
the allegory differently. Brahma transformed himself into night (or ignorance)
invested with a body, upon which the Yakshas and Rakshasas seized, exclaiming
"Do not spare it; devour it." Brahma then cried out, "Do not
devour me, spare me." This has an inner meaning of course. The "body
of Night" is the darkness of ignorance, and it is the darkness of silence
and secrecy. Now the Rakshasas are shown in almost every case to be Yogis,
pious Saddhus and Initiates, a rather unusual occupation for demons. The
meaning then is that while we have power to dispel the darkness of ignorance,
"devour it," we have to preserve the sacred truth from profanation.
"Brahma is for the Brahmins alone," says that proud caste. The moral
of the fable is evident.
**
The gradual evolution of man in the Secret Doctrine shows that all the later
(to the profane the earliest) Races have their physical origin in the early
Fourth Race. But it is the sub-race, which preceded the one that separated
sexually, that is to be [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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(human
race), and became oviparous. The emanations that came out of their bodies
during the seasons of procreation were ovulary; the small spheroidal nuclei
developing into a large soft, egg-like vehicle, gradually hardened, when, after
a period of gestation, it broke and the young human animal issued from it
unaided, as the fowls do in our race."
This
must seem to the reader ludicrously absurd. Nevertheless, it is strictly on the
lines of evolutionary analogy, which science perceives in the development of
the living animal species. First the moneron-like procreation by self-division
(vide Haeckel); then, after a few stages, the oviparous, as in the case of the
reptiles, which are followed by the birds; then, finally, the mammals with
their ovoviviparous modes of producing their young ones.
If
the term ovoviviparous is applied to some fish and reptiles, which hatch their
eggs within their bodies, why should it not be applied to female mammalians,
including woman? The ovule, in which, after impregnation, the development of
the foetus takes place, is an egg.
At
all events, this conception is more philosophical than that of Eve with a
suddenly created placenta giving birth to Cain, because of the Apple, when even
the marsupial, the earliest of mammals, is not placental yet.
Moreover,
the progressive order of the methods of reproduction, as unveiled by science,
is a brilliant confirmation of esoteric Ethnology. It is only necessary to tabulate
the data in order to prove our assertion. (Cf. especially Schmidt's
"Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p. 39, et. seq., and Laing's
"A Modern Zoroastrian," pp. 102-111.)I
1.
Fission:--
(a)
As seen in the division of the homogeneous speck of protoplasm, known as
Moneron or Amoeba, into two.
(b)
As seen in the division of the nucleated cell, in which the cell-nucleus splits
into two sub-nuclei, which either develop within the original cell-wall or
burst it, and multiply outside as independent entities. (Cf., the First
Root-Race.)
II.
Budding:--
A
small portion of the parent structure swells out at the surface and finally
parts company, growing to the size of the original organism; e.g., many
vegetables, the sea-anemone, etc. (Cf., the Second Root-Race.)*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] regarded as the spiritual ancestors of our
present generations, and especially of the Eastern Aryan Races. Weber's idea
that the Indo-Germanic Race preceded the Aryan Vedic Race is, to the Occultist,
grotesque to the last degree.
*
Every process of healing and cicatrization in the higher animal groups -- even
in the case of reproduction of mutilated limbs with the Amphibians -- is
effected by fission and gemmation of the elementary morphological elements.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 167 MONADS AND ROUNDS.
III.
Spores:--
A
single cell thrown off by the parent organism, which develops into a
multicellular organism reproducing the features of the latter, e.g., bacteria
and mosses.
IV.
Intermediate Hermaphroditism:--
Male
and female organs inhering in the same individual; e.g., the majority of
plants, worms, and snails, etc.; allied to budding. (Cf. Second and early Third
Root-Races.)
V.
True sexual union:--
(Cf.
later Third Root-Race.)
We
now come to an important point with regard to the double evolution of the human
race. The Sons of Wisdom, or the spiritual Dhyanis, had become
"intellectual" through their contact with matter, because they had
already reached, during previous cycles of incarnation, that degree of
intellect which enabled them to become independent and self-conscious entities,
on this plane of matter. They were reborn only by reason of Karmic effects.
They entered those who were "ready," and became the Arhats, or sages,
alluded to above. This needs explanation.
It
does not mean that Monads entered forms in which other Monads already were.
They were "Essences," "Intelligences," and conscious
spirits; entities seeking to become still more conscious by uniting with more
developed matter. Their essence was too pure to be distinct from the universal
essence; but their "Egos," or Manas (since they are called
Manasaputra, born of "Mahat," or Brahma) had to pass through earthly
human experiences to become all-wise, and be able to start on the returning
ascending cycle. The Monads are not discrete principles, limited or
conditioned, but rays from that one universal absolute Principle. The entrance
into a dark room through the same aperture of one ray of sunlight following
another will not constitute two rays, but one ray intensified. It is not in the
course of natural law that man should become a perfect septenary being, before
the seventh race in the seventh Round. Yet he has all these principles latent
in him from his birth. Nor is it part of the evolutionary law that the Fifth
principle (Manas), should receive its complete development before the Fifth
Round. All such prematurely developed intellects (on the spiritual plane) in
our Race are abnormal; they are those whom we call the
"Fifth-Rounders." Even in the coming seventh Race, at the close of
this Fourth Round, while our four lower principles will be fully developed,
that of Manas will be only proportionately so. This limitation, however, refers
solely to the spiritual development. The intellectual, on the physical plane,
was reached during the Fourth Root-Race. Thus, those who were "half
ready," who received "but a spark," constitute the average
humanity which has to acquire its intellectuality during the present
Manvantaric evolution,
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[[Vol.
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after
which they will be ready in the next for the full reception of the "Sons
of Wisdom." While those which "were not ready" at all, the
latest Monads, which had hardly evolved from their last transitional and lower
animal forms at the close of the Third Round, remained the
"narrow-brained" of the Stanza. This explains the otherwise
unaccountable degrees of intellectuality among the various races of men -- the
savage Bushman and the European -- even now. Those tribes of savages, whose
reasoning powers are very little above the level of the animals, are not the
unjustly disinherited, or the unfavoured, as some may think -- nothing of the
kind. They are simply those latest arrivals among the human Monads, which were
not ready: which have to evolve during the present Round, as on the three
remaining globes (hence on four different planes of being) so as to arrive at
the level of the average class when they reach the Fifth Round. One remark may
prove useful, as food for thought to the student in this connection. The MONADS
of the lowest specimens of humanity (the "narrow-brained"* savage
South-Sea Islander, the African, the Australian) had no Karma to work out when
first born as men, as their more favoured brethren in intelligence had. The
former are spinning out Karma only now; the latter are burdened with past,
present, and future Karma. In this respect the poor savage is more fortunate
than the greatest genius of civilised countries.
Let
us pause before giving any more such strange teachings. Let us try and find out
how far any ancient Scriptures, and even Science, permit the possibility of, or
even distinctly corroborate, such wild notions as are found in our
Anthropogenesis.
Recapitulating
that which has been said we find:-- That the Secret Doctrine claims for man,
(1) a polygenetic origin. (2) A variety of modes of procreation before humanity
fell into the ordinary method of generation. (3) That the evolution of animals
-- of the mammalians at any rate -- follows that of man instead of preceding
it. And this is diametrically opposed to the now generally accepted theories of
evolution and the descent of man from an animal ancestor.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The term here means neither the dolicho-cephalic nor the brachyo-cephalic, nor
yet skulls of a smaller volume, but simply brains devoid of intellect
generally. The theory which would judge of the intellectual capacity of a man
according to his cranial capacity, seems absurdly illogical to one who has
studied the subject. The skulls of the stone period, as well as those of
African Races (Bushmen included) show that the first are above rather than
below the average of the brain capacity of the modern man, and the skulls of
the last are on the whole (as in the case of Papuans and Polynesians generally)
larger by one cubic inch than that of the average Frenchman. Again, the cranial
capacity of the Parisian of to-day represents an average of 1437 cubic
centimetres compared to 1523 of the Auvergnat.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 169 MONOGENISM OR POLYGENISM.
Let
us, by giving to Caesar what is Caesar's, examine, first of all, the chances for
the polygenetic theory among the men of science.
Now
the majority of the Darwinian evolutionists incline to a polygenetic
explanation of the origin of Races. On this particular question, however,
scientists are, as in many other cases, at sixes and sevens; they agree to
disagree.
"Does
man descend from one single couple or from several groups -- monogenism or
polygenism? As far as one can venture to pronounce on what in the absence of
witnesses (?) will never be known (?), the second hypothesis is far the most
probable."* Abel Hovelacque, in his "Science of Language," comes
to a similar conclusion, arguing from the evidence available to a linguistic
enquirer.
In
an address delivered before the British Association, Professor W. H. Flower
remarked on this question:--
"The
view which appears best to accord with what is now known of the characters and
distribution of the races of man . . . . is a modification of the monogenistic
hypothesis (!). Without entering into the difficult question of the method of
man's first appearance upon the world, we must assume for it a vast antiquity,
at all events as measured by any historical standard. If we had any approach to
a complete palaeontological record, the history of Man could be re-constructed,
but nothing of the kind is forthcoming."
Such
an admission must be regarded as fatal to the dogmatism of the physical
Evolutionists, and as opening a wide margin to occult speculations. The
opponents of the Darwinian theory were, and still remain, polygenists. Such
"intellectual giants" as John Crawford and James Hunt discussed the
problem and favoured polygenesis, and in their day there was a far stronger
feeling in favour of than against this theory. It is only in 1864 that
Darwinians began to be wedded to the theory of unity, of which Messrs. Huxley
and Lubbock became the first coryphai.
As
regards that other question, of the priority of man to the animals in the order
of evolution, the answer is as promptly given. If man is really the Microcosm
of the Macrocosm, then the teaching has nothing so very impossible in it, and
is but logical. For, man becomes that Macrocosm for the three lower kingdoms
under him. Arguing from a physical standpoint, all the lower kingdoms, save the
mineral -- which is light itself, crystallised and immetallised -- from plants
to the creatures which preceded the first mammalians, all have been
consolidated in their physical structures by means of the "cast-off
dust" of those minerals, and the refuse of the human matter, whether from
living or dead
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A. Lefevre, "Philosophy," p. 498.
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[[Vol.
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bodies,
on which they fed and which gave them their outer bodies. In his turn, man grew
more physical, by re-absorbing into his system that which he had given out, and
which became transformed in the living animal crucibles through which it had
passed, owing to Nature's alchemical transmutations. There were animals in
those days of which our modern naturalists have never dreamed; and the stronger
became physical material man, the giants of those times, the more powerful were
his emanations. Once that Androgyne "humanity" separated into sexes,
transformed by Nature into child-bearing engines, it ceased to procreate its
like through drops of vital energy oozing out of the body. But while man was
still ignorant of his procreative powers on the human plane, (before his Fall,
as a believer in Adam would say,) all this vital energy, scattered far and wide
from him, was used by Nature for the production of the first mammal-animal
forms. Evolution is an eternal cycle of becoming, we are taught; and nature
never leaves an atom unused. Moreover, from the beginning of the Round, all in
Nature tends to become Man. All the impulses of the dual, centripetal and
centrifugal Force are directed towards one point -- MAN. The progress in the
succession of beings, says Agassiz, "consists in an increasing similarity
of the living fauna, and, among the vertebrates, especially, in the increasing
resemblance to man. Man is the end towards which all animal creation has tended
from the first appearance of the first palaeozoic fishes."*
Just
so; but "the palaeozoic fishes" being at the lower curve of the arc
of the evolution of forms, this Round began with astral man, the reflection of
the Dhyan Chohans, called the "Builders." Man is the alpha and the
omega of objective creation. As said in "Isis Unveiled," "all
things had their origin in spirit -- evolution having originally begun from
above and proceeding downwards, instead of the reverse, as taught in the
Darwinian theory."** Therefore, the tendency spoken of by the eminent
naturalist above quoted, is one inherent in every atom. Only, were one to apply
it to both sides of the evolution, the observations made would greatly
interfere with the modern theory, which has now almost become (Darwinian) law.
But
in citing the passage from Agassiz' work with approval, it must not be
understood that the occultists are making any concession to the theory, which
derives man from the animal kingdom. The fact that in this Round he preceded
the mammalia is obviously not impugned by the consideration that the latter
(mammalia) follow in the wake of man.
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Principles of Zoology," p. 206.
**
Vol. I, p. 154.
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[[Vol.
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25.
HOW DID THE MANASA, THE SONS OF WISDOM ACT? THEY REJECTED THE SELF-BORN, (the
boneless). THEY ARE NOT READY. THEY SPURNED THE (First) SWEAT-BORN.* THEY ARE
NOT QUITE READY. THEY WOULD NOT ENTER THE (First) EGG-BORN.**
To
a Theist or a Christian this verse would suggest a rather theological idea:
that of the Fall of the Angels through Pride. In the Secret Doctrine, however,
the reasons for the refusal to incarnate in half-ready physical bodies seem to
be more connected with physiological than metaphysical reasons. Not all the
organisms were sufficiently ready. The incarnating powers chose the ripest
fruits and spurned the rest.***
By
a curious coincidence, when selecting a familiar name for the continent on
which the first androgynes, the Third Root-Race, separated, the writer chose,
on geographical considerations, that of "Lemuria," invented by Mr. P.
L. Sclater. It is only later, that reading Haeckel's "Pedigree of
Man," it was found that the German "Animalist" had chosen the
name for his late continent. He traces, properly enough, the centre of human
evolution to "Lemuria," but with a slight scientific variation.
Speaking of it as that "cradle of mankind," he pictures the gradual
transformation of the anthropoid mammal into the primeval savage!! Vogt, again,
holds that in America Man sprang from a branch of the platyrrhine apes,
independently of the origination of the African and Asian root-stocks from the
old world catarrhinians. Anthropologists are, as usual, at loggerheads on this
question, as on many others. We shall examine this claim in the light of
esoteric philosophy in Stanza VIII. Meanwhile, let us give a few moments of
attention to the various consecutive modes of procreation according to the laws
of Evolution.
Let
us begin by the mode of reproduction of the later sub-races of the Third human
race, by those who found themselves endowed with the sacred fire from the spark
of higher and then independent Beings, who were the psychic and spiritual
parents of Man, as the lower Pitar Devata (the Pitris) were the progenitors of
his physical body. That Third and holy Race consisted of men who, at their
zenith, were described
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is explained in the section which follows this series of Stanzas in the
allegory from the Puranas concerning Kandu, the holy sage, and Pramlocha, the
nymph alleged to have hypnotised him, (Vide § Il., Commentary after St.I.), a
suggestive allegory, scientifically, as the drops of perspiration, which she
exuded, are the symbols of the spores of science (Vide infra).
**
This will be explained as we proceed. This unwillingness to fashion men, or
create, is symbolized in the Puranas by Daksha having to deal with his opponent
Narada, the "strife-making ascetic."
***
Vide Verse 24.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 172 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
as,
"towering giants of godly strength and beauty, and the depositories of all
the mysteries of Heaven and Earth." Have they likewise fallen, if, then,
incarnation was the Fall?
Of
this presently. The only thing now to be noted of these is, that the chief gods
and heroes of the Fourth and Fifth Races, as of later antiquity, are the deified
images of these men of the Third. The days of their physiological purity, and
those of their so-called Fall, have equally survived in the hearts and memories
of their descendants. Hence, the dual nature shown in those gods, both virtue
and sin being exalted to their highest degree, in the biographies composed by
posterity. They were the pre-Adamite and the divine Races, with which even
theology, in whose sight they are all "the accursed Cainite Races,"
now begins to busy itself.
But
the action of "spiritual progenitors" of that Race has first to be
disposed of. A very difficult and abstruse point has to be explained with
regard to Stanzas 26 and 27. These say:--
-------
26.
WHEN THE SWEAT-BORN PRODUCED THE EGG-BORN, THE TWO-FOLD (androgyne Third Race*),
THE MIGHTY, THE POWERFUL WITH BONES, THE LORDS OF WISDOM SAID: "NOW SHALL
WE CREATE" (a).
Why
"now" -- and not earlier? This the following sloka explains.
-------
27.
(Then) THE THIRD (race) BECAME THE VAHAN (vehicle) OF THE LORDS OF WISDOM. IT CREATED
SONS OF "WILL AND YOGA," BY KRIYASAKTI (b), IT CREATED THEM, THE HOLY
FATHERS, ANCESTORS OF THE ARHATS. . . .
(a)
How did they create, since the "Lords of Wisdom" are identical with
the Hindu Devas, who refuse "to create"? Clearly they are the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The evolutionist Professor Schmidt alludes to "the fact of the separation
of sexes, as to the derivation of which from species once hermaphrodite all
(the believers in creation naturally excepted) are assuredly of one
accord." Such indeed is the incontestable evidence drawn from the presence
of rudimentary organs. (Cf., his "Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism,"
p. 159.) Apart from such palpable traces of a primeval hermaphroditism, the
fact may be noted that, as Laing writes, "a study of embryology. . . .
shows that in the human higher animal species the distinction of sex is not
developed until a considerable progress has been made in the growth of the
embryo." ("A Modern Zoroastrian," p.106.) The Law of Retardation
-- operative alike in the case of human races, animal species, etc., when a
higher type has once been evolved -- still preserves hermaphroditism as the
reproductive method of the majority of plants and many lower animals.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 173 THE SONS OF KRIYASAKTI.
Kumaras
of the Hindu Pantheon and Puranas, those elder sons of Brahma, "Sanandana
and the other sons of Vedhas," who, previously created by him "without
desire or passion, remained chaste, full of holy wisdom and undesirous of
progeny?"*
The
power, by which they first created, is just that which has since caused them to
be degraded from their high status to the position of evil spirits, of Satan and
his Host, created in their turn by the unclean fancy of exoteric creeds. It was
by Kriyasakti, that mysterious and divine power latent in the will of every
man, and which, if not called to life, quickened and developed by
Yogi-training, remains dormant in 999,999 men out of a million, and gets
atrophied. This power is explained in the "Twelve Signs of the
Zodiac,"** as follows:--
(b)
"Kriyasakti -- the mysterious power of thought which enables it to produce
external, perceptible, phenomenal results by its own inherent energy. The
ancients held that any idea will manifest itself externally, if one's attention
(and Will) is deeply concentrated upon it; similarly, an intense volition will
be followed by the desired result. A Yogi generally performs his wonders by
means of Itchasakti (Will-power) and Kriyasakti."
The
Third Race had thus created the so-called SONS OF WILL AND YOGA, or the
"ancestors" (the spiritual forefathers) of all the subsequent and
present Arhats, or Mahatmas, in a truly immaculate way. They were indeed
created, not begotten, as were their brethren of the Fourth Race, who were
generated sexually after the separation of sexes, the Fall of Man. For creation
is but the result of will acting on phenomenal matter, the calling forth out of
it the primordial divine Light and eternal Life. They were the "holy
seed-grain" of the future Saviours of Humanity.
Here
we have to make again a break, in order to explain certain difficult points, of
which there are so many. It is almost impossible to avoid such interruptions.
For explanations and a philosophical account of the nature of those beings,
which are now viewed as the "Evil" and rebellious Spirits, the
creators by Kriyasakti, the reader is referred to the chapters on "The
Fallen Angels" and "The Mystic Dragons," in Part II. of this
Volume.
The
order of the evolution of the human Races stands thus in the Fifth Book of the
Commentaries, and was already given:--
The
First men were Chhayas (1); the second, the "Sweat-born" (2), the
Third, "Egg-born," and the holy Fathers born by the power of
Kriyasakti (3); the Fourth were the children of the Padmapani (Chenresi) (4).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Vishnu Purana," Book I., ch. 7, para. 1.
**
See "Five Years of Theosophy," p. 777.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Of
course such primeval modes of procreation -- by the evolution of one's image,
through drops of perspiration, after that by Yoga, and then by what people will
regard as magic (Kriyasakti) -- are doomed beforehand to be regarded as
fairy-tales. Nevertheless, beginning with the first and ending with the last,
there is really nothing miraculous in them, nor anything which could not be
shown natural. This must be proven.
1.
Chhaya-birth, or that primeval mode of sexless procreation, the first Race
having oozed out, so to say, from the bodies of the Pitris, is hinted at in a
Cosmic allegory in the Puranas.* It is the beautiful allegory and story of
Sanjna, the daughter of Viswakarman -- married to the Sun, who, "unable to
endure the fervours of her lord," gave him her chhaya (shadow, image, or
astral body), while she herself repaired to the jungle to perform religious devotions,
or Tapas. The Sun, supposing the "chhaya" to be his wife begat by her
children, like Adam with Lilith -- an ethereal shadow also, as in the legend,
though an actual living female monster millions of years ago.
But,
perhaps, this instance proves little except the exuberant fancy of the Puranic
authors. We have another proof ready. If the materialised forms, which are
sometimes seen oozing out of the bodies of certain mediums could, instead of
vanishing, be fixed and made solid -- the creation of the first Race would
become quite comprehensible. This kind of procreation cannot fail to be
suggestive to the student. Neither the mystery nor the impossibility of such a
mode is certainly any greater -- while it is far more comprehensible to the
mind of the true metaphysical thinker - than the mystery of the conception of
the foetus, its gestation and birth as a child, as we now know it.
Now
to the curious and little understood corroboration in the Puranas about the
"Sweat-born."
2.
Kandu is a sage and a Yogi, eminent in holy wisdom and pious austerities,
which, finally, awaken the jealousy of the gods, who are represented in the
Hindu Scriptures as being in never-ending strife with the ascetics. Indra, the
"King of the Gods,"** finally sends one of his female Apsarasas to
tempt the sage. This is no worse than Jehovah sending Sarah, Abraham's wife, to
tempt Pharaoh; but in truth it is those gods (and god), who are ever trying to
disturb ascetics and thus make them lose the fruit of their austerities, who
ought to be regarded as "tempting demons," instead of applying the
term to the Rudras, Kumaras, and Asuras, whose great sanctity and chastity seem
a standing reproach to the Don Juanic gods of the Pantheon. But it is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide "Vishnu-Purana," Book III., chap. 2.
**
In the oldest MS. of "Vishnu-Purana" in the possession of an Initiate
in Southern India, the god is not Indra, but Kama, the god of love and desire.
See text further on.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 175 A SAINT -- HYPNOTISED.
the
reverse that we find in all the Puranic allegories, and not without good
esoteric reason.
The
king of the gods (or Indra) sends a beautiful Apsarasas (nymph) named Pramlocha
to seduce Kandu and disturb his penance. She succeeds in her unholy purpose and
"907 years six months and three days"* spent in her company seem to
the sage as one day. When this psychological or hypnotic state ends, the Muni
curses bitterly the creature who seduced him, thus disturbing his devotions.
"Depart, begone!" he cries, "vile bundle of illusions!" . .
. And Pramlocha, terrified, flies away, wiping the perspiration from her body
with the leaves of the trees as she passes through the air. She went from tree
to tree, and as, with the dusky shoots that crowned their summits, she dried
her limbs, the child she had conceived by the Rishi came forth from the pores
of her skin in drops of perspiration. The trees received the living dews; and
the winds collected them into one mass. "This," said Soma (the Moon),
"I matured by my rays; and gradually it increased in size, till the
exhalation that had rested on the tree tops became the lovely girl named
Marisha."**
Now
Kandu stands here for the First Race. He is a son of the Pitris, hence one
devoid of mind, which is hinted at by his being unable to discern a period of
nearly one thousand years from one day; therefore he is shown to be so easily
deluded and blinded. Here is a variant of the allegory in Genesis, of Adam,
born an image of clay, into which the "Lord-god" breathes the breath
of life but not of intellect and discrimination, which are developed only after
he had tasted of the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge; in other words when he has
acquired the first development of Mind, and had implanted in him Manas, whose
terrestrial aspect is of the Earth earthy, though its highest faculties connect
it with Spirit and the divine Soul. Pramlocha is the Hindu Lilith of the Aryan
Adam; and Marisha, the daughter born of the perspiration from her pores, is the
"sweat-born," and stands as a symbol for the Second Race of Mankind.
As
remarked in the foot note (vide supra) it is not Indra, who now figures in the
Puranas, but Kamadeva, the god of love and desire, who sends Pramlocha on
Earth. Logic, besides the esoteric doctrine, shows that it must be so. For Kama
is the king and lord of the Apsarasas, of whom Pramlocha is one; and,
therefore, when Kandu, in cursing her,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These are the exoteric figures given in a purposely reversed and distorted way,
being the figure of the duration of the cycle between the first and second
human race. All Orientalists to the contrary, there is not a word in any of the
Puranas that has not a special esoteric meaning.
**
"Vishnu Purana," Book I., ch. 15. Cf. also Vivien's temptation of
Merlin (Tennyson), the same legend in Irish tradition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 176 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
exclaims
"Thou hast performed the office assigned by the monarch of the gods,
go!" he must mean by that monarch Kama and not Indra, to whom the
Apsarasas are not subservient. For Kama, again, is in the Rig Veda (x. 129) the
personification of that feeling which leads and propels to creation. He was the
first movement that stirred the ONE, after its manifestation from the purely
abstract principle, to create, "Desire first arose in It, which was the
primal germ of mind; and which sages, searching with their intellect, have
discovered to be the bond which connects Entity with Non-Entity." A hymn
in the Atharva Veda exalts Kama into a supreme God and Creator, and says: "Kama
was born the first. Him, neither gods nor fathers (Pitara) nor men have
equalled." . . . . The Atharva Veda identifies him with Agni, but makes
him superior to that god. The Taittariya Brahmana makes him allegorically the
son of Dharma (moral religious duty, piety and justice) and of Sraddha (faith).
Elsewhere Kama is born from the heart of Brahma; therefore he is Atma-Bhu
"Self-Existent," and Aja, the "unborn." His sending
Promlocha has a deep philosophical meaning; sent by Indra -- the narrative has
none. As Eros was connected in early Greek mythology with the world's creation,
and only afterwards became the sexual Cupid, so was Kama in his original Vedic
character, (Harivansa making him a son of Lakshmi, who is Venus). The allegory,
as said, shows the psychic element developing the physiological, before the
birth of Daksha, the progenitor of real physical men, made to be born from
Marisha and before whose time living beings and men were procreated "by
the will, by sight, by touch and by Yoga," as will be shown.
This,
then, is the allegory built on the mode of procreation of the Second or the
"Sweat-born." The same for the Third Race in its final development.
Marisha,
through the exertions of Soma, the Moon, is taken to wife by the Prachetasas, the
production of the "Mind-born" sons of Brahma also*, from whom they
beget the Patriarch Daksha, a son of Brahma
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The text has:-- "From Brahma were born mind-engendered progeny, with forms
and faculties derived from his corporeal nature, embodied spirits produced from
the limbs (gatra) of Dhimat (all-wise deity). These beings were the abode of
the three qualities of deva-sarga (divine creation, which, as the five-fold
creation, is devoid of clearness of perception, without reflection, dull of
nature). But as they did not multiply themselves, Brahma created "other
mind-born sons like himself," namely, the Brahma-rishis, or the Prajapati
(ten and seven). Sanandana and the other sons of Vedhas (Brahma) were
previously created, but, as shown elsewhere, they were "without desire or
passion, inspired with holy wisdom, estranged from the universe and undesirous
of progeny" (Book I, ch. 7). These Sanandana and other Kumaras are then the
Gods, who after refusing to "create progeny" are forced to incarnate
in senseless men. The reader must pardon unavoidable repetitions in view of the
great number of the facts given.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 177 SWEAT-BORN AND ANDROGYNES.
also,
in a former Kalpa or life, explain and add the Puranas, in order to mislead,
yet speaking the truth.
(3.)
The early Third Race, then, is formed from drops of "sweat," which,
after many a transformation, grow into human bodies. This is not more difficult
to imagine or realise than the growth of the foetus from an imperceptible germ,
which foetus develops into a child, and then into a strong, heavy man. But this
race again changes its mode of procreation according to the Commentaries. It is
said to have emanated a vis formativa, which changed the drops of perspiration
into greater drops, which grew, expanded, and became ovoid bodies -- huge eggs.
In these the human foetus gestated for several years. In the Puranas, Marisha,
the daughter of Kandu, the sage, becomes the wife of the Prachetasas and the
mother of Daksha. Now Daksha is the father of the first human-like progenitors,
having been born in this way. He is mentioned later on. The evolution of man,
the microcosm, is analogous to that of the Universe, the macrocosm. His
evolution stands between that of the latter and that of the animal, for which
man, in his turn, is a macrocosm.
Then
the race becomes:--
(4.)
The androgyne, or hermaphrodite. This process of men-bearing explains, perhaps,
why Aristophanes* describes the nature of the old race as androgynous, the form
of every individual being rounded, "having the back and sides as in a
circle," whose "manner of running was circular . . . . terrible in
force and strength and with prodigious ambition." Therefore, to make them
weaker, "Zeus divided them (in the Third Root-Race) into two, and Apollo
(the Sun), under his direction, closed up the skin." The Madagascans (the
island belonged to Lemuria) have a tradition about the first man, who lived at
first without eating, and, having indulged in food, a swelling appeared in his
leg; this bursting, there emerged from it a female, who became the mother of
their race. Truly . . . "We have our sciences of Heterogenesis and
Parthenogenesis, showing that the field is yet open. . . . . The polyps . . . .
produce their offspring from themselves, like the buds and ramifications of a
tree. . . . " Why not the primitive human polyp? The very interesting
polyp Stauridium passes alternately from gemmation into the sex method of
reproduction. Curiously enough, though it grows merely as a polyp on a stalk,
it produces gemmules, which ultimately develop into a sea-nettle or Medusa. The
Medusa is utterly dissimilar to its parent-organism, the Stauridium. It also
reproduces itself differently, by sexual method, and from the resulting eggs
Stauridia once more put in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Plato's "Banquet."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 178 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
an
appearance. This striking fact may assist many to understand that a form may be
evolved -- as in the sexual Lemurians from Hermaphrodite parentage -- quite
unlike its immediate progenitors. It is, moreover, unquestionable that in the
case of human incarnations the law of Karma, racial or individual, overrides
the subordinate tendencies of "Heredity," its servant.
The
meaning of the last sentence in the above-quoted Commentary on Stanza 27,
namely, that the Fourth Race were the children of Padmapani, may find its
explanation in a certain letter from the Inspirer of "Esoteric
Buddhism" quoted on p. 68. "The majority of mankind belongs to the
seventh sub-race of the Fourth Root-Race -- the above-mentioned Chinamen and
their off-shoots and branchlets. (Malayans, Mongolians, Tibetans, Hungarians,
Finns, and even the Esquimaux are all remnants of this last offshoot.)"
Padmapani,
or Avalokiteswara in Sanskrit, is, in Tibetan, Chenresi. Now, Avalokiteswara is
the great Logos in its higher aspect and in the divine regions. But in the
manifested planes, he is, like Daksha, the progenitor (in a spiritual sense) of
men. Padmapani-Avalokiteswara is called esoterically Bhodhisatva (or Dhyan
Chohan) Chenresi Vanchug, "the powerful and all-seeing." He is
considered now as the greatest protector of Asia in general, and of Tibet in
particular. In order to guide the Tibetans and Lamas in holiness, and preserve
the great Arhats in the world, this heavenly Being is credited with manifesting
himself from age to age in human form. A popular legend has it that whenever
faith begins to die out in the world, Padmapani Chenresi, the "lotus-bearer,"
emits a brilliant ray of light, and forthwith incarnates himself in one of the
two great Lamas -- the Dalai and Teschu Lamas; finally, it is believed that he
will incarnate as "the most perfect Buddha" in Tibet, instead of in
India, where his predecessors, the great Rishis and Manus had appeared in the
beginning of our Race, but now appear no longer. Even the exoteric appearance
of Dhyani Chenresi is suggestive of the esoteric teaching. He is evidently,
like Daksha, the synthesis of all the preceding Races and the progenitor of all
the human Races after the Third, the first complete one, and thus is
represented as the culmination of the four primeval races in his eleven-faced
form. It is a column built in four rows, each series having three faces or
heads of different complexions: the three faces for each race being typical of
its three fundamental physiological transformations. The first is white
(moon-coloured); the second is yellow; the third, red-brown; the fourth, in
which are only two faces -- the third face being left a blank -- (a reference
to the untimely end of the Atlanteans) is brown-black. Padmapani (Daksha) is
seated on the column, and forms the apex. In this reference
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 179 THE BIRTH-DAYS OF THE DHYANIS.
compare
Stanza 39. The Dhyan Chohan is represented with four arms, another allusion to
the four races. For while two are folded, the third hand holds a lotus
(Padmapani, "the lotus-bearer"), this flower symbolizing generation,
and the fourth holds a serpent, emblem of the Wisdom in his power. On his neck
is a rosary, and on his head the sign of water [[diagram]] -- matter, deluge --
while on his brow rests the third eye (Siva's eye, that of spiritual insight).
His name is "Protector" (of Tibet), "Saviour of Humanity."
On other occasions when he has only two arms, he is Chenresi, the Dhyani and
Bhodisatva, Chakna-padmakarpo, "he who holds a lotus." His other name
is Chantong, "he of the 1,000 eyes," when he is endowed with a
thousand arms and hands, on the palm of each of which is represented an eye of
Wisdom, these arms radiating from his body like a forest of rays. Another of
his names is Lokapati and Lokanatha (Sanskrit) "Lord of the World";
and Jigtengonpo (Tibetan), "Protector and Saviour against evil" of
any kind.
Padmapani,
however, is the "lotus-bearer" symbolically only for the profane;
esoterically, it means the supporter of the Kalpas, the last of which, the
present Maha-Kalpa (the Varaha), is called Padma, and represents one half of
the life of Brahma. Though a minor Kalpa, it is called Maha, "great,"
because it comprises the age in which Brahma sprang from a lotus.
Theoretically, the Kalpas are infinite, but practically they are divided and
sub-divided in Space and Time, each division -- down to the smallest -- having
its own Dhyani as patron or regent. Padmapani (Avalokiteshwara) becomes, in
China, in his female aspect, Kwan-yin, "who assumes any form, at pleasure,
in order to save mankind." The knowledge of the astrological aspect of the
constellations on the respective "birth-days" of these Dhyanis --
Amitabha (the O-mi-to Fo, of China), included: e.g., on the 19th day of the
second month, on the 17th day of the eleventh month, and on the 7th day of the
third month, etc., etc. -- gives the Occultist the greatest facilities for
performing what are called "magic" feats. The future of an individual
is seen, with all its coming events marshalled in order, in a magic mirror
placed under the ray of certain constellations. But -- beware of the reverse of
the medal, SORCERY.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 180 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
STANZA
VIII.
EVOLUTION
OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS. -- THE
FIRST
FALL.
-------
§§
(28) How the first mammals were produced. (29) A quasi-Darwinian Evolution.
(30) The animals get solid bodies. (31) Their separation into sexes. (32) The
first sin of the mindless men.
---------------------
28.
FROM THE DROPS OF SWEAT (a); FROM THE RESIDUE OF THE SUBSTANCE; MATTER FROM
DEAD BODIES AND ANIMALS OF THE WHEEL BEFORE (previous, Third Round); AND FROM
CAST-OFF DUST; THE FIRST ANIMALS (of this Round) WERE PRODUCED.
(a)
The Occult doctrine maintains that, in this Round, the mammalians were a later
work of evolution than man. Evolution proceeds in cycles. The great Manvantaric
cycle of Seven Rounds, beginning in the First Round with mineral, vegetable,
and animal, brings its evolutionary work on the descending arc to a dead stop
in the middle of the Fourth Race, at the close of the first half of the Fourth
Round. It is on our Earth, then, (the Fourth sphere and the lowest) and in the
present Round, that this middle point has been reached. And since the Monad has
passed, after its "first inmetallization" on Globe A, through the
mineral, vegetable, and animal worlds in every degree of the three states of
matter, except the last degree of the third or solid state, which it reached
only at the "mid-point of evolution" it is but logical and natural
that at the beginning of the Fourth Round on Globe D, Man should be the first
to appear; and also that his frame should be of the most tenuous matter that is
compatible with objectivity. To make it still clearer: if the Monad begins its
cycle of incarnations through the three objective kingdoms on the descending
curved line, it has necessarily to enter on the re-ascending curved line of the
sphere as a man also. On the descending arc it is the spiritual which is
gradually transformed into the material. On the middle line of the base, Spirit
and Matter are equilibrized in Man. On the ascending arc, Spirit is slowly
re-asserting itself at the expense of the physical, or matter, so that, at the
close of the seventh Race of the Seventh Round, the Monad will find itself as
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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free
from matter and all its qualities as it was in the beginning; having gained in addition
the experience and wisdom, the fruition of all its personal lives, without
their evil and temptations.
This
order of evolution is found also in Genesis (ch. 1 and 2) if one reads it in
its true esoteric sense, for chapter i. contains the history of the first Three
Rounds, as well as that of the first Three Races of the Fourth, up to that
moment when Man is called to conscious life by the Elohim of Wisdom. In the
first chapter, animals, whales and fowls of the air, are created before the
androgyne Adam.* In the second, Adam (the sexless) comes first, and the animals
only appear after him. Even the state of mental torpor and unconsciousness of
the first two races, and of the first half of the Third Race, is symbolized, in
the second chapter of Genesis, by the deep sleep of Adam. It was the dreamless
sleep of mental inaction, the slumber of the Soul and Mind, which was meant by
that "sleep," and not at all the physiological process of
differentiation of sexes, as a learned French theorist (M. Naudin) imagined.
The
Puranas, the Chaldean and Egyptian fragments, and also the Chinese traditions,
all show an agreement with the Secret Doctrine as to the process and order of
evolution. We find in them the corroboration of almost all our teaching. For
instance: the statement concerning the oviparous mode of procreation of the
Third Race, and even a hint at a less innocent mode of the procreation of the
first mammal forms, "gigantic, transparent, dumb and monstrous they
were," says the Commentary. Study the stories of the several Rishis and
their multifarious progeny; e.g., Pulastya is the father of all the Serpents
and Nagas -- the oviparous brood; Kasyapa was grandsire, through his wife
Tamra, of the birds and of Garuda, king of the feathered tribe; while by his
wife Surabhi, he was the parent of cows and buffaloes, etc., etc.
In
the Secret Doctrine, the first Nagas -- beings wiser than Serpents -- are the
"Sons of Will and Yoga," born before the complete separation of the
sexes, "matured in the man-bearing eggs** produced by the power
(Kriyasakti) of the holy sages" of the early Third Race.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An allegorical reference to the "Sacred Animals" of the Zodiac and
other heavenly bodies. Some Kabalists see in them the prototypes of the
animals.
**
In "Hesiod," Zeus creates his third race of men out of ash-trees. In
the "Popol Vuh" the Third Race of men is created out of the tree
Tzita and the marrow of the reed called Sibac. But Sibac means "egg"
in the mystery language of the Artufas (or Initiation caves). In a report sent
in 1812 to the Cortes by Don Baptista Pino it is said: "All the Pueblos
have their Artufas -- so the natives call subterranean rooms with only a single
door where they (secretly) assemble. . . . . These are impenetrable temples . .
. . and the doors are always closed to the Spaniards. . . . . They adore the
Sun and Moon . . . . fire and the great SNAKE (the creative power), whose eggs
are called Sibac."
***
There is a notable difference esoterically between the words Sarpa and Naga,
though [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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".
. . . . In these were incarnated the Lords of the three (upper) worlds, the
various classes of Rudras, who had been Tushitas, who had been Jayas, who are
Adityas;" for, as explained by Parasara, "There are a hundred
appellations of the immeasurably mighty Rudras."
Some
of the descendants of the primitive Nagas, the Serpents of Wisdom, peopled
America, when its continent arose during the palmy days of the great Atlantis,
(America being the Patala or Antipodes of Jambu-Dwipa, not of Bharata-Varsha).
Otherwise, whence the traditions and legends -- the latter always more true
than history, as says Augustin Thierry -- and even the identity in the names of
certain "medicine men" and priests, who exist to this day in Mexico?
We shall have to say something of the Nargals and the Nagals and also of Nagalism,
called "devil-worship" by the Missionaries.
In
almost all the Puranas, the story of the "Sacrifice of Daksha" is
given, the oldest account of which is to be found in Vayu Purana. Allegorical
as it is, there is more meaning and biological revelation in it to a
Naturalist, than in all the pseudo-scientific vagaries, which are regarded as
learned theories and hypotheses.
Daksha,
who is regarded as the Chief Progenitor, is, moreover, pointed out as the
creator of physical man in the "fable," which makes him lose his head
from his body in the general strife between the gods and the Raumas. This head,
being burnt in the fire, is replaced by the head of a ram (Kasi-Khanda). Now
the ram's head and horns are ever the symbol of generating power and of reproductive
force, and are phallic. As we have shown, it is Daksha who establishes the era
of men engendered by sexual intercourse. But this mode of procreation did not
occur suddenly, as one may think, and required long ages before it became the
one "natural" way. Therefore, his sacrifice to the gods is shown as
interfered with by Siva, the destroying deity, evolution and PROGRESS
personified, who is the regenerator at the same time; who destroys things under
one form but to recall them to life under another more perfect type. Siva-Rudra
creates the terrible Virabhadra (born of his breath) the "thousand-headed,
thousand-armed" (etc.) monster, and commissions him to destroy the
sacrifice prepared by Daksha. Then Virabhadra, "abiding in the region of
the ghosts (ethereal men) . . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] they are both used indiscriminately. Sarpa
(serpent) is from the root Srip, serpo to creep; and they are called
"Ahi," from Ha, to abandon. "The sarpa was produced from
Brahma's hair, which, owing to his fright at beholding the Yakshas, whom he had
created horrible to behold, fell off from the head, each hair becoming a
serpent. They are called Sarpa from their creeping and Ahi because they had
deserted the head" (Wilson). But the Nagas, their serpent's tail
notwithstanding, do not creep, but manage to walk, run and fight in the
allegories.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 183 ARCHAIC ZOOLOGY.
created
from the pores of the skin (Romakupas), powerful Raumas,* (or Raumyas)."
Now, however mythical the allegory, the Mahabharata, which is history as much
as is the Iliad, shows** the Raumyas and other races, as springing in the same
manner from the Romakupas, hair or skin pores. This allegorical description of
the "sacrifice" is full of significance to the students of the Secret
Doctrine who know of the "Sweat-born."
In
the Vayu Purana's account of Daksha's sacrifice, moreover, it is said to have
taken place in the presence of creatures born from the egg, from the vapour,
vegetation, pores of the skin, and, finally only, from the womb.
Daksha
typifies the early Third Race, holy and pure, still devoid of an individual
Ego, and having merely the passive capacities. Brahma, therefore, commands him
to create (in the exoteric texts); when, obeying the command, he made
"inferior and superior" (avara and vara) progeny (putra), bipeds and
quadrupeds; and by his will, gave birth to females . . . . to the gods, the
Daityas (giants of the Fourth Race), the snake-gods, animals, cattle and the
Danavas (Titans and demon Magicians) and other beings."
.
. . . "From that period forward, living creatures were engendered by
sexual intercourse. Before the time of Daksha, they were variously propagated
-- by the will, by sight, by touch, and by Yoga-power."*** And now comes
the simply zoological teaching.
-------
29.
ANIMALS WITH BONES, DRAGONS OF THE DEEP AND FLYING SARPAS (serpents) WERE ADDED
TO THE CREEPING THINGS. THEY THAT CREEP ON THE GROUND GOT WINGS. THEY OF THE
LONG NECKS IN THE WATER, BECAME THE PROGENITORS OF THE FOWLS OF THE AIR (a).
(a)
This is a point on which the teachings and modern biological speculation are in
perfect accord. The missing links representing this transition process between
reptile and bird are apparent to the veriest bigot, especially in the
ornithoscelidae, hesperornis, and the archaeopteryx of Vogt.
-------
30.
DURING THE THIRD (Race), THE BONELESS ANIMALS GREW AND CHANGED: THEY BECAME
ANIMALS WITH BONES (a), THEIR CHHAYAS BECAME SOLID (also).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Wilson translates the word as "demigods" (See his Vishnu Purana, p.
130); but Raumas or Raumyas are simply a race, a tribe.
**
xii. 10308.
***
"Vishnu Purana"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 184 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
31.
THE ANIMALS SEPARATED THE FIRST (into mate and female) (b) . . . .
(a)
Vertebrates, and after that mammalians. Before that the animals were also
ethereal proto-organisms, just as man was.
(b)
The fact of former hermaphrodite mammals and the subsequent separation of sexes
is now indisputable, even from the stand-point of Biology. As Prof. Oscar
Schmidt, an avowed Darwinist, shows: "Use and disuse combined with
selection elucidate (?) the separation of the sexes, and the existence, totally
incomprehensible, of rudimentary sexual organs. In the Vertebrata especially,
each sex possesses such distinct traces of the reproductive apparatus
characteristic of the other, that even antiquity assumed hermaphroditism as a
natural primeval form of mankind. . . . The tenacity with which the rudiments
of sexual organs are inherited is remarkable. In the class of mammals, actual
hermaphroditism is unheard of, although through the whole period of their
development they drag along with them these residues born by their unknown
ancestry, no one can say how long ago."*
-------
31.
. . . . THEY (the animals) BEGAN TO BREED. THE TWO-FOLD MAN (then) SEPARATED
ALSO. HE (man), SAID "LET US AS THEY; LET US UNITE AND MAKE
CREATURES." THEY DID. . . .
-------
32.
AND THOSE WHICH HAD NO SPARK (the "narrow-brained"** TOOK HUGE
SHE-ANIMALS UNTO THEM (a). THEY BEGAT UPON THEM DUMB RACES. DUMB THEY WERE (the
"narrow-brained") THEMSELVES. BUT THEIR TONGUES UNTIED (b). THE
TONGUES OF THEIR PROGENY REMAINED STILL. MONSTERS THEY BRED. A RACE OF CROOKED,
RED-HAIR-COVERED MONSTERS, GOING ON ALL FOURS.*** A DUMB RACE, TO KEEP THE
SHAME UNTOLD.****
(a)
The animals "separated the first," says Stanza 31. Bear in mind that
at that period men were different, even physiologically, from what
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," pp. 186-7. The "Unknown
Ancestry" referred to are the primeval astral prototypes. Cf. § II., p.
260 (a).
**
See verse 24.
***
These "animals," or monsters, are not the anthropoid or any other apes,
but verily what the Anthropologists might call the "missing link,"
the primitive lower man; see infra.
****
The shame of their animal origin which our modern scientists would emphasize if
they could.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 185 THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS MEN.
they
are now, having passed the middle point of the Fifth Race. We are not told what
the "huge she-animals" were; but they certainly were as different
from any we know now, as were the men.
This
was the first physical "fall into matter" of some of the then
existing and lower races. Bear in mind Stanza 24. The "Sons of
Wisdom" had spurned the early Third Race, i.e., the non-developed, and are
shown incarnating in, and thereby endowing with intellect, the later Third
Race. Thus the sin of the brainless or "mindless" Races, who had no
"spark" and were irresponsible, fell upon those who failed to do by
them their Karmic duty.
(b)
See later on concerning the beginning of human speech.
-------
WHAT
MAY BE THE OBJECTIONS TO THE FOREGOING.
Thus
Occultism rejects the idea that Nature developed man from the ape, or even from
an ancestor common to both, but traces, on the contrary, some of the most
anthropoid species to the Third Race man of the early Atlantean period. As this
proposition will be maintained and defended elsewhere, a few words more are all
that are needed at present. For greater clearness, however, we shall repeat in
brief what was said previously in Book I., Stanza VI.
Our
teachings show that, while it is quite correct to say that nature had built, at
one time, around the human astral form an ape-like external shape, yet it is as
correct that this shape was no more that of the "missing link," than
were the coverings of that astral form, during the course of its natural
evolution through all the kingdoms of nature. Nor was it, as shown in the
proper place, on this Fourth Round planet that such evolution took place, but
only during the First, Second, and Third Rounds, when MAN was, in turn, "a
stone, a plant, and an animal" until he became what he was in the First
Root-Race of present humanity. The real line of evolution differs from the
Darwinian, and the two systems are irreconcilable, except when the latter is
divorced from the dogma of "Natural Selection" and the like. Indeed,
between the Monera of Haeckel and the Sarisripa of Manu, there lies an
impassable chasm in the shape of the Jiva; for the "human" Monad,
whether immetallized in the stone-atom, or invegetallized in the plant, or
inanimalized in the animal, is still and ever a divine, hence also a HUMAN
Monad. It ceases to be human only when it becomes absolutely divine. The terms
"mineral," "vegetable" and "animal" monad are
meant to create a superficial distinction: there is no such thing as a Monad
(jiva)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 186 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
other
than divine, and consequently having been, or having to become, human. And the
latter term has to remain meaningless unless the difference is well understood.
The Monad is a drop out of the shoreless Ocean beyond, or, to be correct,
within the plane of primeval differentiation. It is divine in its higher and
human in its lower condition -- the adjectives "higher" and
"lower" being used for lack of better words -- and a monad it remains
at all times, save in the Nirvanic state, under whatever conditions, or
whatever external forms. As the Logos reflects the Universe in the Divine Mind,
and the manifested Universe reflects itself in each of its Monads, as Leibnitz
put it, repeating an Eastern teaching, so the MONAD has, during the cycle of
its incarnations, to reflect in itself every root-form of each kingdom.
Therefore, the Kabalists say correctly that "MAN becomes a stone, a plant,
an animal, a man, a Spirit, and finally God. Thus accomplishing his cycle or
circuit and returning to the point from which he had started as the heavenly
MAN." But by "Man" the divine Monad is meant, and not the
thinking Entity, much less his physical body. While rejecting the immortal
Soul, the men of Science now try to trace the latter through a series of animal
forms from the lowest to the highest; whereas, in truth, all the present fauna
are the descendants of those primordial monsters of which the Stanzas speak.
The animals -- the creeping beasts and those in the waters that preceded man in
this Fourth Round, as well as those contemporary with the Third Race, and again
the mammalia that are posterior to the Third and Fourth Races -- all are either
directly or indirectly the mutual and correlative product (physically) of man.
It is correct to say that the man of this Manvantara, i.e., during the three
preceding Rounds, has passed through all the kingdoms of nature. That he was
"a stone, a plant, an animal." But (a) these stones, plants, and
animals were the prototypes, the filmy presentments of those of the Fourth
Round; and (b) even those at the beginning of the Fourth Round were the astral
shadows of the present, as the Occultists express it. And finally the forms and
genera of neither man, animal, nor plant were what they became later. Thus the
astral prototypes of the lower beings of the animal kingdom of the Fourth
Round, which preceded (the chhayas of) Men, were the consolidated, though still
very ethereal sheaths of the still more ethereal forms or models produced at
the close of the Third Round on Globe D.* "Produced from the residue of
the substance matter; from dead bodies of men and (other extinct) animals of
the wheel before," or the previous Third Round -- as Stanza 24 tells us.
Hence, while the nondescript "animals"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide "Esoteric Buddhism."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 187 THE DARWINISTS MISTAKEN.
that
preceded the astral man at the beginning of this life-cycle on our Earth were
still, so to speak, the progeny of the man of the Third Round, the mammalians
of this Round owe their existence, in a great measure, to man again. Moreover,
the "ancestor" of the present anthropoid animal, the ape, is the
direct production of the yet mindless Man, who desecrated his human dignity by
putting himself physically on the level of an animal.
The
above accounts for some of the alleged physiological proofs, brought forward by
the anthropologists as a demonstration of the descent of man from the animals.
The
point most insisted upon by the Evolutionists is that, "The history of the
embryo is an epitome of that of the race." That "every organism, in
its development from the egg, runs through a series of forms, through which, in
like succession, its ancestors have passed in the long course of Earth's history.*
The history of the embryo . . . . is a picture in little, and outline of that
of the race. This conception forms the gist of our fundamental biogenetic law,
which we are obliged to place at the head of the study of the fundamental law
of organic development."**
This
modern theory was known as a fact to, and far more philosophically expressed
by, the Sages and Occultists from the remotest ages. A passage from "Isis
Unveiled" may here be cited to furnish a few points of comparison. In Vol.
I., pp. 388-9, it was asked why, with all their great learning, physiologists
were unable to explain teratological phenomena? Any anatomist who has made the
development and growth of the embryo "a subject of special study,"
can tell, without much brain-work, what daily experience and the evidence of
his own eyes show him, viz., that up to a certain period, the human embryo is
facsimile of a young batrachian in its first remove from the spawn -- tadpole.
But no physiologist or anatomist seems to have had the idea of applying to the
development of the human being -- from the first
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"A very strong argument in favour of variability is supplied by the
science of Embryology. Is not a man in the uterus . . . . . a simple cell, a
vegetable with three or four leaflets, a tadpole with branchiae, a mammal with
a tail, lastly a primate (?) and a biped? It is scarcely possible not to
recognise in the embryonic evolution a rapid sketch, a faithful summary, of the
entire organic series." (Lefevre, Philosophy, p. 484).
The
summary alluded to is, however, only that of the store of types hoarded up in
man, the microcosm. This simple explanation meets all such objections, as the
presence of the rudimentary tail in the foetus -- a fact triumphantly paraded
by Haeckel and Darwin as conclusively in favour of the Ape-Ancestor theory. It
may also be pointed out that the presence of a vegetable with leaflets in the
embryonic stages is not explained on ordinary evolutionist principles.
Darwinists have not traced man through the vegetable, but Occultists have. Why
then this feature in the embryo, and how do the former explain it?
**
"The Proofs of Evolution," a lecture by Haeckel.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 188 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
instant
of its physical appearance as a germ to its ultimate formation and birth -- the
Pythagorean esoteric doctrine of metempsychosis, so erroneously interpreted by
critics. The meaning of the axiom: "A stone becomes a plant; a plant, a
beast; a beast, a man, etc." was mentioned in another place in relation to
the spiritual and physical evolution of men on this Earth. We will now add a
few more words to make the matter clearer.
What
is the primitive shape of the future man? A grain, a corpuscle, say some
physiologists; a molecule, an ovum of the ovum, say others. If it could be
analysed -- by the microscope or otherwise -- of what ought we to expect to
find it composed? Analogically, we should say, of a nucleus of inorganic
matter, deposited from the circulation at the germinating point, and united
with a deposit of organic matter. In other words, this infinitesimal nucleus of
the future man is composed of the same elements as a stone -- of the same
elements as the Earth, which the man is destined to inhabit. Moses is cited by
the Kabalists as authority for the remark that it required earth and water to
make a living being, and thus it may be said that man first appears as a stone.
At
the end of three or four weeks the ovum has assumed a plant-like appearance,
one extremity having become spheroidal and the other tapering like a carrot.
Upon dissection it is found to be composed, like an onion, of very delicate
laminae or coats, enclosing a liquid. The laminae approach each other at the
lower end, and the embryo hangs from the root of the umbilicus almost like the
fruit from the bough. The stone has now become changed, by
"metempsychosis," into a plant. Then the embryonic creature begins to
shoot out, from the inside outward, its limbs, and develops its features. The
eyes are visible as two black dots; the ears, nose, and mouth form depressions,
like the points of a pineapple, before they begin to project. The embryo
develops into an animal-like foetus -- the shape of a tadpole -- and, like an
amphibious reptile, lives in water and develops from it. Its Monad has not yet
become either human or immortal, for the Kabalists tell us that this only
occurs at the "fourth hour." One by one the foetus assumes the
characteristics of the human being, the first flutter of the immortal breath
passes through its being; it moves; and the divine essence settles in the
infant frame, which it will inhabit until the moment of physical death, when
man becomes a spirit.
This
mysterious process of a nine-months' formation, the Kabalists call the
completion of the "individual cycle of evolution." As the foetus
develops amidst the liquor amnii in the womb, so the Earths germinate in the universal
ether, or astral fluid, in the womb of the Universe. These cosmic children,
like their pigmy inhabitants, are at first nuclei; then ovules; then gradually
mature; and becoming
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 189 NATURALISTS INVENTING LINKS.
mothers,
in their turn, develop mineral, vegetable, animal, and human forms. From centre
to circumference, from the imperceptible vesicle to the uttermost conceivable
bounds of the Kosmos, those glorious thinkers, the Occultists, trace cycle
merging into cycle, containing and contained in an endless series. The embryo
evolving in its pre-natal sphere, the individual in his family, the family in
the state, the state in mankind, the Earth in our system, that system in its
central universe, the universe in the Kosmos, and the Kosmos in the ONE CAUSE .
. . thus runs their philosophy of evolution, differing as we see, from that of
Haeckel:--
"All
are but parts of one stupendous whole,
Whose
body Nature is, and (Parabrahm) the soul . . ."
These
are the proofs of Occultism, and they are rejected by Science. But how is the
chasm between the mind of man and animal to be bridged in this case? How, if
the anthropoid and Homo primigenius had, argumenti gratia, a common ancestor
(in the way modern speculation puts it), did the two groups diverge so widely
from one another as regards mental capacity? True, the Occultist may be told
that in every case Occultism does what Science repeats; it gives a common
ancestor to ape and man, since it makes the former issue from primeval man. Ay,
but that "primeval man" was man only in external form. He was
mindless and soulless at the time he begot, with a female animal monster, the
forefather of a series of apes. This speculation -- if speculation it be -- is
at least logical, and fills the chasm between the mind of man and animal. Thus
it accounts for and explains the hitherto unaccountable and inexplicable. The
fact that, in the present stage of evolution, Science is almost certain that no
issue can follow from the union of man and animal, is considered and explained
elsewhere.
Now
what is the fundamental difference between the accepted (or nearly so)
conclusions, as enunciated in "The Pedigree of Man," viz., that man
and ape have a common ancestor; and the teachings of Occultism, which deny this
conclusion and accept the fact that all things and all living beings have
originated from one common source? Materialistic science makes man evolve
gradually to what he is now, and, starting from the first protoplasmic speck
called Moneron (which we are told has, like the rest, "originated in the
course of immeasurable ages from a few, or from one simple, spontaneously
arising original form, that has obeyed one law of evolution"), pass through
"unknown and unknowable" types up to the ape, and thence to the human
being. Where the transitional shapes are discoverable we are not told; for the
simple reason that no "missing links" between man and the apes have
ever yet been found, though this fact in no way prevents men like Haeckel from
inventing them ad libitum.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 190 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Nor
will they ever be met with; simply, again, because that link which unites man
with his real ancestry is searched for on the objective plane and in the
material world of forms, whereas it is safely hidden from the microscope and
dissecting knife within the animal tabernacle of man himself. We repeat what we
have said in Isis Unveiled:--
".
. . . . . . All things had their origin in spirit -- evolution having
originally begun from above and proceeded downward, instead of the reverse, as
taught in the Darwinian theory. In other words, there has been a gradual
materialization of forms until a fixed ultimate of debasement is reached. This
point is that at which the doctrine of modern evolution enters into the arena
of speculative hypothesis. Arrived at this period we will find it easier to
understand Haeckel's Anthropogeny, which traces the pedigree of man 'from its
protoplasmic root, sodden in the mud of seas which existed before the oldest of
the fossiliferous rocks were deposited,' according to Professor Huxley's
exposition. We may believe the man (of the Third Round) evolved 'by gradual
modification of an (astral) mammal of ape-like organization' still easier when
we remember that (though in a more condensed and less elegant, but still as
comprehensible, phraseology) the same theory was said by Berosus to have been
taught many thousands of years before his time by the man-fish Oannes or Dagon,
the semi-demon of Babylonia* (though on somewhat modified lines).
"But
what lies back of the Darwinian line of descent? So far as he is concerned
nothing but 'unverifiable hypotheses.' For, as he puts it, he views all beings
'as the lineal descendants of some few beings which lived long before the first
bed of the Silurian system was deposited.'** He does not attempt to show us who
these 'few beings' were. But it answers our purpose quite as well, for, in the
admission of their existence at all, resort to the ancients for corroboration
and elaboration of the idea receives the stamp of scientific approbation. . . .
"
Truly,
as also said in our first work: "If we accept Darwin's theory of the
development of species, we find that his starting-point is placed in front of
an open door. We are at liberty with him, to either remain within, or cross the
threshold, beyond which lies the limitless and the incomprehensible, or rather
the Unutterable. If our mortal language is inadequate to express what our
spirit dimly foresees in the great 'Beyond' -- while on this earth -- it must
realize it at some point in the timeless Eternity." But what lies
"beyond" Haeckel's theory? Why Bathybius Haeckelii, and no more!
A
further answer is given in Part III. Addenda.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Cory: "Ancient Fragments."
**
"Origin of Species," pp. 448, 489, first edition.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 191 THE CAUSE OF DEGENERATION.
STANZA
IX.
THE
FINAL EVOLUTION OF MAN.
-------
§§
(33) The creators repent. (34) They atone for their neglect. (35) Men become
endowed with minds. (36) The fourth race develops perfect speech. (37) Every
androgynous unit is separated and becomes bisexual.
---------------------
33.
SEEING WHICH (the sin committed with the animals), THE LHAS (the spirits, the
"Sons of Wisdom") WHO HAD NOT BUILT MEN (who had refused to create),
WEPT, SAYING:--
-------
34.
"THE AMANASA (the 'mindless') HAVE DEFILED OUR FUTURE ABODES (a). THIS IS
KARMA. LET US DWELL IN THE OTHERS. LET US TEACH THEM BETTER, LEST WORSE SHOULD
HAPPEN." THEY DID. . . .
-------
35.
THEN ALL BECAME ENDOWED WITH MANAS (minds). THEY SAW THE SIN OF THE MINDLESS.
But
they had already separated before the ray of divine reason had enlightened the
dark region of their hitherto slumbering minds, and had sinned. That is to say,
they had committed evil unconsciously, by producing an effect which was
unnatural. Yet, like the other six primitive brother or fellow races, even so
this seventh, henceforth degenerated race, which will have to bide its time for
its final development on account of the sin committed, -- even this race will
find itself on the last day on one of the seven paths. For "the wise*
guard the home of nature's order, they assume excellent forms in
secret."** But we must see whether the "animals" tampered with,
were of the same kind as those known to zoology.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This verse in the Veda (X. 5-6), "The seven wise ones (rays of wisdom,
Dhyanis) fashion seven paths (or lines as also Races in another sense). To one
of these may the distressed mortal come" -- which is interpreted solely
from the astronomical and cosmic aspect -- is one of the most pregnant in
occult meaning. The "paths" may mean lines (maryadah), but they are
primarily beams of light falling on the paths leading to wisdom. (See Rig Veda
IV. 5-13.) It means "ways" or paths. They are, in short, the seven
Rays which fall free from the macrocosmic centre, the seven principles in the
metaphysical, the seven Races in the physical sense. All depends upon the key
used.
**
"Rig Veda," X. 10, 5, 2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 192 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
(a)
The "Fall" occurred, according to the testimony of ancient Wisdom and
the old records, as soon as Daksha (the reincarnated Creator of men and things
in the early Third Race) disappeared to make room for that portion of mankind
which had "separated." This is how the Commentary explains the
details that preceded the "Fall":--
"In
the initial period of man's Fourth evolution, the human kingdom branched off in
several and various directions. The outward shape of its first specimens was
not uniform, for the vehicles (the egg-like, external shells, in which the
future fully physical man gestated) were often tampered with, before they
hardened, by huge animals, of species now unknown, and which belonged to the
tentative efforts of Nature. The result was that intermediate races of
monsters, half animals, half men, were produced. But as they were failures,
they were not allowed to breathe long and live, though the intrinsically
paramount power of psychic over physical nature being yet very weak, and hardly
established, the 'Egg-Born' Sons had taken several of their females unto
themselves as mates, and bred other human monsters. Later, animal species and
human races becoming gradually equilibrized, they separated and mated no
longer. Man created no more -- he begot. But he also begot animals, as well as
men in days of old. Therefore the Sages (or wise men), who speak of males who
had no more will-begotten offspring, but begat various animals along with
Danavas (giants) on females of other species -- animals being as (or in a
manner of) Sons putative to them; and they (the human males) refusing in time to
be regarded as (putative) fathers of dumb creatures -- spoke truthfully and
wisely. Upon seeing this (state of things), the kings and Lords of the Last
Races (of the Third and the Fourth) placed the seal of prohibition upon the
sinful intercourse. It interfered with Karma, it developed new (Karma).* They
(the divine Kings) struck the culprits with sterility. They destroyed the Red
and Blue Races.**
In
another we find:--
"There
were blue and red-faced animal-men even in later times; not from actual intercourse
(between the human and animal species), but by descent."
And
still another passage mentions:--
"Red-haired,
swarthy men going on all-fours, who bend and unbend (stand erect and fall on
their hands again) who speak as their forefathers, and run on their hands as
their giant fore-mothers."
Perchance
in these specimens, Haeckelians might recognize, not the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is next to impossible to translate verbally some of these old Commentaries.
We are often obliged to give the meaning only, and thus retranslate the
verbatim translations.
**
Rudra, as a Kumara, is Lilalohita -- red and blue.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 193 THE BONELESS RACE.
Homo
primigenius, but some of the lower tribes, such as some tribes of the
Australian savages. Nevertheless, even these are not descended from the
anthropoid apes, but from human fathers and semi-human mothers, or, to speak
more correctly, from human monsters -- those "failures" mentioned in
the first Commentary. The real anthropoids, Haeckel's Catarrhini and
Platyrrhini, came far later, in the closing times of Atlantis. The
orang-outang, the gorilla, the chimpanzee and cynocephalus are the latest and
purely physical evolutions from lower anthropoid mammalians. They have a spark
of the purely human essence in them; man on the other hand, has not one drop of
pithecoid* blood in his veins. Thus saith old Wisdom and universal tradition.
How
was the separation of sexes effected? it is asked. Are we to believe in the old
Jewish fable of the rib of Adam yielding Eve? Even such belief is more logical
and reasonable than the descent of man from the Quadrumana without any
reservation; as the former hides an esoteric truth under a fabulous version,
while the latter conceals no deeper fact than a desire to force upon mankind a
materialistic fiction. The rib is bone, and when we read in Genesis that Eve
was made out of the rib, it only means that the Race with bones was produced
out of a previous Race and Races, which were "boneless." This is an
esoteric tenet spread far and wide, as it is almost universal under its various
forms. A Tahitian tradition states that man was created out of Araea, "red
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This, regardless of modern materialistic evolution, which speculates in this
wise: "The primitive human form, whence as we think all human species
sprang, has perished this long time." (This we deny; it has only decreased
in size and changed in texture.) "But many facts point to the conclusion
that it was hairy and dolichocephalic." (African races are even now
dolichocephalic in a great measure, but the palaeolithic Neanderthal skull, the
oldest we know of, is of a large size, and no nearer to the capacity of the
gorilla's cranium than that of any other now-living man). "Let us, for the
time being, call this hypothetical species Homo primigenius. . . . This first
species, or the Ape-man, the ancestor of all the others, PROBABLY arose in the
tropical regions of the old world from ANTHROPOID APES." Asked for proofs,
the evolutionist, not the least daunted, replies: "Of these NO FOSSIL
REMAINS ARE AS YET KNOWN TO US, BUT THEY WERE probably AKIN TO THE GORILLA AND
ORANG OF THE PRESENT DAY." And then the Papuan negro is mentioned as the
probable descendant in the first line (Pedigree of Man, p. 80).
Haeckel
holds fast to Lemuria, which with East Africa and South Asia also, he mentions as
the possible cradle of the primitive Ape-men; and so do many geologists. Mr. A.
R. Wallace admits its reality, though in a rather modified sense, in his
"Geographical Distribution of Animals." But let not Evolutionists
speak so lightly of the comparative size of the brains of man and the ape, for
this is very unscientific, especially when they pretend to see no difference
between the two, or very little at any rate. For Vogt himself showed that,
while the highest of the Apes, the gorilla, has a brain of only 30 to 51 cubic
inches, the brain of the lowest of the Australian aborigines amounts to 99.35
cubic inches. The former is thus "not half of the size of the brain of a
new-born babe," says Pfaff.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 194 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Earth."
Taaroa, the creative power, the chief god, "put man to sleep for long
years, for several lives," which means racial periods, and is a reference
to his mental sleep, as shown elsewhere. During that time the deity pulled an
Ivi (bone) out of man and she became a woman.*
Nevertheless,
whatever the allegory may mean, even its exoteric meaning necessitates a divine
Builder of man -- "a Progenitor." Do we then believe in such
"supernatural" beings? We say, No. Occultism has never believed in
anything, whether animate or inanimate, outside nature. Nor are we Cosmolators
or Polytheists for believing in "Heavenly Man" and divine men, for we
have the accumulated testimony of the ages, with its unvarying evidence on
every essential point, to support us in this; the Wisdom of the Ancients and
UNIVERSAL tradition. We reject, however, every groundless and baseless
tradition, which, having outgrown strict allegory and symbolism, has found
acceptance in exoteric creeds. But that which is preserved in unanimous
traditions, only the wilfully blind could reject. Hence we believe in races of
beings other than our own in far remote geological periods; in races of
ethereal, following incorporeal, "Arupa," men, with form but no solid
substance, giants who preceded us pigmies; in dynasties of divine beings, those
Kings and Instructors of the Third Race in arts and sciences, compared with
which our little modern science stands less chance than elementary arithmetic with
geometry.
No,
certainly not. We do not believe in the supernatural but only in the
superhuman, or rather interhuman, intelligences. One may easily appreciate the
feeling of reluctance that an educated person would have to being classed with
the superstitious and ignorant; and even realize the great truth uttered by
Renan when he says that: "The supernatural has become like the original
sin, a blemish that every one seems ashamed of -- even those most religious
persons who refuse in our day to accept even a minimum of Bible miracles in all
their crudeness, and who, seeking to reduce them to the minimum, hide and
conceal it in the furthermost corners of the past."**
But
the "supernatural" of Renan belongs to dogma and its dead letter. It
has nought to do with its Spirit nor with the reality of facts in Nature. If
theology asks us to believe that four or five thousand years ago men lived 900
years and more, that a portion of mankind, the enemies of the people of Israel
exclusively, was composed of giants
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Polynesian Researches," Ellis. Vol.II., p. 38.
Missionaries
seem to have pounced upon this name Ivi and made of it Eve. But, as shown by Professor
Max Muller, Eve is not the Hebrew name but an European transformation of
[[hebrew]], chavah, "life," or mother of all living; "while the
Tahitian Ivi and the Maori Wheva meant bone and bone only." ("False
Analogies.")
**
Chaire d'Hebreu au college de France, p. 20.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 195 THE HAIRY MEN OF CHINA.
and
monsters, we decline to believe that such a thing existed in Nature 5,000 years
back. For Nature never proceeds by jumps and starts, and logic and common
sense, besides geology, anthropology and ethnology, have justly rebelled
against such assertions. But if that same theology, giving up her fantastic
chronology, had claimed that men lived 969 years -- the age of Methuselah --
five million years ago, we would have nothing to say against the claim. For in
those days the physical frame of men was, compared to the present human body,
as that of a megalosaurus to a common lizard.
A
naturalist suggests another difficulty. The human is the only species which,
however unequal in its races, can breed together. "There is no question of
selection between human races," say the anti-Darwinists, and no
evolutionist can deny the argument -- one which very triumphantly proves specific
unity. How then can Occultism insist that a portion of the Fourth Race humanity
begot young ones from females of another, only semi-human, if not quite an
animal, race, the hybrids resulting from which union not only bred freely but
produced the ancestors of the modern anthropoid apes? Esoteric science replies
to this that it was in the very beginnings of physical man. Since then, Nature
has changed her ways, and sterility is the only result of the crime of man's
bestiality. But we have to this day proofs of this. The Secret Doctrine teaches
that the specific unity of mankind is not without exceptions even now. For
there are, or rather still were a few years ago, descendants of these
half-animal tribes or races, both of remote Lemurian and Lemuro-Atlantean
origin. The world knows them as Tasmanians (now extinct), Australians, Andaman
Islanders, etc. The descent of the Tasmanians can be almost proved by a fact,
which struck Darwin a good deal, without his being able to make anything of it.
This fact deserves notice.
Now
de Quatrefages and other naturalists, who seek to prove Monogenesis by the very
fact of every race of mankind being capable of crossing with every other, have
left out of their calculations exceptions, which do not in this case confirm
the rule. Human crossing may have been a general rule from the time of the
separation of sexes, and yet that other law may assert itself, viz., sterility
between two human races, just as between two animal species of various kinds,
in those rare cases when a European, condescending to see in a female of a
savage tribe a mate, happens to chose a member of such mixed tribes.* Darwin
notes such
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Of such semi-animal creatures, the sole remnants known to Ethnology were the
Tasmanians, a portion of the Australians and a mountain tribe in China, the men
and women of which are entirely covered with hair. They were the last
descendants in a direct line of the semi-animal latter-day Lemurians referred to.
There are, however, considerable numbers of the mixed Lemuro-Atlantean peoples
produced by various [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 196 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
a
case in a Tasmanian tribe, whose women were suddenly struck with sterility, en
masse, some time after the arrival among them of the European colonists. The
great naturalist tried to explain this fact by change of diet, food,
conditions, etc., but finally gave up the solution of the mystery. For the
Occultist it is a very evident one. "Crossing," as it is called, of
Europeans with Tasmanian women -- i.e., the representatives of a race, whose
progenitors were a "soulless"* and mindless monster and a real human,
though still as mindless a man -- brought on sterility. This, not alone as a
consequence of a physiological law, but also as a decree of Karmic evolution in
the question of further survival of the abnormal race. In no one point of the
above is Science prepared to believe as yet -- but it will have to in the long
run. Esoteric philosophy, let us remember, only fills the gaps made by science
and corrects her false premises.
Yet,
in this particular, geology and even botany and zoology support the esoteric
teachings. It has been suggested by many geologists that the Australian native
-- co-existing as he does with an archaic fauna and flora -- must date back to
an enormous antiquity. The whole environment of this mysterious race, about
whose origin ethnology is silent, is a testimony to the truth of the esoteric
position.
"It
is a very curious fact," says Jukes,** "that not only these marsupial
animals (the mammals found in the Oxfordshire stone-field slates), but several
of the shells -- as for instance, the Trigonias and even some of the plants
found fossil in the Oolitic rocks -- much more nearly resemble those now living
in Australia than the living forms of any other part of the globe. This might
be explained on the supposition that, since the 0olitic (Jurassic) period, less
change has taken place in Australia than elsewhere, and that the Australian
flora and fauna consequently retain some-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] crossings with such semi-human stocks -- e.g.,
the wild men of Borneo, the Veddhas of Ceylon, classed by Prof. Flower among
Aryans (!), most of the remaining Australians, Bushmen, Negritos, Andaman
Islanders, etc.
The
Australians of the Gulf of St. Vincent and the neighbourhood of Adelaide are
very hairy, and the brown down on the skin of boys of five or six years of age
assumes a furry appearance. They are, however, degraded men -- not the closest
approximation to the "pithecoid man," as Haeckel so sweepingly
affirms. Only a portion of these men are a Lemurian relic. (Cf. "Esoteric
Buddhism," p.55.)
*
In calling the animal "Soulless," it is not depriving the beast, from
the humblest to the highest species, of a "soul," but only of a
conscious surviving Ego-soul, i.e., that principle which survives after a man,
and reincarnates in a like man. The animal has an astral body, that survives
the physical form for a short period; but its (animal) Monad does not
re-incarnate in the same, but in a higher species, and has no
"Devachan" of course. It has the seeds of all the human principles in
itself, but they are latent.
**
"Manual of Geology," p. 302.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 197 THE SEPARATION OF SEXES.
thing
of the Oolitic type, while it had been altogether supplanted and replaced on
the rest of the Globe." (! !)
Now
why has less change taken place in Australia than elsewhere? Where is the
raison d'etre for such a "curse of retardation"? It is simply because
the nature of the environment develops pari passu with the race concerned.
Correspondences rule in every quarter. The survivors of those later Lemurians,
who escaped the destruction of their fellows when the main continent was
submerged, became the ancestors of a portion of the present native tribes.
Being a very low sub-race, begotten originally of animals, of monsters, whose
very fossils are now resting miles under the sea floors, their stock has since
existed in an environment strongly subjected to the law of retardation.
Australia is one of the oldest lands now above the waters, and in the senile
decrepitude of old age, its "virgin soil" notwithstanding. It can
produce no new forms, unless helped by new and fresh races, and artificial
cultivation and breeding.
To
return, however, once more to the history of the Third Race, the
"Sweat-Born," the "Egg-bearing," and the
"Androgyne." Almost sexless, in its early beginnings, it became
bisexual or androgynous; very gradually of course. The passage from the former
to the latter transformation required numberless generations, during which the
simple cell that issued from the earliest parent (the two in one), first
developed into a bisexual being; and then the cell, becoming a regular egg,
gave forth a unisexual creature. The Third-Race-mankind is the most mysterious
of all the hitherto developed five Races. The mystery of the "How" of
the generation of the distinct sexes must, of course, be very obscure here, as
it is the business of an embryologist and a specialist, the present work giving
only faint outlines of the process. But it is evident that the units of the
Third Race humanity began to separate in their pre-natal shells, or eggs,* and
to issue out of them as distinct male and female babes, ages after the
appearance of its early progenitors. And, as time rolled on its geological
periods, the newly born sub-races began to lose their natal capacities. Toward
the end of the fourth sub-race, the babe lost its faculty of walking as soon as
liberated from its shell, and by the end of the fifth, mankind was born under
the same conditions and by the same identical process as our historical
generations. This required, of course, millions of years. The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "fables" and "myths" about Leda and Jupiter, and such
like, could never have sprung up in people's fancy, had not the allegory rested
on a fact in nature. Evolution, gradually transforming man into a mammal, did
in his case only what it did in that of other animals. But this does not
prevent man from having always stood at the head of the animal world and other
organic species, and from having preceded the former.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 198 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
reader
has been made acquainted with the approximate figures, at least of the exoteric
calculations, in Stanza II.
We
are approaching the turning-point of the evolution of the Races. Let us see
what occult philosophy says on the origin of language.
-------
36.
THE FOURTH RACE DEVELOPED SPEECH.
The
Commentaries explain that the first Race -- the ethereal or astral Sons of
Yoga, also called "Self-born" -- was, in our sense, speechless, as it
was devoid of mind on our plane. The Second Race had a
"Sound-language," to wit, chant-like sounds composed of vowels alone.
The Third Race developed in the beginning a kind of language which was only a slight
improvement on the various sounds in Nature, on the cry of gigantic insects and
of the first animals, which, however, were hardly nascent in the day of the
"Sweat-born" (the early Third Race). In its second half, when the
"Sweat-born" gave birth to the "Egg-born," (the middle
Third Race); and when these, instead of "hatching out" (may the
reader pardon the rather ridiculous expression when applied to human beings in
our age) as androgynous beings, began to evolve into separate males and
females; and when the same law of evolution led them to reproduce their kind
sexually, an act which forced the creative gods, compelled by Karmic law, to
incarnate in mindless men; then only was speech developed. But even then it was
still no better than a tentative effort. The whole human race was at that time
of "one language and of one lip." This did not prevent the last two
Sub-Races of the Third Race* from building cities, and sowing far and wide the
first seeds of civilization under the guidance of their divine instructors,** and
their own already awakened minds. Let the reader also bear in mind that, as
each of the seven races is divided into four ages -- the Golden, Silver,
Bronze, and Iron Age -- so is every smallest division of such races.*** Speech
then developed, according to occult teaching, in the following order:--
I.
Monosyllabic speech; that of the first approximately fully developed human
beings at the close of the Third Root-race, the "golden-coloured,"
yellow-complexioned men, after their separation into sexes, and the full
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To avoid confusion, let the reader remember that the term Root-Race applies to
one of the seven great Races, sub-Race to one of its great Branches, and
Family-Race to one of the sub-divisions, which include nations and large
tribes.
**
In the Section on the Divine Dynasties, the nature of these
"Instructors" is explained.
***
Vide Section attached to the "Divisions into Yugas."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 199 PRIMEVAL LANGUAGE.
awakening
of their minds. Before that, they communicated through what would now be called
"thought-transference," though, with the exception of the Race called
the "Sons of Will and Yoga" -- the first in whom the "Sons of
Wisdom" had incarnated -- thought was but very little developed in nascent
physical man, and never soared above a low terrestrial level. Their physical
bodies belonging to the Earth, their Monads remained on a higher plane altogether.
Language could not be well developed before the full acquisition and
development of their reasoning faculties. This monosyllabic speech was the
vowel parent, so to speak, of the monosyllabic languages mixed with hard
consonants, still in use amongst the yellow races which are known to the
anthropologist.*
II.
These linguistic characteristics developed into the agglutinative languages.
The latter were spoken by some Atlantean races, while other parent stocks of
the Fourth Race preserved the mother-language. And as languages have their
cyclic evolution, their childhood, purity, growth, fall into matter, admixture
with other languages, maturity, decay and finally death,** so the primitive
speech of the most civilized Atlantean races -- that language, which is
referred to as "Rakshasi Bhasa," in old Sanskrit works -- decayed and
almost died out. While the "cream" of the Fourth Race gravitated more
and more toward the apex of physical and intellectual evolution, thus leaving
as an heirloom to the nascent Fifth (the Aryan) Race the inflectional, highly
developed languages, the agglutinative decayed and remained as a fragmentary
fossil idiom, scattered now, and nearly limited to the aboriginal tribes of
America.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The present yellow races are the descendants, however, of the early branches of
the Fourth Race. Of the third, the only pure and direct descendants are, as
said above, a portion of the fallen and degenerated Australians, whose far
distant ancestors belonged to a division of the seventh Sub-race of the Third.
The rest are of mixed Lemuro-Atlantean descent. They have since then entirely
changed in stature and intellectual capacities.
**
Language is certainly coeval with reason, and could never have been developed
before men became one with the informing principles in them -- those who
fructified and awoke to life the manasic element dormant in primitive man. For,
as Professor Max Muller tells us in his "Science of Thought,"
"Thought and language are identical." Yet to add to this the
reflection that thoughts which are too deep for words, do not really exist at
all, is rather risky, as thought impressed upon the astral tablets exists in
eternity whether expressed or not. Logos is both reason and speech. But
language, proceeding in cycles, is not always adequate to express spiritual
thoughts. Moreover, in one sense, the Greek Logos is the equivalent of the
Sanscrit Vach, "the immortal (intellectual) ray of spirit." And the fact
that Vach (as Devasena, an aspect of Saraswati, the goddess of hidden Wisdom)
is the spouse of the eternal celibate Kumara, unveils a suggestive, though
veiled, reference to the Kumaras, those "who refused to create," but
who were compelled later on to complete divine Man by incarnating in him. All
this will be fully explained in the sections that follow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 200 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
III.
The inflectional speech -- the root of the Sanskrit, very erroneously called
"the elder sister" of the Greek, instead of its mother -- was the
first language (now the mystery tongue of the Initiates, of the Fifth Race). At
any rate, the "Semitic" languages are the bastard descendants of the
first phonetic corruptions of the eldest children of the early Sanskrit. The
occult doctrine admits of no such divisions as the Aryan and the Semite,
accepting even the Turanian with ample reservations. The Semites, especially
the Arabs, are later Aryans -- degenerate in spirituality and perfected in
materiality. To these belong all the Jews and the Arabs. The former are a tribe
descended from the Tchandalas of India, the outcasts, many of them ex-Brahmins,
who sought refuge in Chaldea, in Scinde, and Aria (Iran), and were truly born
from their father A-bram (No Brahmin) some 8,000 years B.C. The latter, the
Arabs, are the descendants of those Aryans who would not go into India at the
time of the dispersion of nations, some of whom remained on the borderlands
thereof, in Afghanistan and Kabul,* and along the Oxus, while others penetrated
into and invaded Arabia.
But
this was when Africa had already been raised as a continent. We have meanwhile
to follow, as closely as limited space will permit, the gradual evolution of
the now truly human species. It is in the suddenly arrested evolution of
certain sub-races, and their forced and violent diversion into the purely
animal line by artificial cross-breeding, truly analogous to the hybridization,
which we have now learned to utilize in the vegetable and animal kingdoms, that
we have to look for the origin of the anthropoids.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ptolemy, speaking in his ninth table of the Kabolitae (Kabul tribes), calls
them [[Aristophuloi]], the aristocratic or noble tribes. The Afghans call
themselves Ben-Issrael (children of Is(sa)rael), from Issa, "woman and
also earth," Sons of Mother Earth. But if you call an Afghan Yahoudi (Jew),
he will kill you. The subject is fully treated elsewhere. The names of the
supposed twelve tribes and the names of the real tribes, the same in number, of
the Afghans, are the same. The Afghans being far older (at any rate, their
Arabic stock) than the Israelites, no one need be surprised to find such tribal
names among them as Youssoufzic, "Sons of Joseph" in Punjcaure and
Boonere; the Zablistanee (Zebulon); Ben-manasseh (sons of Manasseh) among the
Khojar Tartars; Isaguri, or Issachar (now Ashnagor in Afghanistan), etc., etc.
The whole twelve names of the so-called twelve tribes are names of the signs of
the Zodiac, as is now well proven. At any rate, the names of the oldest Arabic
tribes, re-transliterated, yield the names of the zodiacal signs and of the
mythical sons of Jacob likewise. Where are the traces of the Jewish twelve
tribes? Nowhere. But there is a trace, and a good one, that the Jews have tried
to deceive people with the help of those names. For, see what happens ages
after the ten tribes had wholly disappeared from Babylon. Ptolemy Philadelphus,
desiring to have the Hebrew Law translated for him into Greek (the famous
Septuagint), wrote to the high priest of the Jews, Eleazar, to send him six men
from each of the twelve tribes; and the seventy-two representatives (of whom
sixty were ghosts apparently) came to the king in Egypt and translated the law
amid miracles and wonders. See Butler's "Horae Biblicae," Josephus,
and Philo Judaeus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 201 THE TRANSFORMATION OF THE EARTH.
In
these red-haired and hair-covered monsters, the fruit of the unnatural
connection between men and animals, the "Lords of Wisdom" did not
incarnate, as we see. Thus by a long series of transformations due to unnatural
cross-breeding (unnatural "sexual selection"), originated in due
course of time the lowest specimens of humanity; while further bestiality and
the fruit of their first animal efforts of reproduction begat a species which
developed into mammalian apes ages later.*
As
to the separation of sexes, it did not occur suddenly, as one may think. Nature
proceeds slowly in whatever she does.
-------
37.
THE ONE (androgyne) BECAME TWO; ALSO ALL THE LIVING AND CREEPING THINGS, THAT
WERE STILL ONE, GIANT-FISH, BIRDS, AND SERPENTS WITH SHELL-HEADS (a).
This
relates evidently to the so-called age of the amphibious reptiles, during which
ages science maintains that no man existed! But what could the ancients know of
antediluvian prehistoric animals and monsters! Nevertheless, in Book VI. of the
Commentaries is found a passage which says, freely translated:--
"When
the Third separated and fell into sin by breeding men-animals, these (the
animals) became ferocious, and men and they mutually destructive. Till then,
there was no sin, no life taken. After (the separation) the Satya (Yuga) was at
an end. The eternal spring became constant change and seasons succeeded. Cold
forced men to build shelters and devise clothing. Then man appealed to the
superior Fathers (the higher gods or angels). The Nirmanakaya of the Nagas, the
wise Serpents and Dragons of Light came, and the precursors of the Enlightened
(Buddhas). Divine Kings descended and taught men sciences and arts, for man
could live no longer in the first land (Adi-Varsha, the Eden of the first
Races), which had turned into a white frozen corpse."
The
above is suggestive. We will see what can be inferred from this brief
statement. Some may incline to think that there is more in it than is apparent
at first sight.
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Commentary explains that the apes are the only species, among the animals, which
has gradually and with every generation and variety tended more and more to
return to the original type of its male forefather -- the dark gigantic
Lemurian and Atlantean.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 202 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
EDENS,
SERPENTS, AND DRAGONS.
Whence
the idea, and the true meaning of the term "Eden"? Christians will
maintain that the Garden of Eden is the holy Paradise, the place desecrated by
the sin of Adam and Eve; the Occultist will deny this dead-letter
interpretation, and show the reverse. One need not believe and see in the Bible
divine revelation in order to say that this ancient book, if read esoterically,
is based upon the same universal traditions. What Eden was is partially shown
in Isis Unveiled.*
It
was said that: "The Garden of Eden as a locality is no myth at all; it
belongs to those landmarks of history which occasionally disclose to the
student that the Bible is not all mere allegory. Eden, or the Hebrew [[hebrew]]
Gan-Eden, meaning the park or the garden of Eden, is an archaic name of the
country watered by the Euphrates and its many branches, from Asia and Armenia
to the Erythraean sea." (A. Wilder says that Gan-duniyas is a name of
Babylonia.) In the Chaldean "Book of Numbers," the location is
designated in numerals, and in the cypher Rosicrucian manuscript, left by Count
St. Germain, it is fully described. In the Assyrian Tablets it is rendered
Ganduniyas. "Behold," says the [[hebrew]] (Elohim) of Genesis, "the
man is become as one of us." The Elohim may be accepted in one sense for
gods or powers, and in another for Aleim, or priests -- the hierophants
initiated into the good and evil of this world; for there was a college of
priests called the Aleim, while the head of their caste, or the chief of the
hierophants was known as Java-Aleim. Instead of becoming a neophyte, and
gradually obtaining his esoteric knowledge through a regular initiation, an
Adam, or Man, uses his intuitional faculties and, prompted by the serpent
(Woman and matter), tastes of the Tree of Knowledge -- the esoteric or Secret
Doctrine -- unlawfully. The priests of Hercules, or Mel-karth, the "Lord
of the Eden," all wore "coats of skin." The text says: "And
Java-Aleim made for Adam and his wife [[hebrew]] 'Chitonuth our.' " The
first Hebrew word, "chiton," is the Greek [[Chiton]], Chiton. It
became a Slavonic word by adoption from the Bible, and means a coat, an upper
garment.
"Though
containing the same substratum of esoteric truth as does every early Cosmogony,
the Hebrew Scripture wears on its face the marks of a double origin. Its
Genesis is purely a reminiscence of the Babylonian captivity. The names of
places, men and even objects, can be traced from the original text to the
Chaldeans and the Akkadians, the progenitors and Aryan instructors of the
former. It is strongly contested that the Akkad tribes of Chaldea, Babylonia
and Assyria were in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vol. I., pp. 575, et seq.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 203 THE GARDEN OF EDEN, A COLLEGE.
any
way cognate with the Brahmans of Hindostan; but there are more proofs in favour
of this opinion than otherwise. The Shemite or Assyrian ought, perchance, to
have been called the Turanian, and the Mongolians have been denominated Scyths.
But if the Akkadians ever existed, otherwise than in the imagination of some
ethnologists and philologists, they certainly would never have been a Turanian
tribe, as some Assyriologists have striven to make us believe. They were simply
emigrants on their way to Asia Minor from India, the cradle of humanity, and
their sacerdotal adepts tarried to civilize and initiate a barbarian people.
Halevy proved the fallacy of the Turanian mania in regard to Akkadian people,
and other scientists have proved that the Babylonian civilization was neither
born nor developed in that country. It was imported from India, and the
importers were Brahminical Hindus."
And
now, ten years after this was written, we find ourselves corroborated by
Professor Sayce, who says in his first Hibbert lecture that the culture of the
Babylonian city Eridu was of foreign importation. It came from India.
"Much
of the theology was borrowed by the Semites from the non-Semitic Akkadians or
proto-Chaldeans, whom they supplanted, and whose local cults they had neither
the will nor the power to uproot. Indeed, throughout a long course of ages the
two races, Semites and Akkadians, lived side by side, their notions and worship
of the gods blending insensibly together."
Here,
the Akkadians are called "non-Semitic," as we had insisted they were
in "Isis," which is another corroboration. And we are no less right in
always maintaining that the Jewish Biblical history was a compilation of
historical facts, arranged from other people's history in Jewish garb --
Genesis excluded, which is esotericism pure and simple. But it is really from
the Euxine to Kashmir and beyond, that science has to search for the cradle --
or rather one of the chief cradles -- of mankind and the sons of Ad-ah; and
especially in after times, when the Garden of Ed-en on the Euphrates became the
college of the astrologers and magi, the Aleim.
But
this "college" and this Eden belong to the Fifth Race, and are simply
a faint reminiscence of the Adi-varsha, of the primeval Third Race. What is the
etymological meaning of the word Eden? In Greek it is [hedone], signifying
voluptuousness. In this aspect it is no better than the Olympus of the Greeks,
Indra's heaven (Swarga) on Mount Meru, and even the paradise full of Houris,
promised by Mahomet to the faithful. The Garden of Eden was never the property
of the Jews; for China, which can hardly be suspected of having known anything
of the Jews 2,000 B.C., has such a primitive garden in Central Asia inhabited
by the "Dragons of Wisdom," the Initiates. And according to Klaproth,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 204 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
hieroglyphical chart copied from a Japanese Cyclopaedia in the book of
Fo-kone-ky, places its "Garden of Wisdom" on the plateau of Pamir
between the highest peaks of the Himalayan ranges; and describing it as the culminating
point of Central Asia, shows the four rivers -- Oxus, Indus, Ganges, and Silo
-- flowing from a common source, the "Lake of the Dragons."
But
this is not the Genetic Eden; nor is it the Kabalistical Garden of Eden. For
the former -- Eden Illa-ah -- means in one sense Wisdom, a state like that of
Nirvana, a paradise of Bliss; while in another sense it refers to Intellectual
man himself, the container of the Eden in which grows the tree of Knowledge of
good and evil: man being the Knower thereof.
Renan
and Barthelemy St. Hilaire, basing themselves "on the most solid
inductions," think it impossible to doubt any longer, and both place the
cradle of humanity "on the region of the Timaus." Finally, the
Asiatic Journal* concludes that: "All the traditions of the human race
gathering its primitive families at the region of their birth-place, show them
to us grouped around the countries where Jewish tradition places the Garden of
Eden; where the Aryans (Zoroastrians) established their Airyana-vaego or the
Meru (?). They are hemmed in to the North by the countries which join the lake
Aral, and to the South by Baltistan, or Little Tibet. Everything concurs in
proving that there was the abode of that primitive humanity to which we have to
be traced."
That
"primitive humanity" was in its Fifth Race, when the
"four-mouthed Dragon," the lake, of which very few traces are now
left, was the abode of the "Sons of Wisdom," the first mind-born sons
of the Third Race. Yet it was neither the only one nor the primitive cradle of
humanity, though it was the copy of the cradle, verily, of the first thinking
divine man. It was the Paradesa, the highland of the first Sanskrit-speaking
people, the Hedone, the country of delight of the Greeks, but it was not the
"bower of voluptuousness" of the Chaldeans, for the latter was only
the reminiscence of it; and also because it was not there that the Fall of Man
occurred after the "separation." The Eden of the Jews was copied from
the Chaldean copy.
That
the Fall of man into generation occurred during the earliest portion of what
science calls the Mesozoic times, or the age of the reptiles, is evidenced by
the Bible phraseology concerning the serpent, the nature of which is explained
in the Zohar. The question is not whether Eve's incident with the tempting
reptile is allegorical or textual, for no one can doubt that it is the former,
but to show the antiquity of the symbolism on the very face of it, and that it
was not only a Jewish but an universal idea.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Journal Asiatique," seventh year, 1855.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 205 FLYING CAMELS.
Now
we find in the Zohar a very strange assertion, one that is calculated to
provoke the reader to merry laughter by its ludicrous absurdity. It tells us
that the serpent, which was used by Shamael (the supposed Satan), to seduce
Eve, was a kind of flying camel [[kamelomorphon]].
A
"flying camel" is indeed too much for the most liberal-minded F.R.S.
Nevertheless, the Zohar, which can hardly be expected to use the language of a
Cuvier, was right in its description:* for we find it called in the old
Zoroastrian MSS. Aschmogh, which in the Avesta is represented as having lost
after the Fall "its nature and its name," and is described as a huge
serpent with a camel's neck.
"There
are no winged serpents, nor veritable dragons," asserts Salverte,** "
. . . grasshoppers are called by the Greeks winged serpents, and this metaphor
may have created several narratives on the existence of winged serpents."
There
are none now; but there is no reason why they should not have existed during
the Mesozoic age; and Cuvier, who has reconstructed their skeletons, is a
witness to "flying camels." Already, after finding simple fossils of
certain saurians, the great naturalist has written, that, "if anything can
justify the Hydra and other monsters, whose figures were so often repeated by
mediaeval historians, it is incontestably the Plesiosaurus."***
We
are unaware if Cuvier had added anything in the way of a further mea culpa. But
we may well imagine his confusion, for all his slanders against archaic
veracity, when he found himself in the presence of a flying saurian, "the
Pterodactyl" (found in Germany), "78 feet long, and carrying vigorous
wings attached to its reptilian body." That fossil is described as a
reptile, the little fingers of whose hands are so elongated as to bear a long
membranous wing. Here, then, the "flying camel" of the Zohar is
vindicated. For surely, between the long neck of the Plesiosaurus and the
membranous wing of the Pterodactyl, or still better the Mosasaurus, there is
enough scientific probability to build a "flying camel," or a
long-necked dragon. Prof. Cope, of Philadelphia, has shown that the Mosasaurus
fossil in the chalk was a winged serpent of this kind. There are characters in
its vertebrae, which indicate union with the Ophidia rather than with the
Lacertilia.
And
now to the main question. It is well known that Antiquity has never claimed
palaeontography and paleontology among its arts and sciences; and it never had
its Cuviers. Yet on Babylonian tiles, and especially in old Chinese and
Japanese drawings, in the oldest Pagodas
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Moses Maimonides, "More Nevochim."
**
"Science Occulte," p. 646.
***
"Revolution du Globe," vol. v., p. 464.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 206 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
and
monuments, and in the Imperial library at Pekin, many a traveller has seen and
recognised perfect representations of Plesiosauri and Pterodactyls in the
multiform Chinese dragons.* Moreover, the prophets speak in the Bible of the
flying fiery serpents,** and Job mentions the Leviathan.*** Now the following
questions are put very directly:--
I.
How could the ancient nations know anything of the extinct monsters of the
carboniferous and Mesozoic times, and even represent and describe them orally
and pictorially, unless they had either seen those monsters themselves or
possessed descriptions of them in their traditions, which descriptions
necessitate living and intelligent eye-witnesses?
II.
And if such eye-witnesses are once admitted (unless retrospective clairvoyance
is granted), how can humanity and the first palaeolithic men be no earlier than
about the middle of the tertiary period? We must bear in mind that most of the
men of science will not allow man to have appeared before the Quaternary
period, and thus shut him out completely from the Cenozoic times. Here we have
extinct species of animals, which disappeared from the face of the Earth
millions of years ago, described by, and known to, nations whose civilization,
it is said, could hardly have begun a few thousand years ago. How is this?
Evidently either the Mesozoic time has to be made to overlap the Quaternary
period, or man must be made the contemporary of the Pterodactyl and the
Plesiosaurus.
It
does not stand to reason, because the Occultists believe in and defend ancient
wisdom and science, even though winged saurians are called "flying
camels" in the translations of the Zohar, that we believe as readily in
all the stories which the middle ages give us of such dragons. Pterodactyls and
Plesiosauri ceased to exist with the bulk
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We read in the "Memoire a l'Academie" of the "naive astonishment
of Geoffrey St. Hilaire, when M. de Paravey showed to him in some old Chinese
works and Babylonian tiles dragons, . . . . saurians and ornithorhynchuses
(aquatic animals found only in Australia), etc., extinct animals that he had
thought unknown on earth. . . . till his own day."
**
See Isaiah, xxx. 6: "The viper and the flying serpent unto the land of
trouble and anguish," and the fiery serpents conquered by the brazen
serpent of Moses.
***
The fossils reconstructed by science, which we know ought to be sufficient
warrant for the possibility of even a Leviathan, let alone Isaiah's flying
serpents, or saraph mehophep, which words are translated in all the Hebrew
dictionaries as "saraph," enflamed or fiery venom, and
"mehophep," flying. But, although Christian theology has always connected
both (Leviathan and saraph mehophep) with the devil, the expressions are
metaphorical and have nought to do with the "evil one." But the word
Dracon has become a synonym for the latter. In Bretagne the word Drouk now
signifies "devil," whence, as we are told by Cambry ("Monuments
Celtiques," p. 299), the devil's tomb in England, Draghedanum sepulcrum.
In Languedoc the meteoric fires and will-o'-the-wisps are called Dragg, and in
Bretagne Dreag, Wraie (or wraith), the castle of Drogheda in Ireland meaning
the devil's castle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 207 KIRCHER'S DRAGON.
of
the Third Race. When, therefore, we are gravely asked by Roman Catholic writers
to credit Christopher Scherer's and Father Kircher's cock-and-bull stories of
their having seen with their own eyes living fiery and flying dragons,
respectively in 1619 and 1669, we may be allowed to regard their assertions as
either dreams or fibs.* Nor shall we regard otherwise than as a poetical
license that other story told of Petrarch, who, while following one day his
Laura in the woods and passing near a cave, is credited with having found a
dragon, whom he forthwith stabbed with his dagger and killed, thus preventing
the monster from devouring the lady of his heart.** We would willingly believe
the story had Petrarch lived in the days of Atlantis, when such antediluvian
monsters may still have existed. We deny their existence in our present era.
The sea-serpent is one thing, the dragon quite another. The former is denied by
the majority because it exists and lives in the very depths of the ocean, is
very scarce, and rises to the surface only when compelled, perhaps, by hunger.
Thus keeping invisible, it may exist and still be denied. But if there was such
a thing as a dragon of the above description, how could it have ever escaped
detection? It is a creature contemporary with the earliest Fifth Race, and
exists no more.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The ultramontane writers accept the whole series of draconian stories given by
Father Kircher (Edipus AEgyptiacus, "De Genere Draconum,") quite
seriously. According to that Jesuit, he himself saw a dragon which was killed
in 1669 by a Roman peasant, as the director of the Museo Barberini sent it to
him, to take the beast's likeness, which Father Kircher did and had it
published in one of his in-folios. After this he received a letter from
Christopher Scherer, Prefect of the Canton of Soleure, Switzerland, in which
that official certifies to his having seen himself with his own eyes, one fine
summer night in 1619, a living dragon. Having remained on his balcony "to
contemplate the perfect purity of the firmament," he writes, "I saw a
fiery, shining dragon rise from one of the caves of Mount Pilatus and direct
itself rapidly towards Fluelen to the other end of the lake. Enormous in size,
his tail was still longer and his neck very extended. His head and jaws were
those of a serpent. In flying he emitted on his way numerous sparks (? !) . . .
. I thought at first I was seeing a meteor, but soon looking more attentively,
I was convinced by his flight and the conformation of his body that I saw a
veritable dragon. I am happy to be thus able to enlighten your Reverence on the
very real existence of those animals"; in dreams, the writer ought to have
added, of long past ages.
**
As a convincing proof of the reality of the fact, a Roman Catholic refers the
reader to the picture of that incident painted by Simon de Sienne, a friend of
the poet, on the portal of the Church Notre Dame du Don at Avignon;
notwithstanding the prohibition of the Sovereign Pontiff, who "would not
allow this triumph of love to be enthroned in the holy place"; and adds:
"Time has injured and rubbed out the work of art, but has not weakened its
tradition." De Mirville's "Dragon-Devils" of our era seem to
have no luck, as they disappear most mysteriously from the museums where they
are said to have been. Thus the dragon embalmed by Ulysses Aldobranda and
presented to the Musee du Senat, either in Naples or Bologna, "was there
still in 1700, but is there no more." (Vol. 2, p. 427,
"Pneumatologie.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 208 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
reader may inquire why we speak of dragons at all? We answer: firstly, because
the knowledge of such animals is a proof of the enormous antiquity of the human
race; and secondly, to show the difference between the zoological real meaning
of the words "dragon," "Naga," and "Serpent," and
the metaphorical one, when used symbolically. The profane reader, who knows
nothing of the mystery language, is likely, whenever he finds one of these
words mentioned, to accept it literally. Hence, the quid pro quos and unjust
accusations. A couple of instances will suffice.
Sed
et serpens? aye: but what was the nature of the serpent? Mystics intuitionally
see in the serpent of Genesis an animal emblem and a high spiritual essence: a
cosmic force superintelligent, a "great fallen light," a spirit
sidereal, aerial and tellurian at the same time, "whose influence
circumambulates the globe (qui circumambulat terram), as a Christian fanatic of
the dead-letter (de Mirville) has it, and which only manifested itself under
the physical emblem, which was the most convenient "with respect to its
moral and intellectual coils": i.e. under the ophidian form.
But
what will Christians make of the Brazen Serpent, the "DIVINE HEALER,"
if the serpent is to be regarded as the emblem of cunning and evil? The
"Evil One" itself? How can the line of demarcation ever be settled,
when it is traced arbitrarily in a sectarian theological spirit. For, if the
followers of the Roman Church are taught that Mercury and AEsculapius, or
Asclepios, who are, in truth, one, are "devils and sons of devils,"
and the wand and serpent of the latter were "the devil's wand"; how
about the "brazen serpent" of Moses? Every scholar knows that both
the heathen wand and the Jewish "serpent" are one and the same,
namely, the Caduceus of Mercury, son of APOLLO-PYTHON. It is easy to comprehend
why the Jews adopted the ophidian shape for their "seducer." With
them it was purely physiological and phallic; and no amount of casuistical
reasoning on the part of the Roman Catholic Church can give it another meaning,
once that the mystery language is well studied, and that the Hebrew scrolls are
read numerically. The Occultists know that the serpent, the Naga, and the
dragon have each a septenary meaning; that the Sun, for instance, was the
astronomical and cosmic emblem of the two contrasted lights, and the two
serpents of the Gnostics, the good and the evil one; they also know that, when
generalised, the conclusions of both science and theology present two most
ridiculous extremes. For, when the former tells us that it is sufficient to
trace the legends of the serpents to their primal source, the astrological
legend, and to meditate seriously on the Sun, conqueror of Python, and the
celestial virgin in the Zodiac forcing back the devouring dragon, if we would
have the key of all the subsequent religious dogmas; it is easy to perceive
that, instead of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 209 COBRAS AS SYMBOLS.
generalising,
the author simply has his eye on Christian religion and Revelation. We call
this one extreme. The other we see in this: when, repeating the famous decision
of the Council of Trent, theology seeks to convince the masses that "from
the fall of man until the hour of his baptism the devil has full power over
him, and possesses him by right (diabolum dominationem et potestatem super
homines habere et jure cos possidere)." To this Occult philosophy answers:
Prove first the existence of the devil as an entity, and then we may believe in
such congenital possession. A very small amount of observation and knowledge of
human nature may be sufficient to prove the fallacy of this theological dogma.
Had SATAN any reality, in the objective or even subjective world (in the
ecclesiastical sense), it is the poor devil who would find himself chronically
obsessed and even possessed by the wicked -- hence by the bulk of mankind. It
is humanity itself, and especially the clergy, headed by the haughty,
unscrupulous and intolerant Roman Church, which have begotten, given birth to,
and reared in love the evil one; but this is a digression.
"The
whole world of thought is reproached by the Church with having adored the
serpent. The whole of humanity 'incensed and at the same time stoned it.' The
Zend Avesta speaks of it as the Kings and Vedas do, as the Edda and the Bible.
. . . Everywhere the sacred serpent, the naga, and its shrine and its priest;
in Rome it is the Vestal who prepares its meal with the same care as she
bestows on the sacred fire. In Greece, AEsculapius cannot cure without its
assistance, and delegates to it his powers. Everyone has heard of the famous
Roman embassy sent by the Senate to the god of medicine and its return with the
not less famous serpent, which proceeded of its own will and by itself toward
its Master's temple on one of the islands of the Tiber. Not a Bacchante that
did not wind it (the serpent) in her hair, not an Augur but questioned it
oracularly, not a necromancer whose tomb is free from its presence! The Cainites
and the Ophites call it Creator, while recognizing, as Schelling did, that the
serpent is 'evil in substance and its personification.' "*
Yes,
the author is right, and if one would have a complete idea of the prestige
which the serpent enjoys to our own day, one ought to study the matter in India
and learn all that is believed about, and still attributed to, the Nagas
(Cobras) in that country; one should also visit the Africans of Whydah, the
Voodoos of Port-au-Prince and Jamaica, the Nagals of Mexico, and the Pa, or
men-serpents of China, &c. But why wonder that the serpent is
"adored" and at the same time cursed, since we
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Sacred Serpents" on p. 432 of de Mirville's "Memoire."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 210 THE SECRET DOCTRINE
know
that from the beginning it was a symbol?* In every ancient language the word
dragon signified what it now does in Chinese -- (lang) i.e., "the being
who excels in intelligence" and in Greek [[drakon]], or "he who sees
and watches." And is it to the animal of that name that any of these
epithets can apply? Is it not evident, wherever superstition and oblivion of
the primitive meaning may have led savages now, that the said qualifications
were intended to apply to the human originals, who were symbolized by serpents
and dragons? These "originals" -- called to this day in China
"the Dragons of Wisdom" -- were the first disciples of the Dhyanis, who
were their instructors; in short, the primitive adepts of the Third Race, and
later, of the Fourth and Fifth Races. The name became universal, and no sane
man before the Christian era would ever have confounded the man and the symbol.
The
symbol of Chnouphis, or the soul of the world, writes Champollion, "is
among others that of an enormous serpent standing on human legs; this reptile,
the emblem of the good genius, is a veritable Agathodaemon. It is often
represented bearded. . . . . That sacred animal, identical with the serpent of
the Ophites, is found engraved on numerous Gnostic or Basilidean stones . . . .
The serpent has various heads, but is constantly inscribed with the letters
[[CHNOUBIS]]."** Agathodaemon was endowed "with the knowledge of good
and evil," i.e., with divine Wisdom, as without the former the latter is
impossible.*** Repeating Iamblichus, Champollion shows him to be "the
deity called [[Eichton]] (or the fire of the celestial gods -- the great ****
Thot-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is about as just as though -- a few millenniums hence -- a fanatic of some
future new creed, who was bent on glorifying his religion at the expense of
ancient Christianity, were to say: "Everywhere the quadruped lamb was
adored. The nun placed it, calling it the Agnus, on her bosom; the priest laid
it on the altar. It figured in every paschal meal, and was glorified loudly in
every temple. And yet the Christians dreaded it and hated it, for they slew and
devoured it. . . ." Heathens, at any rate, do not eat their sacred
symbols. We know of no serpent, or reptile-eaters except in Christian civilized
countries, where they begin with frogs and eels, and must end with real snakes,
as they have begun with lamb and ended with horse-flesh.
**
"Pantheon," 3.
***
The solar Chnouphis, or Agathodaemon, is the Christos of the Gnostics, as every
scholar knows. He is intimately connected with the seven sons of Sophia
(Wisdom), the seven sons of Aditi (universal Wisdom), her eighth being
Martanda, the Sun, which seven are the seven planetary regents or genii.
Therefore Chnouphis was the spiritual Sun of Enlightenment, of Wisdom, hence
the patron of all the Egyptian Initiates, as Bel-Merodach (or Bel-Belitanus)
became later with the Chaldeans.
****
Hermes, or rather Thot, was a generic name. Abul Teda shows in "Historia
Anti-Islamitica" five Hermes, and the names of Hermes, Nebo, Thot were
given respectively in various countries to great Initiates. Thus Nebo, the son
of Merodach and Zarpanitu (whom Herodotus calls Zeus-Belos), gave his name to
all the great prophets, seers and Initiates. They were all "serpents of
Wisdom," as connected with the Sun astronomically, and with Wisdom
spiritually.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 211 TWO SCHOOLS OF MAGIC.
Hermes),
to whom Hermes Trismegistus attributes the invention of magic."*
The
"invention of magic!" A strange term to use, as though the unveiling of
the eternal and actual mysteries of nature could be invented! As well
attribute, millenniums hence, the invention instead of the discovery of radiant
matter to Prof. Crookes. Hermes was not the inventor, or even the discoverer,
for, as said in the foot-note, Thot-Hermes is a generic name, as is Enoch
(Enoichion, the "inner, spiritual eye"), Nebo, the prophet and seer,
etc. It is not the proper name of any one living man, but a generic title of
many adepts. Their connection in symbolic allegories with the serpent is due to
their enlightenment by the solar and planetary gods during the earliest
intellectual Race, the Third. They are all the representative patrons of the
Secret Wisdom. Asclepios is the son of the Sun-god Apollo -- and he is Mercury;
Nebo is the son of Bel-Merodach; Vaivasvata Manu, the great Rishi, is the son
of Vivisvat -- the Sun or Surya, etc., etc. And while, astronomically, the
Nagas along with the Rishis, the Gandharvas, Apsarasas, Gramanis (or Yakshas,
minor gods) Yatudhanas and Devas, are the Sun's attendants throughout the
twelve solar months; in theogony, and also in anthropological evolution, they
are gods and men -- when incarnated in the nether world. Let the reader be
reminded, in this connection, of the fact that Apollonius met in Kashmir
Buddhist Nagas -- which are neither serpents zoologically, nor yet the Nagas
ethnologically, but "wise men."
The
Bible, from Genesis to Revelations, is but a series of historical records of
the great struggle between white and black Magic, between the Adepts of the
right path, the Prophets, and those of the left, the Levites, the clergy of the
brutal masses. Even the students of Occultism, though some of them have more
archaic MSS. and direct teaching to rely upon, find it difficult to draw a line
of demarcation between the Sodales of the Right Path and those of the Left. The
great schism that arose between the sons of the Fourth Race, as soon as the
first Temples and Halls of Initiation had been erected under the guidance of
"the Sons of God," is allegorized in the Sons of Jacob. That there
were two schools of Magic, and that the orthodox Levites did not belong to the
holy one, is shown in the words pronounced by the dying Jacob. And here it may
be well to quote a few sentences from "Isis Unveiled."
The
dying Jacob thus describes his sons: "Dan," he says, "shall be a
serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse-heels, so that
his rider shall fall backwards (i.e., he will teach candidates black magic) . .
. . I have waited for thy salvation, O Lord!" Of Simeon and Levi the
patriarch remarks that they" . . . are brethren; instru-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Pantheon," text 15.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ments
of cruelty are in their habitations. O my soul, come not thou into their
secret; unto their assembly."* Now in the original, the words "their
secret" really are "their SOD."** And Sod was the name for the
great mysteries of Baal, Adonis and Bacchus, who were all sun-gods and had
serpents for symbols. The Kabalists explain the allegory of the fiery serpents
by saying that this was the name given to the tribe of Levi, to all the
Levites, in short, and that Moses was the chief of the Sodales.*** It is to the
mysteries that the original meaning of the "Dragon-Slayers" has to be
traced, and the question is fully treated of hereafter.
Meanwhile
it follows that, if Moses was the chief of the Mysteries, he was the Hierophant
thereof, and further, if, at the same time, we find the prophets thundering
against the "abominations" of the people of Israel, that there were
two schools. "Fiery serpents" was, then, simply the epithet given to the
Levites of the priestly caste, after they had departed from the good law, the
traditional teachings of Moses: and to all those who followed Black Magic.
Isaiah, when referring to the "rebellious children" who will have to
carry their riches into the land whence come "the viper and fiery flying
serpent" (xxx. 6), or Chaldea and Egypt, whose Initiates had already
greatly degenerated in his day (700 B.C.), meant the sorcerers of those
lands.**** But these must be carefully distinguished from the "Fiery
Dragons of Wisdom" and the "Sons of the Fire Mist."
In
the "Great Book of the Mysteries" we are told that: "Seven Lords
created Seven men; three Lords (Dhyan Chohans or Pitris) were holy and good,
four less heavenly and full of passion. . . . The chhayas (phantoms) of the
Fathers were as they."
This
accounts for the differences in human nature, which is divided into seven
gradations of good and evil. There were seven tabernacles ready to be inhabited
by Monads under seven different Karmic conditions. The Commentaries explain on
this basis the easy spread of evil, as soon as the human Forms had become real
men. Some ancient
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Genesis," ch. xlix.
**
Dunlap, in his introduction to "Sod, the Mysteries of Adonis," explains
the word "Sod" as arcanum, religious mystery, on the authority of
Schindler's "Penteglott." "The secret of the Lord is with them
that fear him," says Psalm xxv., 14. This is a mistranslation of the
Christians, for it ought to read "Sod Ihoh (the mysteries of Ihoh) are for
those who fear him" (Dunlap, "Mysteries of Adonis," xi).
"Al (El) is terrible in the great Sod of the Kadeshim (the priests, the
holy, the Initiated), Psalm lxxxix, 7" (ibid.). The Kadeshim were very far
from holy. (Vide Part II., "The Holy of Holies.")
***
"The members of the priest-Colleges were called Sodales," says
Freund's "Latin Lexicon" (iv. 448). "Sodalities were constituted
in the Idaean Mysteries of the MIGHTY MOTHER," writes Cicero in de
Senectute. ("Mysteries of Adonis.")
****
The priests of Baal who jumped over the fires. But this was a Hebrew term and a
local one. "Saraph" -- "fiery or flaming venom."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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philosophers
ignored the seven in their genetical accounts and gave only four. Thus the
Mexican local Genesis has "four good men" described as the four real
ancestors of the human race, "who were neither begotten by the gods nor
born of woman"; but whose creation was a wonder wrought by the creative
Powers, and who were made only after "three attempts at manufacturing men
had failed." The Egyptians had in their theology only "four sons of
God," whereas in Pymander seven are given -- thus avoiding any mention of
the evil nature of man; though when Seth from a god sank into Set-Typhon, he
began to be called "the seventh son." Whence probably arose the
belief that "the seventh son of the seventh son" is always a
natural-born magician, though, at first, only a sorcerer was meant. APAP, the
serpent symbolizing evil, is slain by Aker, Set's serpent;* therefore
Set-Typhon could not be that evil. In the "Book of the Dead" it is
commanded (v. 13) that chapter clxiii. should be read "in the presence of
a serpent on two legs," which means a high Initiate, a Hierophant, for the
discus and ram's horns** that adorn his "serpent's" head in the
hieroglyphics of the title of the said chapter denote this. Over the
"serpent" are represented the two mystic eyes of Ammon,*** the hidden
"mystery god." This passage corroborates our assertion, and shows
what the word "serpent" meant in antiquity.
But
as to the Nagals and Nargals, whence came the similarity of names between the
Indian Nagas and the American Nagals?
"The
Nargal was the Chaldean and Assyrian chief of the Magi (Rab-Mag), and the Nagal
was the chief sorcerer of the Mexican Indians. Both derive their names from
Nergal-Serezer, the Assyrian god, and the Hindu Nagas. Both have the same
faculties and the power to have an attendant daemon, with whom they identify
themselves completely. The Chaldean and Assyrian Nargal kept his daemon, in the
shape of some animal considered sacred, inside the temple; the Indian Nagal
keeps his wherever he can -- in the neighbouring lake, or wood, or in the house
in the shape of some household animal."****
Such
similarity cannot be attributed to coincidence. A new world is discovered, and
we find that, for our forefathers of the Fourth Race,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Book of the Dead" xxxix.
**
The same ram's horns are found on the heads of Moses which were on some old
medals seen by the writer in Palestine, one of which is in her possession. The
horns, made to form part of the shining aureole on the statue of Moses in Rome
(Michael Angelo), are vertical instead of being bent down to the ears, but the
emblem is the same; hence the Brazen Serpent.
***
But see Harris's "Magic Papyrus" No. v.; and the ram-headed Ammon
manufacturing men on a potter's wheel.
****
Brasseur de Bourbourg: "Mexique," pp. 135 and 574.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 214 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
it
was already an old one. That Arjuna, Krishna's companion and chela, is said to
have descended into Patala, the "antipodes," and therein married
Ulupi,* a Naga (or Nagini rather), the daughter of the king of the Nagas,
Kauravya.**
And
now it may be hoped the full meaning of the serpent emblem is proven. It is neither
that of evil, nor, least of all, that of the devil; but is, indeed, the [[SEMES
EILAM ABRASAX]] ("the eternal Sun-Abrasax"), the central spiritual
sun of all the Kabalists, represented in some diagrams by the circle of
Tiphereth.
And
here, again, we may quote from our earlier volumes and enter into further
explanations.
"From
this region of unfathomable depth (Bythos, Aditi, Shekinah, the veil of the
unknown) issues forth a circle formed of spirals. This is Tiphereth; which, in
the language of symbolism, means a grand cycle, composed of smaller ones.
Coiled within, so as to follow the spirals, lies the serpent -- emblem of
Wisdom and Eternity -- the dual Androgyne; the cycle representing Ennoia, or
the divine mind (a power which does not create but which must assimilate), and
the serpent, the Agathodaemon, the Ophis, the Shadow of the Light (non-eternal,
yet the greatest divine light on our plane). Both were the Logoi of the
Ophites: or the Unity as Logos manifesting itself as a double principle of Good
and Evil."
Were
it light alone, inactive and absolute, the human mind could not appreciate nor
even realise it. Shadow is that which enables light to manifest itself, and
gives it objective reality. Therefore, shadow is not evil, but is the necessary
and indispensable corollary which completes Light or Good: it is its creator on
Earth.
According
to the views of the Gnostics, these two principles are immutable Light and
Shadow, Good and Evil being virtually one and having existed through all
eternity, as they will ever continue to exist so long as there are manifested
worlds.
This
symbol accounts for the adoration by this sect of the Serpent, as the Saviour,
coiled either around the sacramental loaf, or a Tau, the phallic emblem. As a
Unity, Ennoia and Ophis are the Logos. When separated, one is the Tree of Life
(spiritual), the other, the Tree
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ulupi has an entirely Atlantean ring about it. Like Atlantis, it is neither a
Greek nor a Sanskrit name, but reminds one of Mexican names.
**
"Mahabharata," Adiparva, Sloka, 7788, 7789. The "Bhagavata
Purana," ix., xx., 31, as explained by Sridhera, the commentator, makes
Ulupi the daughter of the king of Manipura; but the late Pundit Dayanand
Saraswati, certainly the greatest Sanskrit and Puranic authority in India on
such questions, personally corroborated that Ulupi was daughter of the king of
the Nagas at Patala, or America, 5000 years ago, and that the Nagas were
Initiates.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 215 BUDDHA'S GREAT MOUNTAIN.
of
Knowledge of Good and Evil. Therefore, we find Ophis urging the first human
couple -- the material production of Ilda-Baoth, but which owed its spiritual
principle to Sophia-Achamoth -- to eat of the forbidden fruit, although Ophis
represents divine Wisdom.
The
serpent, the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the Tree of Life, are all
symbols transplanted from the soil of India. The Arasa-Maram, the banyan tree,
so sacred with the Hindus (since Vishnu during one of his incarnations, reposed
under its mighty shade and there taught human philosophy and sciences), is
called the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life. Under the protecting foliage
of this king of the forests, the Gurus teach their pupils their first lessons
on immortality and initiate them into the mysteries of life and death. The
Java-Aleim of the Sacerdotal College are said, in the Chaldean tradition, to
have taught the sons of men to become like one of them. To the present day
Foh-tchou,* who lives in his Foh-Maeyu, or temple of Buddha, on the top of the
"Kouin-long-sang,"** the great mountain, produces his greatest
religious miracles under a tree called in Chinese Sung-Ming-Shu, or the Tree of
Knowledge and the Tree of Life, for ignorance is death, and knowledge alone
gives immortality. This marvellous display takes place every three years, when
an immense concourse of Chinese Buddhists assembles in pilgrimage at the holy
place.
Now
it may become comprehensible why the earliest Initiates and Adepts, or the
"Wise Men," for whom it is claimed that they were initiated into the
mysteries of nature by the UNIVERSAL MIND, represented by the highest angels,
were named the "Serpents of Wisdom" and "Dragons;" as also
how the first physiologically complete couples -- after being initiated into
the mystery of human creation through Ophis, the manifested Logos and the
androgyne, by eating of the fruit of knowledge -- gradually began to be accused
by the material spirit of posterity of having committed Sin, of having
disobeyed the "Lord God," and of having been tempted by the Serpent.
So
little have the first Christians (who despoiled the Jews of their Bible)
understood the first four chapters of Genesis in their esoteric meaning, that
they never perceived that not only was no sin intended in this disobedience,
but that actually the "Serpent" was "the Lord God" himself,
who, as the Ophis, the Logos, or the bearer of divine creative wisdom, taught mankind
to become creators in their turn.*** They
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Foh-tchou, literally, in Chinese meaning Buddha's lord, or the teacher of the
doctrines of Buddha-Foh.
**
This mountain is situated south-west of China, almost between China and Tibet.
***
Let the reader be reminded that in the Zohar, and also in all the Kabalistic
works, it is maintained that "Metatron united to Shekinah" (or
Shekinah as the veil (grace) [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 216 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
never
realised that the Cross was an evolution from the "tree and the
serpent," and thus became the salvation of mankind. By this it would
become the very first fundamental symbol of Creative cause, applying to
geometry, to numbers, to astronomy, to measure and to animal reproduction.
According to the Kabala the curse on man came with the formation of woman.* The
circle was separated from its diameter line. "From the possession of the
double principle in one, that is the Androgyne condition, the separation of the
dual principle was made, presenting two opposites, whose destiny it was, for
ever after, to seek reunion into the original one condition. The curse was
this, viz.: that nature, impelling the search, evaded the desired result by the
production of a new being, distinct from that reunion or oneness desired, by
which the natural longing to recover a lost state was and is for ever being
cheated. It is by this tantalizing process of a continued curse that Nature
lives."** (Vide "Cross and Circle," Part II.)
The
allegory of Adam being driven away from the "Tree of Life" means,
esoterically, that the newly separated Race abused and dragged the mystery of
Life down into the region of animalism and bestiality. For, as the Zohar shows,
that Matronethah (Shekinah, the wife of Metatron symbolically) "is the way
to the great Tree of Life, the Mighty Tree," and Shekinah is divine grace.
As explained: This Tree reaches the heavenly vale and is hidden between three
mountains (the upper triad of principles, in man). From these three mountains,
the Tree ascends above (the adept's knowledge aspires heavenward) and then redescends
below (into the adept's Ego on Earth). This Tree is revealed in the day time
and is hidden during the night, i.e., revealed to an enlightened mind and
hidden to Ignorance, which is night. (See Zohar I., 172, a and b.) "The
Tree of the Knowledge of the Good and the Evil grows from the roots of the Tree
of Life." (Comm.) But then also: "In the Kabala it is plainly to be
found that "the 'Tree of Life' was
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of Ain-Soph), representing the Logos, is that
very Tree of Knowledge; while Shamael -- the dark aspect of the Logos --
occupies only the rind of that tree, and has the knowledge of EVIL alone. As
Lacour, who saw in the scene of the Fall (chap. iii., Genesis) an incident
pertaining to Egyptian Initiation, says:-- "The Tree of the Divination, or
of the Knowledge of Good and Evil . . . . is the science of Tzyphon, the genius
of doubt, Tzy to teach, and phon, doubt. Tzyphon is one of the Aleim; we shall
see him presently under the name of Nach, the tempter" (Les OEloim, Vol.
II., p. 218). He is now known to the symbologists under the name JEHOVAH.
*
This is the view taken and adopted by all the Church Fathers, but it is not the
real esoteric teaching. The curse did not begin with the formation of either
man or woman, for their separation was a natural sequence of evolution, but for
breaking the law (See supra).
**
"By which (human) nature lives," not even the animal -- but the
misguided, sensual and vicious nature, which men, not nature, created.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 217 "MYTHICAL" MONSTERS A REALITY.
the
ansated cross in its sexual aspect, and that the 'Tree of Knowledge' was the separation
and the coming together again to fulfil the fatal condition. To display this in
numbers the values of the letters composing the word Otz ( [[diagram]]), tree,
are 7 and 9, the seven being the holy feminine number and the nine the number
of the phallic or male energy. This ansated cross is the symbol of the Egyptian
female-male, Isis-Osiris, the germinal principle in all forms, based on the
primal manifestation applicable in all directions and in all senses."*
This
is the Kabalistic view of the Western Occultists, and it differs from the more
philosophical Eastern or Aryan views upon this subject.** The separation of the
sexes was in the programme of nature and of natural evolution; and the creative
faculty in male and female was a gift of Divine wisdom. In the truth of such
traditions the whole of antiquity, from the patrician philosopher to the
humblest spiritually inclined plebeian, has believed. And as we proceed, we may
successfully show that the relative truth of such legends, if not their
absolute exactness -- vouched for by such giants of intellect as were Solon,
Pythagoras, Plato, and others -- begins to dawn upon more than one modern
scientist. He is perplexed; he stands startled and confused before proofs that
are being daily accumulated before him; he feels that there is no way of
solving the many historical problems that stare him in the face, unless he
begins by accepting ancient traditions. Therefore, in saying that we believe
absolutely in ancient records and universal legends, we need hardly plead
guilty before the impartial observer, for other and far more learned writers,
among those who belong to the modern scientific school, evidently believe in
much that the Occultists do: e.g., in "Dragons," not only
symbolically, but also in their actual existence at one time.
"It
would have indeed been a bold step for anyone, some thirty years ago, to have
thought of treating the public to a collection of stories ordinarily reputed
fabulous, and of claiming for them the consideration due to genuine realities,
or to have advocated tales, believed to be time-honoured fictions, as actual
facts; and those of the nursery as being, in many instances, legends, more or
less distorted, descriptive of real beings or events. Nowadays it is a less
hazardous proceeding . . . . . "
Thus
opens the introduction to a recent (1886) and most interesting work by Mr.
Charles Gould, called "Mythical Monsters." He boldly states his
belief in most of these monsters. He submits that:-- "Many of the
so-called mythical animals, which, throughout long ages and in all nations,
have been the fertile subjects of fiction and fable, come
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Source of Measures."
**
Vide infra, "The Septenary," in Part II.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 218 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
legitimately
within the scope of plain matter-of-fact natural history; and that they may be
considered, not as the outcome of exuberant fancy, but as creatures which
really once existed, and of which, unfortunately, only imperfect and inaccurate
descriptions have filtered down to us, probably very much refracted, through
the mists of time. . . . Traditions of creatures once co-existing with man,
some of which are so weird and terrible as to appear at first sight to be
impossible. For me the major part of those creatures are not chimeras but
objects of rational study. The dragon, in place of being a creature evolved out
of the imagination of an Aryan man by the contemplation of lightning flashing
through the caverns which he tenanted, as is held by some mythologists, is an
animal which once lived and dragged its ponderous coils and perhaps flew. . . .
. To me the specific existence of the Unicorn seems not incredible, and in
fact, more probable than that theory which assigns its origin to a lunar myth*
. . . For my part I doubt the general derivation of myths from 'the
contemplation of the visible workings of external nature.' It seems to me
easier to suppose that the palsy of time has enfeebled the utterance of these
oft-told tales until their original appearance is almost unrecognisable, than
that uncultured savages should possess powers of imagination and poetical invention
far beyond those enjoyed by the most instructed nations of the present day;
less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and demigods, of
giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions are
transformations than to believe them to be inventions."**
It
is shown by the same geologist that man, "successively traced to periods
variously estimated from thirty thousand to one million years . . . . .,
co-existed with animals which have long since become extinct (p. 20)."
These animals, "weird and terrible," were, to give a few instances --
(1) "Of the genus Cidastes, whose huge bones and vertebrae show them to
have attained a length of nearly two hundred feet . . . . . . " The
remains of such monsters, no less than ten in number, were seen by Professor
Marsh in the Mauvaises Terres of Colorado, strewn upon the plains. (2) The
Titanosaurus montanus, reaching fifty or sixty feet in length; (3) the
Dinosaurians (in the Jurassic beds of the Rocky Mountains), of still more
gigantic proportions; (4) the Atlanto-Saurus immanis, a femur of which alone is
over six feet in length, and which would be thus over one hundred feet in
length! But even yet the line has not been reached, and we hear of the
discovery of remains of such titanic proportions as to possess a thigh-bone
over twelve feet in length (p. 37). Then we read of the monstrous Sivatherium
in the Himalayas, the four-horned stag, as large as an elephant, and exceeding
the latter in height; of the gigantic Megatherium: of colossal flying lizards,
Pterodactyli, with
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Unicorn: a Mythological Investigation," Robert Brown, jun.,
F.S.A.
**
Pp. 3 and 4, Introduction to "Mythical Monsters."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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crocodile
jaws on a duck's head, etc., etc. All these were co-existent with man, most
probably attacked man, as man attacked them; and we are asked to believe that
the said man was no larger then than he is now! Is it possible to conceive
that, surrounded in Nature with such monstrous creatures, man, unless himself a
colossal giant, could have survived, while all his foes have perished? Is it
with his stone hatchet that he had the best of a Sivatherium or a gigantic
flying saurian? Let us always bear in mind that at least one great man of
science, de Quatrefages, sees no good scientific reasons why man should not
have been "contemporaneous with the earliest mammalia and go back as far
as the Secondary Period."*
"It
appears," writes the very conservative Professor Jukes, "that the
flying dragons of romance had something like a real existence in former ages of
the world."** "Does the written history of man," the author goes
on to ask, "comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole course of
his intelligent existence? Or have we in the long mythical eras, extending over
hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies of Chaldea and
China, shadowy mementoes of prehistoric man, handed down by tradition, and
perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands, from others which,
like the fabled Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged, or the scene of
some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their civilization;"
(p. 17).
The
few remaining giant animals, such as elephants, themselves smaller than their
ancestors the Mastodons, and Hippopotami, are the only surviving relics, and
tend to disappear more entirely with every day. Even they have already had a
few pioneers of their future genus, and have decreased in size in the same
proportion as men did. For the remains of a pigmy elephant were found (E.
Falconeri) in the cave deposits of Malta; and the same author asserts that they
were associated with the remains of pigmy Hippopotami, the former being
"only two feet six inches high; or the still-existing Hippopotamus
(Choeropsis) Liberiensis, which M. Milne-Edwards figures as little more than
two feet in height."***
Sceptics
may smile and denounce our work as full of nonsense or fairy-tales. But by so
doing they only justify the wisdom of the Chinese philosopher Chuang, who said
that "the things that men do know can in no way be compared, numerically
speaking, to the things that are unknown";**** and thus they laugh only at
their own ignorance.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Human Species," p. 52.
**
"Manual of Geology," p. 301.
***
"Recherches sur les Mammiferes," plate I.
****
Preface to "Wonders by Land and Sea," (Shan Hai King).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 220 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
THE
"SONS OF GOD" AND THE "SACRED ISLAND."
The
legend given in Isis in relation to a portion of the globe which science now
concedes to have been the cradle of humanity -- though it is but one of the
seven cradles, in truth -- ran, condensed, and now explained, as follows:--
"Tradition
says, and the records of the Great Book (the Book of Dzyan) explain, that long
before the days of Ad-am, and his inquisitive wife, He-va, where now are found
but salt lakes and desolate barren deserts, there was a vast inland sea, which
extended over Middle Asia, north of the proud Himalayan range, and its western
prolongation. An island, which for its unparalleled beauty had no rival in the
world, was inhabited by the last remnant of the race which preceded ours."
"The
last remnant" meant the "Sons of Will and Yoga," who, with a few
tribes, survived the great cataclysm. For it is the Third Race which inhabited
the great Lemurian continent, that preceded the veritable and complete human
races -- the fourth and the fifth. Therefore it was said in Isis that --
"This
race could live with equal ease in water, air, or fire, for it had an unlimited
control over the elements. These were the 'Sons of God'; not those who saw the
daughters of men, but the real Elohim, though in the oriental Kabala they have
another name. It was they who imparted Nature's most weird secrets to men, and
revealed to them the ineffable, and now lost 'word.' "
The
"Island," according to belief, exists to the present hour; now, as an
oasis surrounded by the dreadful wildernesses of the great Desert, the Gobi --
whose sands "no foot hath crossed in the memory of man."
"This
word, which is no word, has travelled once around the globe, and still lingers
as a far-off dying echo in the hearts of some privileged men. The hierophants
of all the Sacerdotal Colleges were aware of the existence of this island; but
the 'word' was known only to the Java Aleim (Maha Chohan in another tongue), or
chief lord of every college, and was passed to his successor only at the moment
of death. There were many such colleges, and the old classic authors speak of
them.
"There
was no communication with the fair island by sea, but subterranean passages,
known only to the chiefs, communicated with it in all directions."*
Tradition
asserts, and archaeology accepts the truth of the legend that there is more
than one city now flourishing in India, which is built on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There are archaeologists, who, like Mr. James Fergusson, deny the great
antiquity of even one single monument in India. In his work,
"Illustrations of the Rock-Cut Temples of India," the author ventures
to express the very extraordinary opinion that "Egypt had ceased to be a
nation before the earliest of the cave-temples of India was excavated." In
short, he does not admit the existence of any cave anterior to the reign of
Asoka, and seems anxious to prove that most of these rock-cut temples were
executed during a period extending from the time of that pious Buddhist king
until the destruction of the Andhra dynasty of Maghada, in the beginning of the
fifth century. We believe such a claim perfectly arbitrary. Further discoveries
will show that it is erroneous and unwarranted.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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several
other cities, making thus a subterranean city of six or seven stories high.
Delhi is one of them; Allahabad another -- examples of this being found even in
Europe; e.g., in Florence, which is built on several defunct Etruscan and other
cities. Why, then, could not Ellora, Elephanta, Karli, and Ajunta have been
built on subterranean labyrinths and passages, as claimed? Of course we do not
allude to the caves which are known to every European, whether de visu or
through hearsay, notwithstanding their enormous antiquity, though that is so
disputed by modern archaeology. But it is a fact, known to the Initiated
Brahmins of India and especially to Yogis, that there is not a cave-temple in
the country but has its subterranean passages running in every direction, and
that those underground caves and endless corridors have in their turn their
caves and corridors.
"Who
can tell that the lost Atlantis -- which is also mentioned in the Secret Book,
but, again, under another name, pronounced in the sacred language -- did not
exist yet in those days?" --
we
went on to ask. It did exist most assuredly, as it was fast approaching its
greatest days of glory and civilization when the last of the Lemurian
continents went down.
"The
great lost continent might have, perhaps, been situated south of Asia,
extending from India to Tasmania?* If the hypothesis (now so much doubted, and
positively denied by some learned authors, who regard it as a joke of Plato's)
is ever verified, then, perhaps, will the scientists believe that the
description of the god-inhabited continent was not altogether a fable.** And
they may then perceive that Plato's guarded hints and his attributing the
narrative to Solon and the Egyptian priests, were but a prudent way of imparting
the fact to the world, and, by cleverly combining truth and fiction, so
disconnecting himself from a story which the obligations imposed at initiation
forbade him to divulge.
"To
continue the tradition, we have to add that the class of hierophants was divided
into two distinct categories:*** those who were instructed by the 'Sons of
God,' of the island, and who were initiated in the divine doctrine of pure
revelation; and others who inhabited the lost Atlantis -- if such must be its
name -- and who, being of another race, (born sexually but of divine parents),
were born with a sight, which embraced all living things, and was independent
of both distance and material obstacle. In short, they were the Fourth Race of
men mentioned in the Popol-Vuh, whose sight was unlimited, and who knew all
things at once."
In
other words, they were the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first who had
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
America when discovered, was called Atlanta by some native tribes.
**
Since then Donnelly's Atlantis has appeared, and soon its actual existence will
have become a scientific fact.
***
It is so divided to this day, and theosophists and Occultists, who have learned
something of the Occult but undeniable power of Dugpaship at their own expense,
know this but too well.
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[[Vol.
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a
dynasty of Spirit-Kings, not of Manes, or "ghosts," as some believe
(See "Pneumatologie"), but of actual living Devas (or demi-gods or
Angels, again) who had assumed bodies to rule over them, and who, in their
turn, instructed them in arts and sciences. Only, as they were rupa or material
Spirits, these Dhyanis were not always good. Their King Thevetata was one of
the latter, and it is under the evil influence of this King-Demon that . . . .
the Atlantis-race became a nation of wicked magicians.
"In
consequence of this, war was declared, the story of which would be too long to
narrate; its substance may be found in the disfigured allegories of the race of
Cain, the giants, and that of Noah and his righteous family. The conflict came
to an end by the submersion of the Atlantis, which finds its imitation in the
stories of the Babylonian and Mosaic flood. The giants and magicians '. . . and
all flesh died . . . and every man.' All except Xisuthrus and Noah, who are
substantially identical with the great Father of the Thhnkithians in the
Popol-Vuh, or the sacred book of the Guatemaleans, which also tells of his
escaping in a large boat like the Hindu Noah -- Vaivasvata.
"If
we believe the tradition at all, we have to credit the further story that, from
the intermarrying of the progeny of the hierophants of the island and the
descendants of the Atlantean Noah, sprang up a mixed race of righteous and
wicked. On the one side the world had its Enochs, Moseses, various Buddhas, its
numerous 'Saviours,' and great hierophants; on the other hand, its 'natural
magicians' who, through lack of the restraining power of proper spiritual
enlightenment, . . . perverted their gifts to evil purposes. . . ."
We
may supplement this by the testimony of some records and traditions. In the
"Histoire des Vierges: Les Peuples et les Continents Disparus," the
author says:--
"One
of the most ancient legends of India, preserved in the temples by oral and
written tradition, relates that several hundred thousand years ago there
existed in the Pacific Ocean an immense continent which was destroyed by
geological upheaval, and the fragments of which must be sought in Madagascar,
Ceylon, Sumatra, Java, Borneo, and the principal isles of Polynesia."
"The
high plateaux of Hindustan and Asia, according to this hypothesis, would only
have been represented in those distant epochs by great islands contiguous to
the central continent . . . . . According to the Brahmans, this country had
attained a high civilization, and the peninsula of Hindustan, enlarged by the
displacement of the waters, at the time of the grand cataclysm, has but continued
the chain of the primitive traditions born in this place. These traditions give
the name of Rutas to the peoples which inhabited this immense equinoctial
continent, and from their speech was derived the Sanscrit. . . . . And the
Indo-Hellenic tradition, preserved by the most intelligent population which
emigrated from the plains of India, equally relates the existence of a
continent and a people to which it gives the name of Atlantis and Atlantides,
and which it locates in the Atlantic in the northern portion of the
Tropics."
"Apart
from this fact, the supposition of an ancient continent in those latitudes, the
vestiges of which may be found in the volcanic islands and moun-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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tainous
surface of the Azores, the Canaries and Cape de Verdes, is not devoid of
geographical probability. The Greeks, who, moreover, never dared to pass beyond
the pillars of Hercules, on account of their dread of the mysterious ocean,
appeared too late in antiquity for the stories preserved by Plato to be
anything else than an echo of the Indian legend. Moreover, when we cast a look
on a planisphere, at the sight of the islands and islets strewn from the Malayan
Archipelago to Polynesia, from the straits of Sunda to Easter Island, it is
impossible, upon the hypothesis of continents preceding those which we inhabit,
not to place there the most important of all.
"A
religious belief, common to Malacca and Polynesia, that is to say, to the two
opposite extremes of the Oceanic world, affirms 'that all these islands once
formed two immense countries, inhabited by yellow men and black men, always at
war; and that the gods, wearied with their quarrels, having charged Ocean to
pacify them, the latter swallowed up the two continents, and, since, it has
been impossible to make him give up his captives. Alone, the mountain-peaks and
high plateaux escaped the flood, by the power of the gods, who perceived too
late the mistake they had committed.'
"Whatever
there may be in these traditions, and whatever may have been the place where a
civilization more ancient than that of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt, and of India
was developed, it is certain that this civilization did exist, and it is highly
important to science to recover its traces, however feeble and fugitive they
may be" (pp. 13-15).
This
last tradition corroborates the one given from the "Records of the Secret
Doctrine." The war mentioned between the yellow and the black men, relates
to a struggle between the "sons of God" and the "sons of
giants," or the inhabitants and magicians of Atlantis.
The
final conclusion of the author, who personally visited all the islands of Polynesia,
and devoted years to the study of the religion, language, and traditions of
nearly all the peoples, is as follows:
"As
to the Polynesian continent which disappeared at the time of the final
geological cataclysms, its existence rests on such proofs that to be logical we
can doubt no longer.
"The
three summits of this continent, the Sandwich Islands, New Zealand, Easter
Island, are distant from each other from fifteen to eighteen hundred leagues,
and the groups of intermediate islands, Viti, Samoa, Tonga, Foutouna, Ouvea,
the Marquesas, Tahiti, Poumoutou, the Gambiers, are themselves distant from
these extreme points from seven or eight hundred to one thousand leagues.
"All
navigators agree in saying that the extreme and the central groups could never
have communicated in view of their actual geographical position, and with the
insufficient means they had at hand. It is physically impossible to cross such
distances in a pirogue . . . without a compass, and travel months without
provisions.
"On
the other hand, the aborigines of the Sandwich Islands, of Viti, of New
Zealand, of the central groups, of Samoa, Tahiti, etc., had never known each
other, had never heard of each other, before the arrival of the Europeans. And
yet each of these people maintained that their island had at one time formed
part of an
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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immense
stretch of land which extended towards the West on the side of Asia. And all, brought
together, were found to speak the same language, to have the same usages, the
same customs, the same religious belief. And all to the question, 'Where is the
cradle of your race?' for sole response, extended their hand toward the setting
sun" (Ibid., p. 308).
Geographically,
this description clashes slightly with the facts in the Secret Records; but it
shows the existence of such traditions, and this is all one cares for. For, as
there is no smoke without fire, so a tradition must be based on some approximate
truth.
In
its proper place we will show modern Science fully corroborating the above and
the traditions of the Secret Doctrine with regard to the two lost continents.
The Easter Island relics are, for instance, the most astounding and eloquent
memorials of the primeval giants. They are as grand as they are mysterious; and
one has but to examine the heads of the colossal statues, that have remained
unbroken on that island, to recognise in them at a glance the features of the
type and character attributed to the Fourth Race giants. They seem of one cast
though different in features -- that of a distinctly sensual type, such as the
Atlanteans (the Daityas and "Atalantians") are represented to have in
the esoteric Hindu books. Compare these with the faces of some other colossal
statues in Central Asia -- those near Bamian for instance -- the
portrait-statues, tradition tells us, of Buddhas belonging to previous
Manvantaras; of those Buddhas and heroes who are mentioned in the Buddhist and
Hindu works, as men of fabulous size,* the good and holy brothers of their
wicked co-uterine brothers generally, as Ravana, the giant King of Lanka was
the brother of Kumbhakarna; all descendants of the gods through the Rishis, and
thus, like "Titan and his enormous brood," all "heaven's first
born." These "Buddhas," though often spoilt by the symbolical
representation of the great pendent ears, show a suggestive difference,
perceived at a glance, between the expression of their faces and that of the
Easter Isle statues. They may be of one race -- but the former are "Sons
of Gods"; the latter the brood of mighty sorcerers. All these are
re-incarnations, however, and apart from unavoidable exaggerations in popular
fancy and tradition, they are historical characters.** When did they live? How
long ago lived the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An approach to the statues at Bamian -- also a Buddha 200 feet high -- is found
near a Jain settlement in Southern India, and appears to be the only one that
remains at present.
**
Even Wilson admits that Rama and Ravana were personages founded on historical
facts:--"The traditions of Southern India uniformly ascribing its civilization
and the settlement of civilized Hindus (the Fifth Race) to the conquest of
Lanka by Rama" (Vishnu Purana, iii., p. 318) -- the victory of the
"Sons of God" over the Atlantean sorcerers, says the true tradition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 225 COCK AND BULL HYPOTHESES.
two
races, the Third and Fourth, and how long after did the various tribes of the
Fifth begin their strife, the wars between Good and Evil? We are assured by the
Orientalists that chronology is both hopelessly mixed and absurdly exaggerated
in the Puranas and other Hindu Scriptures. We feel quite prepared to agree with
the accusation. Yet, if Aryan writers did allow their chronological pendulum to
swing too far one way occasionally, beyond the legitimate limit of fact;
nevertheless, when the distance of that deviation is compared with the distance
of the Orientalists' deviation in the opposite direction, moderation will be
found on the Brahminical side. It is the Pundit who will in the long run be
found more truthful and nearer to fact than the Sanskritist. Surely, it is not
because the curtailing of the latter -- even when proven to have been resorted
to in order to fit a personal hobby -- is regarded by Western public opinion as
"a cautious acceptance of facts," whereas the Pundit is brutally
treated in print as a liar, that everyone has to see this in the same light. An
impartial observer may judge it otherwise. He may either proclaim both
unscrupulous historians, or justify both, each on his respective ground, and
say: Hindu Aryans wrote for their Initiates, who read truth between the lines,
not for the masses. If they did mix up events and confuse Ages intentionally,
it was not in view of deceiving any one, but to preserve their knowledge from
the prying eye of the foreigner. Otherwise, to him who can count the
generations from the Manus, and the series of incarnations specified in the
cases of some heroes,* the meaning and chronological order are very clear in
the Puranas. As for the Western Orientalist, he must be excused, on account of
his undeniable ignorance of the methods used by archaic Esotericism.
But
such existing prejudices will have to give way and disappear very soon before
the light of new discoveries. Already Dr. Weber's and Mr. Max Muller's
favourite theories -- namely, that writing was not known in India, even in the
days of Panini (!); that the Hindus had all their arts and sciences -- even to
the Zodiac and their architecture (Ferguson) -- from the Macedonian Greeks;
these and other such cock-and-bull hypotheses, are threatened with ruin. It is
the ghost of old Chaldea that comes to the rescue of truth. In his third
Hibbert
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus we are shown one hero, to give an instance, first born as the
"unrighteous but valiant monarch" (Purusha) of the Daityas,
Hiranyakasipu, slain by the Avatar Nara-Sinha (Man-lion). Then he was born as
Ravana, the giant king of Lanka, and killed by Rama; after which he is reborn
as Sisupala, the son of Rajarishi (King Rishi) Damaghosha, when he is again
killed by Krishna, the last incarnation of Vishnu. This parallel evolution of
Vishnu (spirit) with a Daitya, as men, may seem meaningless, yet it gives us
the key not only to the respective dates of Rama and Krishna but even to a
certain psychological mystery.
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[[Vol.
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lecture
(1887) Professor Sayce of Oxford, speaking of newly-discovered Assyrian and
Babylonian cylinders, referred at length to Ea, the God of Wisdom, now
identified with the Oannes, of Berosus, the half-man, half-fish, who taught the
Babylonians culture and the art of writing. This Oannes, to whom, thanks only
to the Biblical Deluge, an antiquity of hardly 1,500 B.C. had been hitherto
allowed, is now spoken of in these terms:--
"His
city was Eridu, which stood 6,000 years ago on the shores of the Persian Gulf.
The name means 'the good city,' a particularly holy spot, since it was the
centre from which the earliest Chaldean civilization made its way to the north.
As the culture-god was represented as coming from the sea, it was possible that
the culture of which Eridu was the seat was of foreign importation. We now know
that there was intercourse at a very early period between Chaldea and the
Sinaitic peninsula, as well as with India. The statues discovered by the French
at Tel-loh (dating from at latest B.C. 4,000) were made of the extremely hard
stone known as diorite, and the inscriptions on them stated the diorite to have
been brought from Mazan -- i.e., the Sinaitic peninsula, which was then ruled
by the Pharaohs. The statues are known to resemble in general style the diorite
statue, Kephren, the builder of the second Pyramid, while, according to Mr.
Petrie, the unit of measurement marked on the plan of the city, which one of
the Tel-loh figures holds on his lap, is the same as that employed by the
Pyramid builders. Teak wood has been found at Mugheir, or Ur of the Chaldees,
although that wood is an Indian special product; add to this that an ancient
Babylonian list of clothing mentions sindhu, or 'muslins,' explained as
'vegetable cloth.' "
Muslin,
best known now as Dacca muslin, known in Chaldea as Hindu (Sindhu), and teak
wood used 4,000 years B.C.; and yet the Hindus, to whom Chaldea owes its
civilization (as well proven by Colonel vans Kennedy), were ignorant of the art
of writing before the Greeks taught them their alphabet -- if we have to
believe Orientalists!
-------
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 227 THE MOON-COLOURED RACE.
STANZA
X.
THE
HISTORY OF THE FOURTH RACE.
-------
§§
(38) The Birth of the Fourth, Atlantean Race. (39) The sub-races of the Fourth
Humanity begin to divide and interblend; they form the first mixed races of
various colours. (40) The superiority of the Atlantean over other races. (41)
They fall into sin and beget children and monsters. (42) The first germs of
Anthropomorphism and sexual religion. They lose their "third Eye."
---------------------
38.
THUS TWO BY TWO, ON THE SEVEN ZONES, THE THIRD (Race) GAVE BIRTH TO THE FOURTH
(Race men). THE GODS BECAME NO-GODS (Sura became a-Sura) (a).
-------
39.
THE FIRST (Race) ON EVERY ZONE WAS MOON-COLOURED (yellow-white); THE SECOND,
YELLOW, LIKE GOLD; THE THIRD, RED; THE FOURTH, BROWN, WHICH BECAME BLACK WITH
SIN.* THE FIRST SEVEN (human) SHOOTS WERE ALL OF ONE COMPLEXION IN THE
BEGINNING. THE NEXT (seven, the sub-races) BEGAN MIXING THEIR COLOURS (b).
(a)
To understand this verse 38, it must be read together with the three verses of
Stanza IX. Up to this point of evolution man belongs more to metaphysical than
physical nature. It is only after the so-called FALL, that the races began to
develop rapidly into a purely human shape. And, in order that he may correctly
comprehend the full meaning of the Fall, so mystic and transcendental is it in
its real significance, the student must be told at once the details which
preceded
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Strictly speaking, it is only from the time of the Atlantean, brown and yellow
giant Races, that one ought to speak of MAN, since it was the Fourth race only
which was the first completely human species, however much larger in size than
we are now. In "Man" (by two chelas), all that is said of the
Atlanteans is quite correct. It is chiefly that race which became "black
with sin" that brought the divine names of the Asuras, the Rakshasas and
the Daityas into disrepute, and passed them on to posterity as the names of
fiends. For, as said, the Suras (gods) or Devas having incarnated in the wise
men of Atlantis, the names of Asuras and Rakshasas were given to the
Atlanteans; which names, owing to their incessant conflicts with the last
remnants of the Third Race and the "Sons of Will and Yoga," have led
to the later allegories about them in the Puranas. "Asura was the generic
appellation of all the Atlanteans who were the enemies of the spiritual heroes
of the Aryans (gods)." ("Man," p. 97.)
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[[Vol.
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this
event; of which event modern theology has formed a pivot on which its most
pernicious and absurd dogmas and beliefs are made to turn.
The
archaic commentaries explain, as the reader must remember, that, of the Host of
Dhyanis, whose turn it was to incarnate as the Egos of the immortal, but, on
this plane, senseless monads -- that some "obeyed" (the law of
evolution) immediately when the men of the Third Race became physiologically
and physically ready, i.e., when they had separated into sexes. These were
those early conscious Beings who, now adding conscious knowledge and will to
their inherent Divine purity, created by Kriyasakti the semi-Divine man, who
became the seed on earth for future adepts. Those, on the other hand, who,
jealous of their intellectual freedom (unfettered as it then was by the bonds
of matter), said:-- "We can choose . . . we have wisdom" (See verse
24), and incarnated far later -- these had their first Karmic punishment
prepared for them. They got bodies (physiologically) inferior to their astral
models, because their chhayas had belonged to progenitors of an inferior degree
in the seven classes. As to those "Sons of Wisdom" who had
"deferred" their incarnation till the Fourth Race, which was already
tainted (physiologically) with sin and impurity, they produced a terrible
cause, the Karmic result of which weighs on them to this day. It was produced
in themselves, and they became the carriers of that seed of iniquity for aeons
to come, because the bodies they had to inform had become defiled through their
own procrastination. (See verses 32, 36.)
This
was the "Fall of the angels," because of their rebellion against
Karmic Law. The "fall of man" was no fall, for he was irresponsible.
But "Creation" having been invented on the dualistic system as the
"prerogative of God alone," the legitimate attribute patented by
theology in the name of an infinite deity of their own making, this power had
to be regarded as "Satanic," and as an usurpation of divine rights.
Thus, the foregoing, in the light of such narrow views, must naturally be
considered as a terrible slander on man, "created in the image of
God," a still more dreadful blasphemy in the face of the dead-letter
dogma. "Your doctrine," the Occultists were already told, "makes
of man, created out of dust in the likeness of his God, a vehicle of the Devil,
from the first." "Why did you make of your god a devil -- both,
moreover, created in your own image?" is our reply. The esoteric
interpretation of the Bible, however, sufficiently refutes this slanderous
invention of theology; the Secret Doctrine must some day become the just Karma
of the Churches -- more anti-Christian than the representative assemblies of
the most confirmed Materialists and Atheists.
The
old doctrine about the true meaning of the "Fallen Angels," in its
anthropological and evolutionary sense, is contained in the Kabala,
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[[Vol.
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and
explains the Bible. It is found pre-eminent in Genesis when the latter is read
in a spirit of research for truth, with no eye to dogma, and in no mood of
preconception. This is easily proven. In Genesis (vi.) the "Sons of
God" -- B'ne Aleim -- become enamoured of the daughters of men, marry, and
reveal to their wives the mysteries unlawfully learnt by them in heaven,
according to Enoch; and this is the "Fall of Angels."* But what is,
in reality, the "Book of Enoch" itself, from which the author of
Revelation and even the St. John of the Fourth Gospel have so profusely quoted?
(e.g., verse 8, in chapter 10, about all who have come before Jesus, being
"thieves and robbers.") Simply a Book of Initiation, giving out in
allegory and cautious phraseology the programme of certain archaic mysteries
performed in the inner temples. The author of the "Sacred Mysteries among
the Mayas and Quiches" very justly suggests that the so-called
"Visions" of Enoch relate to his (Enoch's) experience at initiation,
and what he learned in the mysteries; while he very erroneously states his
opinion that Enoch had learned them before being converted
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In general, the so-called orthodox Christian conceptions about the "fallen"
angels or Satan, are as remarkable as they are absurd. About a dozen could be
cited, of the most various character as to details, and all from the pen of
educated lay authors, "University graduates" of the present quarter
of our century. Thus, the author of "Earth's Earliest Ages," J. H.
Pember, M.A., devotes a thick volume to proving Theosophists, Spiritualists,
Metaphysicians, Agnostics, Mystics, poets, and every contemporary author on
oriental speculations, to be the devoted servants of the "Prince of the
Air," and irretrievably damned. He describes Satan and his Antichrist in
this wise:--
"Satan
is the 'Anointed Cherub' of old. . . . God created Satan, the fairest and
wisest of all his creatures in this part of His Universe, and made him Prince of
the World, and of the Power of the Air. . . . He was placed in an Eden, which
was both far anterior to the Eden of Genesis. . . . and of an altogether
different and more substantial character, resembling the New Jerusalem. Thus,
Satan being perfect in wisdom, and beauty, His vast empire is our earth, if not
the whole solar system. . . . Certainly no other angelic power of greater or
even equal dignity has been revealed to us. The Archangel Michael himself is
quoted by Jude as preserving towards the Prince of Darkness the respect due to
a superior, however wicked he may be, until God has formally commanded his
deposition." Then we are informed that "Satan was from the moment of
his creation surrounded by the insignia of royalty" (! !): that he
"awoke to consciousness to find the air filled with the rejoicing music of
those whom God had appointed . . . ." Then the Devil "passes from the
royalty to his priestly dignity" (! ! !) "Satan was also a priest of
the Most High," etc., etc. And now -- "Antichrist will be Satan
incarnate" (pp. 56-59). The Pioneers of the coming Apollyon have already
appeared -- they are the Theosophists, the Occultists, the authors of the
"Perfect Way," of "Isis Unveiled," of the "Mystery of
the Ages," and even of the "Light of Asia"! ! The author notes
the "avowed origin" (of Theosophy) from the "descending
angels," from the "Nephilim," or the angels of the VIth ch. of
Genesis, and the Giants. He ought to note his own descent from them also, as
the present Secret Doctrine endeavours to show -- unless he refuses to belong
to the present humanity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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to
Christianity (!!); furthermore, he believes that this book was written "at
the beginning of the Christian era, when . . . the customs and religion of the
Egyptians fell into decadency"! This is hardly possible, since Jude quotes
in his epistle from the "Book of Enoch" (verse 14); and, therefore,
as Archbishop Laurence, the translator of the Book of Enoch from the Ethiopic
version, remarks, it "could not have been the production of a writer who
lived after . . . or was even coeval with" the writers of the New
Testament: unless, indeed, Jude and the Gospels, and all that follows, was also
a production of the already established Church -- which, some critics say, is
not impossible. But we are now concerned with the "fallen Angels" of
Enoch, rather than with Enoch himself.
In
Indian exotericism, these angels (Asuras) are also denounced as "the
enemies of the gods;" those who oppose sacrificial worship offered to the
latter. In Christian theology they are broadly referred to as the "Fallen
Spirits," the heroes of various conflicting and contradictory legends
about them, gathered from Pagan sources. The coluber tortuosus "the
tortuous snake," a qualification said to have originated with the Jews,
had quite another meaning before the Roman Church distorted it:-- among others,
a purely astronomical meaning.
The
"Serpent" fallen from on high, "deorsum fluens," was
credited with the possession of the Keys of the Empire of the Dead, [[tou
thanatus arche]] to that day, when Jesus saw it "falling like lightning
from heaven" (Luke x. 17, 18), the Roman Catholic interpretation of
cadebat ut fulgur to the contrary, notwithstanding; and it means indeed that
even "the devils are subject" to the Logos -- who is WISDOM, but who,
as the opponent of ignorance, is Satan or Lucifer at the same time. This remark
refers to divine Wisdom falling like lightning on, and quickening the
intellects of those who fight the devils of ignorance and superstition. Up to
the time when Wisdom, in the shape of the incarnating Spirits of MAHAT,
descended from on high to animate and call the Third Race to real conscious
life, humanity -- if it can be so called in its animal, senseless state --was
of course doomed to -- moral as well as to physical death. The Angels fallen
into generation are referred to metaphorically as Serpents and Dragons of
Wisdom. On the other hand, regarded in the light of the LOGOS, the Christian
Saviour, like Krishna, whether as man or logos, may be said to have saved those
who believed in the secret teachings from "eternal death," to have
conquered the Kingdom of Darkness, or Hell, as every Initiate does. This in the
human, terrestrial form of the Initiates, and also because the logos is
Christos, that principle of our inner nature which develops in us into the
Spiritual Ego -- the Higher-Self -- being formed of the indissoluble union of
Buddhi (the sixth) and the spiritual efflorescence of Manas, the
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[[Vol.
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fifth
principle.* "The Logos is passive Wisdom in Heaven and Conscious,
Self-Active Wisdom on Earth," we are taught. It is the Marriage of
"Heavenly man" with the "Virgin of the World" --Nature, as
described in Pymander; the result of which is their progeny -- immortal man. It
is this which is called in St. John's Revelation the marriage of the lamb with
his bride. (xix. 7.) That "wife" is now identified with the Church of
Rome owing to the arbitrary interpretations of her votaries. But they seem to
forget that her linen may be fine and white outwardly (like the "whitened
sepulchre"), but that the rottenness she is inwardly filled with, is not
"the righteousness of Saints" (v. 8. ibid), but rather the blood of
the Saints she has "slain upon the earth" (chap. xviii. 24.) Thus the
remark made by the great Initiate (in Luke x. 18) -- one that referred allegorically
to the ray of Enlightenment and reason, falling like lightning from on high
into the hearts and minds of the converts to that old wisdom-religion then
presented in a new form by the wise Galilean Adeptt** -- was distorted out of
recognition (as was his own personality), and made to fit in with one of the
most cruel as the most pernicious of all theological dogmas. (Vide at the end
of Stanza XI. "SATANIC MYTHS.")
But
if Western theology alone holds the patent for, and copyright of SATAN -- in
all the dogmatic horror of that fiction -- other nationalities
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is not correct to refer to Christ -- as some theosophists do -- as the sixth
principle in man -- Buddhi. The latter per se is a passive and latent
principle, the spiritual vehicle of Atman, inseparable from the manifested
Universal Soul. It is only in union and in conjunction with Self-consciousness
that Buddhi becomes the Higher Self and the divine, discriminating Soul.
Christos is the seventh principle, if anything.
**
To make it plainer, any one who reads that passage in Luke, will see that the
remark follows the report of the seventy, who rejoice that "even the
devils (the spirit of controversy and reasoning, or the opposing power, since
Satan means simply "adversary" or opponent) are subject unto us
through thy name." (Luke x. 17.) Now, "thy name" means the name
of Christos, or Logos, or the spirit of true divine wisdom, as distinct from
the spirit of intellectual or mere materialistic reasoning -- the HIGHER SELF
in short. And when Jesus remarks to this that he has "beheld Satan as
lightning fall from heaven," it is a mere statement of his clairvoyant
powers, notifying them that he already knew it, and a reference to the
incarnation of the divine ray (the gods or angels) which falls into generation.
For not all men, by any means, benefit by that incarnation, and with some the
power remains latent and dead during the whole life. Truly "No man knoweth
who the Son is, but the Father; and who the Father is, but the Son" as
added by Jesus then and there (Ibid v. 22) -- the Church "of Christ"
less than any one else. The Initiates alone understood the secret meaning of
the term "Father and the Son," and knew that it referred to Spirit
and Soul on the Earth. For the teachings of Christ were occult teachings, which
could only be explained at the initiation. They were never intended for the
masses, for Jesus forbade the twelve to go to the Gentiles and the Samaritans
(Matt. x. 8), and repeated to his disciples that the "mysteries of
Heaven" were for them alone, not for the multitudes (Mark iv. 11).
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[[Vol.
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and
religions have committed equal errors in their misinterpretation of this tenet,
which is one of the most profoundly philosophical and ideal conceptions of
ancient thought. For they have both disfigured and hinted at the correct meaning
of it in their numerous allegories touching the subject. Nor have the
semi-esoteric
dogmas of Puranic Hinduism failed to evolve very suggestive symbols and
allegories concerning the rebellious and fallen gods. The Puranas teem with
them; and we find a direct hint at the truth in the frequent allusions of
Parasara (Vishnu Purana), to all those Rudras, Rishis, Asuras, Kumaras and
Munis, having to be born in every age, to re-incarnate in every Manvantara.
This (esoterically) is equivalent to saying that the FLAMES born of the
Universal Mind (Mahat), owing to the mysterious workings of Karmic Will and an
impulse of Evolutionary Law, had, as in Pymander -- without any gradual
transition -- landed on this Earth, having broken through the seven Circles of
fire, or the seven intermediate Worlds, in short.
There
is an eternal cyclic law of re-births, and the series is headed at every new
Manvantaric dawn by those who had enjoyed their rest from re-incarnations in
previous Kalpas for incalculable AEons -- by the highest and the earliest
Nirvanees. It was the turn of those "Gods" to incarnate in the
present Manvantara; hence their presence on Earth, and the ensuing allegories;
hence, also, the perversion of the original meaning.* The Gods who had fallen
into generation, whose mission it was to complete divine man, are found
represented later on as Demons, evil Spirits, and fiends, at feud and war with
Gods, or the irresponsible agents of the one Eternal law. But no conception of
such creatures as the devils and Satan of the Christian, Jewish, and Mahomedan
religions was ever intended under those thousand and one Aryan allegories.**
(See "The Fallen Angels" and "The Mystic Dragons" in Part
II.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So, for instance, in the Puranas, "Pulastya," a Prajapati, or son of
Brahma -- the progenitor of the Rakshasas, and the grandfather of Ravana, the
Great King of Lanka (see Ramayana) -- had, in a former birth, a son named
Dattoli, "who is now known as the sage Agastya" -- says Vishnu
Purana. This name of Dattoli alone, has six more variants to it, or seven
meanings. He is called respectively, Dattoi, Dattali, Dattotti, Dattotri,
Dattobhri, Dambhobhi and Dambholi -- which seven variants have each a secret
sense, and refer in the esoteric comments to various ethnological
classifications, and also to physiological and anthropological mysteries of the
primitive races. For, surely, the Rakshasas are not demons, but simply the
primitive and ferocious giants, the Atlanteans, who were scattered on the face
of the globe as the Fifth Race is now. Vasishta is a warrant to this, if his
words addressed to Parasara, who attempted a bit of JADOO (sorcery), which he
calls "sacrifice," for the destruction of the Rakshasas, mean
anything. For he says, "Let no more of these unoffending 'Spirits
Darkness' be destroyed." (see for details Adiparvan, s. 176, Mahabharata;
also the Linga Purana "Purvardha," s. 64.)
**
We have a passage from a Master's letter which has a direct bearing upon these
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 233 HOLY SATAN.
The
true esoteric view about "Satan," the opinion held on this subject by
the whole philosophic antiquity, is admirably brought out in an appendix,
entitled "The Secret of Satan," to the second edition of Dr. A.
Kingsford's "Perfect Way." No better and clearer indication of the
truth could be offered to the intelligent reader, and it is therefore quoted here
at some length:--
"1.
And on the seventh day (seventh creation of the Hindus),* there went forth from
the presence of God a mighty Angel, full of wrath and consuming, and God gave
him the dominion of the outermost sphere.**
2.
"Eternity brought forth Time; the Boundless gave birth to Limit; Being
descended into generation."***
4.
"Among the Gods is none like unto him, into whose hands are committed the
kingdoms, the power and the glory of the worlds:"
5.
"Thrones and empires, the dynasties of kings,**** the fall of nations, the
birth of churches, the triumph of Time."
For,
as is said in Hermes, "Satan is the door-keeper of the Temple of the King;
he standeth in Solomon's porch; he holdeth the key of the Sanctuary, that no
man enter therein, save the Anointed having the arcanum of Hermes" (v. 20
and 21).
These
suggestive and majestic verses had reference with the ancient Egyptians and
other civilized peoples of antiquity to the creative and generative light of
the Logos (Horus, Brahma, Ahura-Mazda, etc., etc., as primeval manifestations
of the ever-unmanifested Principle, e.g., Ain-Soph, Parabrahm, or Zeruana
Akerne-- Boundless Time -- Kala), but the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] incarnating angels. Says the letter: "Now
there are, and there must be, failures in the ethereal races of the many
classes of Dhyan-Chohans, or Devas (progressed entities of a previous planetary
period), as well as among men. But still, as the failures are too far
progressed and spiritualized to be thrown back forcibly from Dhyan-Chohanship
into the vortex of a new primordial evolution through the lower Kingdoms, this
then happens. Where a new solar system has to be evolved these Dhyan-Chohans
are borne in by influx 'ahead' of the Elementals (Entities . . . to be
developed into humanity at a future time) and remain as a latent or inactive
spiritual force, in the aura of a nascent world . . . until the stage of human
evolution is reached. . . . Then they become an active force and commingle with
the Elementals, to develop little by little the full type of humanity."
That is to say, to develop in, and endow man with his Self-conscious mind, or
Manas.
*
When the earth with its planetary chain and man were to appear.
**
Our earth and the physical plane of consciousness.
***
When the pure, celestial Being (Dhyan Chohan) and the great Pitris of various
classes were commissioned -- the one to evolve their images (Chhaya), and make
of them physical man, the others to inform and thus endow him with divine
intelligence and the comprehension of the Mysteries of Creation.
****
The "dynasties of the kings" who all regard themselves as the
"anointed," reigning "by the Grace of God," whereas in
truth, they reign by the grace of matter, the great Illusion, the Deceiver.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 234 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
meaning
is now degraded in the Kabala. The "Anointed," who has the secrets
and mysteries of Hermes (Buddha, Wisdom), and who alone is entrusted with the
key to the "Sanctuary," the Womb of nature, in order to fructify it
and call to active life and being the whole Kosmos, has become, with the Jews,
Jehovah, the "God of generation" on the lunar mountain (Sinai, the
mountain of the moon, "Sin"). The "Sanctuary" has become
the "Holy of Holies," and the arcanum has been anthropomorphised and
phallicised and dragged down into matter, indeed. Hence arose the necessity of
making of the "Dragon of Wisdom," the Serpent of Genesis: of the
conscious god who needed a body to clothe his too subjective divinity, Satan.
But the "innumerable incarnations of Spirit," and "the ceaseless
pulse and current of desire" refer, the first one, to our doctrine of
Karmic and cyclic rebirths, the second -- to EROS, not the later god of
material, physiological love, but to the divine desire in the gods, as well as
in all nature, to create and give life to Beings. This, the Rays of the one
"dark," because invisible and incomprehensible, FLAME could achieve
only by themselves descending into matter. Therefore, as continued in the
APPENDIX:
12.
"Many names hath God given him (Satan), names of mystery, secret and
terrible."
13.
"The Adversary, because matter opposeth Spirit. Time accuseth even the
Saints of the Lord."
28,
29, 31. "Stand in awe of him, and sin not; speak his name with trembling .
. . . For Satan is the magistrate of the justice of God (Karma); he beareth the
balance and the sword . . . . For to him are committed Weight and Measure and
Number."
Compare
the last sentence with what the Rabbi, who explains the Kabala to Prince
Al-Chazari in the Book of that name, says; and it will be found that the Weight
and Measure and Number are, in Sepher Jezirah, the attributes of the Sephiroth
(the three Sephrim, or figures, ciphers) covering the whole collective number
of 10; and that the Sephiroth are the collective Adam Kadmon, the
"Heavenly Man" or the Logos. Thus Satan and the anointed were
identified in ancient thought. Therefore,
33.
"Satan is the minister of God, Lord of the seven mansions of Hades" .
. . .
The
seven or Saptaloka of the Earth with the Hindus; for Hades, or the Limbo of
Illusion, of which theology makes a region bordering on Hell, is simply our
globe, the Earth, and thus Satan is called --
33
". . . . the angel of the manifest Worlds."
It
is "Satan who is the god of our planet and the only god," and this
without any allusive metaphor to its wickedness and depravity. For he is one
with the Logos, "the first son, eldest of the gods," in the order
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 235 THE SHADOW OF GOD.
of
microcosmic (divine) evolution; Saturn (Satan), astronomically, "is the
seventh and last in the order of macrocosmic emanation, being the circumference
of the kingdom of which Phoebus (the light of wisdom, also the Sun) is the
centre." The Gnostics were right, then, in calling the Jewish god "an
angel of matter," or he who breathed (conscious) life into Adam, and he
whose planet was Saturn.
34.
"And God hath put a girdle about his loins (the rings of Saturn), and the
name of the girdle is Death."
In
anthropogony this "girdle" is the human body with its two lower
principles, which three die, while the innermost man is immortal. And now we
approach the "Secret of Satan."
37,
38, 39. " . . . Upon Satan only is the shame of generation. He hath lost
his virginal estate (so hath the Kumara by incarnating): uncovering heavenly
secrets, he hath entered into bondage. . . . He compasseth with bonds and
limits all things. . . ."
42,
43, 44. "Twain are the armies of God: in heaven the hosts of Michael; in
the abyss (the manifested world) the legions of Satan. These are the unmanifest
and the manifest; the free and the bound (in matter): the virginal and the
fallen. And both are the Ministers of the Father, fulfilling the word Divine. .
. ." Therefore --
55.
"Holy is the Sabbath of god: blessed and sanctified is the name of the
Angel of Havas" -- SATAN.
For,
"The glory of Satan is the shadow of the Lord": God in the manifested
world; "the throne of Satan is the footstool of Adonai" -- that
footstool being the whole Kosmos. (Vide Part II., "Is Pleroma Satan's
Lair?")
When
the Church, therefore, curses Satan, it curses the cosmic reflection of God; it
anathematizes God made manifest in matter or in the objective; it maledicts
God, or the ever-incomprehensible WISDOM, revealing itself as Light and Shadow,
good and evil in nature, in the only manner comprehensible to the limited
intellect of MAN.
This
is the true philosophical and metaphysical interpretation of Samael, or Satan,
the adversary in the Kabala; the same tenets and spirit being found in the
allegorical interpretations of every other ancient religion. This philosophical
view does not interfere, however, with the historical records connected with
it. We say "historical," because allegory and a mythical
ornamentation around the kernel of tradition, in no wise prevent that kernel
being a record of real events. Thus, the Kabala, repeating the time-honoured
revelations of the once universal history of our globe and the evolution of its
races, has presented it under the legendary form of the various records which
have formed the Bible. Its historical foundation is now offered, in however
imperfect a form, on these pages from the Secret Doctrine of the East; and thus
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
allegorical and symbolical meaning of the Serpent of Genesis is found explained
by the "Sons of Wisdom" (or angels from higher spheres, though all
and each pertain to the kingdom of Satan, or Matter) revealing to men the
mysteries of Heaven. Hence, also, all the so-called myths of the Hindu,
Grecian, Chaldean, and Jewish Pantheons are found to be built on fact and
truth. The giants of Genesis are the historical Atlanteans of Lanka, and the
Greek Titans.
Who
can forget that Troy was once upon a time proclaimed a myth, and Homer a
non-existing personage, while the existence of such cities as Herculaneum and
Pompeii was denied, and attributed to mere fairy legends? Yet Schliemann proved
that Troy had really existed, and the two cities, though buried for long ages
under the Vesuvian lava, have had their resurrection day, and live again on the
surface of the earth. How many more cities and localities called
"fabulous" are on the list of future discoveries, how many more
personages regarded as mythical* will one day become historical, those alone
can tell who read the decrees of Fate in the astral light.
As
the tenets of the Eastern doctrine, however, have always been kept secret, and
as the reader can hardly hope to be shown the original texts unless he becomes
an accepted disciple, let the Greek and Latin scholar turn to the original
texts of Hermetic literature. Let him, for one thing, read carefully the
opening pages of the Pymander of Hermes Trismegistus; and then he will see our
doctrines corroborated in it, however veiled its text. There also he will find
the evolution of the Universe, of our Earth (called "Nature" in
Pymander) as of everything else, from the "Moyst Principle" -- or the
great Deep, FATHER-MOTHER -- the first differentiation in the manifested
Kosmos. First the "Universal Mind," which the hand of the Christian
translator has metamorphosed in the earliest renderings into God, the Father:
then the "Heavenly Man,"** which is the great Total of that Host of
Angels, which was too pure for the creation of the inferior worlds or of the
men of our globe, but which fell nevertheless into matter by virtue of that
same evolution, as the second logos of the "Father."***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the "Primeval Manus of Humanity."
**
The "Heavenly Man" -- please mark again the word -- is "the
LOGOS" or the "Son" esoterically. Therefore, once that the title
was applied to Christ (declared God and the very God himself) Christian
theology had no choice. In order to support its dogma of the personal Trinity
it had to proclaim, as it does, that the Christian Logos is the only true one,
and that all the Logoi of other religions were false, and only the masquerading
Evil Principles, SATAN. Now see where this led Western theology to.
***
"For the Mind, a deity abounding in both sexes, being Life and Life,
brought forth by its Word another Mind or Workman; which, being God of the Fire
and the Spirit, fashioned and formed seven other Governors, which in their
circles contain the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 237 MAHASURA AND SATAN.
Synthetically
every Creative Logos, or "the Son who is one with the Father," is the
Host of the Rectores Mundi in itself. Even Christian theology makes of the
seven "Angels of the Presence" the Virtues, or the personified
attributes of God, which, being created by him, as the Manus were by Brahma,
became Archangels. The Roman Catholic theodice itself recognising, in its
creative Verbum Princeps, the head of those angels -- caput angelorum -- and
the magni consilii Angelus (the Angel of the great Counsel), thus recognizes
the identity of Christ and those Angels.
"The
Gods became no-Gods, the Sura -- A-sura," says the text; i.e., gods became
fiends -- SATAN, when read literally. But Satan will now be shown, in the
teaching of the Secret Doctrine, allegorized as Good, and Sacrifice, a God of
Wisdom, under different names.
The
Kabala teaches that Pride and Presumption -- the two chief prompters of
Selfishness and Egotism -- are the causes that emptied heaven of one third of
its divine denizens -- mystically, and of one third of the stars -- astronomically;
in other words, the two statements are -- the first an allegory, and the second
a fact. The former, nevertheless, as shown, is intimately connected with
humanity.
In
their turn the Rosicrucians, who were well acquainted with the secret meaning
of the tradition, kept it to themselves, teaching merely that the whole of
creation was due to, and the result of, that legendary "War in
Heaven" brought on by the rebellion of the angels* against creative law,
or the Demiurge. The statement is correct, but the inner meaning is to this day
a mystery. To elude further explanation of the difficulty by appealing to
divine mystery, or to the sin of prying into its policy -- is to say nothing at
all. It may prove sufficient to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Phenomenal World, and whose disposition is
called Fate or Destiny." (Section 9, ch. I, ed. of 1579).
Here
it is evident that "Mind" (the primeval universal Divine Thought) is neither
the Unknown unmanifested One, since it abounds in both sexes (is male and
female), nor yet the Christian Father, as the latter is a male and not an
androgyne. The fact is that the Father, Son, and Man are hopelessly mixed up in
the translations of Pymander.
*
The allegory of the fire of Prometheus is another version of the rebellion of
the proud Lucifer, who was hurled down to the bottomless pit, or simply unto
our Earth, to live as man. The Hindu Lucifer, the Mahasura, is also said to
have become envious of the Creator's resplendent light, and, at the head of
inferior Asuras (not gods, but spirits), to have rebelled against Brahma; for
which Siva hurled him down to Patala. But, as philosophy goes hand in hand with
allegorical fiction in Hindu myths, the devil is made to repent, and is
afforded the opportunity to progress: he is a sinful man esoterically, and can
by yoga devotion, and adeptship, reach his status of one with the deity, once
more. Hercules, the Sun-god, descends to Hades (the cave of Initiation) to
deliver the victims from their tortures, etc., etc. The Christian Church alone
creates eternal torment for the devil and the damned, that she has invented.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 238 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
believers
in the Pope's infallibility, but will hardly satisfy the philosophical mind.
Yet the truth, although known to most of the higher Kabalists, has never been
told by any of their number. One and all, Kabalists and symbologists, showed an
extraordinary reluctance to confess the primitive meaning of the Fall of the
Angels. In a Christian such silence is only natural. Neither alchemist nor
philosopher could, during the Mediaeval Ages, utter that* which in the sight of
orthodox theology was a terrible blasphemy, for it would have led them directly
through the "Holy" office of the Inquisition, to stake and rack. But
for our modern Kabalists and Freethinkers the case is different. With the
latter, we fear, it is merely human pride, vanity based on a loudly rejected
and as ineradicable superstition. Since the Church, in her struggle with
Manichaeism, invented the devil, and by placing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Why should, for instance, Eliphas Levi, the very fearless and outspoken
Kabalist, have hesitated to divulge the mystery of the Fallen Angels so-called?
That he knew the fact and real meaning of the allegory -- both in its religious
and mystical, as well as in its physiological sense -- is proved by his
voluminous writings and frequent allusions and hints. Yet Eliphas, after having
alluded to it a hundred times in his previous works, says in his latest
"Histoire de la Magie," p. 220 . . . "We protest with all our might
against the sovereignty and the ubiquity of Satan. We pretend neither to deny
nor affirm here the tradition on the Fall of the Angels . . . but if so, then
the prince of the Angelic Rebels can be at best the last and the most powerless
among the condemned -- now that he is separated from deity -- which is the
principle of every power. . . ." This is hazy and evasive enough; but see
what Hargrave Jennings writes in his weird, staccato-like style:--
"Both
Saint Michael and Saint George are types. They are sainted personages, or
dignified heroes, or powers apotheosized. They are each represented with their
appropriate faculties and attributes. These are reproduced and stand multiplied
-- distinguished by different names in all the mythologies . . . (including the
Christian). . . . The idea regarding each is a general one. This idea and
representative notion is that of the all-powerful champion -- child-like in his
'Virgin innocence' -- so powerful that this god-filled innocence (the Seraphim
'Know most,' the Cherubim 'love most') can shatter the world (articulated, so
to use the word -- in the magic of Lucifer, but condemned) in opposition to the
artful constructions (this 'side-life') of the magnificent apostate, the mighty
rebel, but yet at the same time the 'Light-bringer,' the Lucifer, the 'Morning
Star,' the 'Son of the morning' -- the very highest title 'out of heaven, 'for
in heaven it cannot be, but out of heaven it is everything. In an apparently
incredible side of his character -- qualities are of no sex -- this archangel,
St. Michael, is the invincible, sexless, celestial 'Energy' -- to dignify him
by his grand characteristics -- the invisible 'Virgin Combatant,' clothed . . .
and at the same time armed, in the denying mail of the Gnostic 'refusal to
create.' This is another . . . 'myth within myths' . . . a stupendous 'mystery
of mysteries,' because it is so impossible and contradictory. Unexplainable as
the Apocalypse. Unrevealable as the 'Revelation' "(p. 213).
Nevertheless,
this unexplainable and unrevealable mystery will now be explained and revealed
by the doctrines of the East. But as the very erudite, but still more puzzling
author of "Phallicism" gives it, of course, no uninitiated mortal
would ever understand the real drift of his remarks.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 239 THEOLOGICAL SNUFFERS.
a
theological extinguisher on the radiant star-god, Lucifer, the "Son of the
Morning," thus created the most gigantic of all her paradoxes -- a black and
tenebrous light -- the myth has struck its roots too deep in the soil of blind
faith to permit, in our age, even those, who do not acquiesce in her dogmas and
laugh at her horned and cloven-footed Satan, to come out bravely and confess
the antiquity of the oldest of all traditions. In a few brief words it is this.
Semi-exoterically, the "First-born" of the Almighty -- Fiat Lux, --
or the angels of primordial light, were commanded to create; one third of them
rebelled and refused; while those who "obeyed as Fetahil did --
failed" most signally.
To
realise the refusal and failure in their correct physical meaning, one must
study and understand Eastern philosophy; one has to be acquainted with the
fundamental mystical tenets of the Vedantins, with regard to the utter fallacy
of attributing functional activity to the infinite and absolute deity. Esoteric
philosophy maintains that during the Sandhyas, the "Central Sun"
emits creative light -- passively so to say. Causality is latent. It is only during
the active periods of being that it gives rise to a stream of ceaseless energy,
whose vibrating currents acquire more activity and potency with every rung of
the hebdomadic ladder of Being which they descend. Hence it becomes
comprehensible how the process of creating, or rather of fashioning, the
organic Universe, with all its units of the seven kingdoms, necessitated
intelligent beings -- who became collectively a Being or creative God --
differentiated already from the one absolute Unity, unrelated as the latter is
to conditioned creation.*
Now
the Vatican MSS. of the Kabala -- a single copy of which (in Europe) is said to
have been in the possession of Count St. Germain -- contains the most complete
exposition of the doctrine, including the peculiar version accepted by the
Luciferians** and other Gnostics; and in that parchment the Seven Suns of Life
are given in the order they are found in the Saptasurya. Only four of these,
however, are mentioned in the editions of the Kabala which are procurable in
the public libraries, and that even in a more or less veiled phraseology.
Nevertheless even this reduced number is amply sufficient to show an identical
origin, as it refers to the quaternary group of the Dhyan-Chohans, and proves
the speculation to have had its origin in the Secret Doctrines of the Aryans.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Creation" -- out of pre-existent eternal substance, or matter, of
course, which substance, according to our teachings, is boundless, ever-existing
space.
**
The Luciferians -- the sect of the fourth century who are alleged to have
taught that the Soul was a carnal body transmitted to the child by its father;
-- and that other religious and still earlier sect of the second century A.D.,
the Lucianists, who taught all this, and further, that the animal Soul was not
immortal, were philosophizing on the grounds of the real Kabalistic and Occult
teachings.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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As
is well known, the Kabala never originated with the Jews, who got their ideas
from the Chaldeans and the Egyptians.
Thus
even the now exoteric Kabalistic teachings speak of a Central Sun, and of three
secondary suns in each solar system -- our own included. As shown in that able
though too materialistic work, "New Aspects of Life and Religion,"
which is a synopsis of the views of the Kabalists in an aspect deeply thought
out and assimilated:--
"The
Central Sun . . . was to them (as much as to the Aryans) the centre of Rest;
the centre to which all motion was to be ultimately referred. Round this
central sun . . . 'the first of three systemic suns . . . revolved on a polar
plane . . . the second, on an equatorial plane' . . . and the third only was
our visible sun. These four solar bodies were 'the organs on whose action what
man calls the creation, the evolution of life on the planet, earth, depends.'
The channels through which the influence of these bodies was conveyed to the earth
they (the Kabalists) held to be electrical" (p. 287). . . . "The
radiant energy flowing from the central sun* called the Earth into being as a
watery globe," whose tendency, "as the nucleus of a planetary body,
was to rush to the (central) Sun . . . . within the sphere of whose attraction
it had been created," "but the radiant energy, similarly electrifying
both, withheld the one from the other, and so changed motion towards into
motion round the centre of attraction, which the revolving planet (earth) thus
sought to reach.
"In
the organic cell the visible sun found its own proper matrix, and produced
through this the animal (while maturing the vegetable) Kingdom, finally placing
man at its head, in whom, through the animating action of that Kingdom, it originated
the psychic cell. But the man so placed at the head of the animal kingdom, at
the head of the creation, was the animal, the soul-less, the perishable man. .
. . Hence man, although apparently its crown, would, by his advent have marked
the close of creation; since creation, culminating in him, would at his death
have entered on its decline" . . . (p. 289).
This
Kabalistic view is here quoted, to show its perfect identity in spirit with the
Eastern doctrine. Explain, or complete the teaching of the seven Suns with the
seven systems of planes of being, of which the "Suns" are the central
bodies, and you have the seven angelic planes,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This "central sun" of the Occultists, which even Science is obliged
to accept astronomically, for it cannot deny the presence in Sidereal Space of
a central body in the milky way, a point unseen and mysterious, the ever-hidden
centre of attraction of our Sun and system -- this "Sun" is viewed
differently by the Occultists of the East. While the Western and Jewish
Kabalists (and even some pious modern astronomers) claim that in this sun the
God-head is specially present -- referring to it the volitional acts of God --
the Eastern Initiates maintain that, as the supradivine Essence of the Unknown
Absolute is equally in every domain and place, the "Central Sun" is
simply the centre of Universal life-Electricity; the reservoir within which
that divine radiance, already differentiated at the beginning of every
creation, is focussed. Though still in a laya, or neutral condition, it is,
nevertheless, the one attracting, as also the ever-emitting, life Centre.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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whose
"Host" are gods thereof, collectively. (See Comm. to Stanza VII Book
I.) They are the Head-group divided into four classes from the incorporeal down
to the semi-corporeal, which classes are directly connected -- though in very
different ways as regards voluntary connection and functions -- with our
mankind. They are three, synthesized by the fourth (the first and highest),
which is called the "Central Sun" in the Kabalistic doctrine just
quoted. This is the great difference between the Semitic and the Aryan
Cosmogony; one materializing, humanizes the mysteries of nature; the other
spiritualizes matter, and its physiology is always made subservient to
metaphysics. Thus, though the seventh principle reaches man through all the phases
of being, pure as an indiscrete element and an impersonal unity, it passes
through (the Kabala teaches from) the Central Spiritual Sun and Group the
second (the polar Sun), which two radiate on man his Atma. Group Three (the
equatorial Sun) cement the Buddhi to Atman and the higher attributes of Manas,
while group Four (the spirit of our visible sun) endows him with his Manas and
its vehicle -- the Kama rupa, or body of passions and desires, the two elements
of Ahamkara which evolve individualized consciousness -- the personal ego.
Finally, it is the spirit of the Earth in its triple unity that builds the
physical body, attracting to it the Spirits of Life and forming his Linga
Sarira.
Now,
as everything proceeds cyclically, the evolution of man like everything else,
the order in which he is generated is described fully in the Eastern teachings,
whereas it is only hinted at in the Kabala. Says the Book of Dzyan with regard
to primeval man when first projected by the "Boneless," the
incorporeal Creator: "First, the Breath, then Buddhi, and the Shadow-Son
(the Body) were 'CREATED.' But where was the pivot (the middle principle,
Manas)? Man is doomed. When alone, the indiscrete (undifferentiated Element)
and the Vahan (Buddhi) -- the cause of the causeless -- break asunder from
manifested life" -- "unless cemented and held together by the middle
principle, the vehicle of the personal consciousness of JIVA"; explains
the Commentary. In other words, the two higher principles can have no individuality
on Earth, cannot be man, unless there is (a) the Mind, the Manas-Ego, to
cognize itself, and (b) the terrestrial false personality, or the body of
egotistical desires and personal Will, to cement the whole, as if round a pivot
(which it is, truly), to the physical form of man. It is the Fifth and the
Fourth principles* -- Manas and Kama rupa -- that contain the dual personality:
the real immortal Ego (if it assimilates itself to the two higher) and the
false and transitory personality, the mayavi or astral body, so-called, or the
animal-human Soul -- the two hav-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Fourth, and the Fifth from below beginning by the physical body; the Third
and the Fourth, if we reckon from Atma.
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[[Vol.
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ing
to be closely blended for purposes of a full terrestrial existence. Incarnate
the Spiritual Monad of a Newton grafted on that of the greatest saint on earth
-- in a physical body the most perfect you can think of -- i.e., in a two or
even a three-principled body composed of its Sthula Sarira, prana (life
principle), and linga sarira -- and, if it lacks its middle and fifth
principles, you will have created an idiot -- at best a beautiful, soul-less,
empty and unconscious appearance. "Cogito -- ergo sum" -- can find no
room in the brain of such a creature, not on this plane, at any rate.
There
are students, however, who have long ago understood the philosophical meaning
underlying the allegory -- so tortured and disfigured by the Roman Church -- of
the Fallen Angels. "The Kingdom of Spirits and spiritual action which
flows from and is the product of Spirit Volition, is outside and contrasted
with and in contradiction to the Kingdom of (divine) Souls and divine
action."* As said in the text:--
"Like
produces like and no more at the genesis of being, and evolution with its
limited conditioned laws comes later. The Self-Existentt are called CREATIONS,
for they appear in the Spirit Ray, manifested through the potency inherent in
its UNBORN Nature, which is beyond time and (limited or conditioned) Space.
Terrene products, animate and inanimate, including mankind, are falsely called
creation and creatures: they are the development (evolution) of the discrete
elements." (Com. xiv.) Again:--
"The
Heavenly rupa (Dhyan Chohan) creates (man) in his own form; it is a spiritual
ideation consequent on the first differentiation and awakening of the universal
(manifested) Substance; that form is the ideal shadow of Itself: and this is
THE MAN OF THE FIRST RACE."
To
express it in still clearer form, limiting the explanation to this earth only,
it was the duty of the first "differentiated Egos" -- the Church
calls them Archangels -- to imbue primordial matter with the evolutionary
impulse and guide its formative powers in the fashioning of its productions.
This it is which is referred to in the sentences both in the Eastern and
Western tradition --"the Angels were commanded to create." After the
Earth had been made ready by the lower and more material powers, and its three
Kingdoms fairly started on their way to be "fruitful and multiply,"
the higher powers, the Archangels or Dhyanis, were compelled by the evolutionary
Law to descend on Earth, in order to construct the crown of its evolution --
MAN. Thus the "Self-created"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"New Aspects of Life."
**
Angelic, Spiritual Essences, immortal in their being because unconditioned in
Eternity; periodical and conditioned in their Manvantaric manifestations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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and
the "Self-existent" projected their pale shadows; but group the
Third, the Fire-Angels, rebelled and refused to join their Fellow Devas.
Hindu
exotericism represents them all as Yogins, whose piety inspired them to refuse
creating, as they desired to remain eternally Kumaras, "Virgin
Youths," in order to, if possible, anticipate their fellows in progress
towards Nirvana -- the final liberation. But, agreeably to esoteric
interpretation, it was a self-sacrifice for the benefit of mankind. The
"Rebels" would not create will-less irresponsible men, as the
"obedient" angels did; nor could they endow human beings with only
the temporary reflections of their own attributes; for even the latter,
belonging to another and a so-much higher plane of consciousness, would leave
man still irresponsible, hence interfere with any possibility of a higher
progress. No spiritual and psychic evolution is possible on earth -- the lowest
and most material plane -- for one who on that plane, at all events, is
inherently perfect and cannot accumulate either merit or demerit. Man remaining
the pale shadow of the inert, immutable, and motionless perfection, the one
negative and passive attribute of the real I am that I am, would have been
doomed to pass through life on earth as in a heavy dreamless sleep; hence a
failure on this plane. The Beings, or the Being, collectively called Elohim,
who first (if ever) pronounced the cruel words, "Behold, the man is become
as one of us, to know good and evil; and now, lest he put forth his hand and
take also of the tree of life and eat and live for ever . . . " must have
been indeed the Ilda-baoth, the Demiurge of the Nazarenes, filled with rage and
envy against his own creature, whose reflection created Ophiomorphos. In this
case it is but natural -- even from the dead letter standpoint -- to view
Satan, the Serpent of Genesis, as the real creator and benefactor, the Father
of Spiritual mankind. For it is he who was the "Harbinger of Light,"
bright radiant Lucifer, who opened the eyes of the automaton created by Jehovah,
as alleged; and he who was the first to whisper: "in the day ye eat
thereof ye shall be as Elohim, knowing good and evil" -- can only be
regarded in the light of a Saviour. An "adversary" to Jehovah the
"personating spirit," he still remains in esoteric truth the
ever-loving "Messenger" (the angel), the Seraphim and Cherubim who
both knew well, and loved still more, and who conferred on us spiritual,
instead of physical immortality -- the latter a kind of static immortality that
would have transformed man into an undying "Wandering Jew."
As
narrated in King's "Gnostics," "Ilda-Baoth, whom several sects
regarded as the God of Moses, was not a pure spirit, he was ambitious and
proud, and rejecting the spiritual light of the middle space offered him by his
mother Sophia-Achamoth, he set himself to create a world of his own. Aided by
his sons, the six planetary genii, he fabricated man,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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but
this one proved a failure. It was a monster, soulless, ignorant, and crawling
on all fours on the ground like a material beast. Ilda-Baoth was forced to
implore the help of his spiritual mother. She communicated to him a ray of her
divine light, and so animated man and endowed him with a soul. And now began
the animosity of Ilda-Baoth toward his own creature. Following the impulse of
the divine light, man soared higher and higher in his aspirations; very soon he
began presenting not the image of his creator Ilda-Baoth but rather that of the
Supreme Being, the 'primitive man,' Ennoia. Then the Demiurgos was filled with
rage and envy; and fixing his jealous eye on the abyss of matter, his looks
envenomed with passion were suddenly reflected as in a mirror; the reflection
became animate, and there arose out of the abyss Satan, serpent, Ophiomorphos
-- 'the embodiment of envy and cunning. He is the union of all that is most
base in matter, with the hate, envy, and craft of a spiritual intelligence.'
" This is the exoteric rendering of the Gnostics, and the allegory, though
a sectarian version, is suggestive, and seems true to life. It is the natural
deduction from the dead letter text of chapter iii. of Genesis.
Hence
the allegory of Prometheus, who steals the divine fire so as to allow men to
proceed consciously on the path of spiritual evolution, thus transforming the
most perfect of animals on earth into a potential god, and making him free to
"take the kingdom of heaven by violence." Hence also, the curse pronounced
by Zeus against Prometheus, and by Jehovah-Il-da-Baoth against his
"rebellious son," Satan. The cold, pure snows of the Caucasian
mountain and the never-dying, singeing fire and flames of an extinguishable
hell. Two poles, yet the same idea; the dual aspect of a refined torture: a
fire producer -- the personified emblem of [[Phosphoros]] of the astral fire
and light in the anima mundi -- (that element of which the German materialist
philosopher Moleschott said: "ohne phosphor kein gedanke," i.e., without
phosphorus no thought), burning in the fierce flames of his terrestrial
passions; the conflagration fired by his Thought, discerning as it now does
good from evil, and yet a slave to the passions of its earthly Adam; feeling
the vulture of doubt and full consciousness gnawing at its heart -- a
Prometheus indeed, because a conscious, hence a responsible entity.* The curse
of life is great, yet how few are those men, outside some Hindu and Sufi
mystics, who would exchange all the tortures of conscious life, all the evils
of a responsible existence, for the unconscious perfection of a passive
(objectively) incorporeal being, or even the universal static Inertia
personified in Brahma during his "night's" rest. For, to quote from
an able article by one**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The history of Prometheus, Karma, and human consciousness, is found further on.
**
By an Englishman whose erratic genius killed him. The son of a Protestant
clergyman, he became a Mahomedan, then a rabid atheist, and after meeting with
a [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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who,
confusing the planes of existence and consciousness, fell a victim to it:--
"Satan,
or Lucifer, represents the active, or, as M. Jules Baissac calls it, the
'Centrifugal Energy of the Universe' in a cosmic sense. He is Fire, Light,
Life, Struggle, Effort, Thought, Consciousness, Progress, Civilization,
Liberty, Independence. At the same time he is pain, which is the Re-action of
the pleasure of action, and death -- which is the revolution of life -- Satan,
burning in his own hell, produced by the fury of his own momentum -- the
expansive disintegration of the nebulae which is to concentrate into new
worlds. And fitly is he again and again baffled by the eternal Inertia of the
passive energy of the Kosmos -- the inexorable 'I AM' -- the flint from which
the sparks are beaten out. Fitly is he . . . and his adherents . . . consigned
to the 'sea of fire,' because it is the Sun (in one sense only in the Cosmic
allegory), the fount of life in our system, where they are purified
(disintegrated) and churned up to re-arrange them for another life (the resurrection);
that Sun which, as the origin of the active principle of our Earth, is at once
the Home and the Source of the Mundane Satan. . . ." To demonstrate
furthermore the accuracy of Baissac's general theory (in Le Diable et Satan)
cold is known to have a 'Centripetal' effect. "Under the influence of cold
everything contracts. . . . Under it life hybernates, or dies out, thought
congeals, and fire is extinguished. Satan is immortal in his own Fire-Sea -- it
is only in the 'Nifl-heim' (the cold Hell of the Scandinavian Eddas) of the 'I
AM' that he cannot exist. But for all that there is a kind of Immortal
Existence in the Nifl-heim, and that existence must be painless and peaceful,
because it is Unconscious and Inactive. In the Kingdom of Jehovah (if this God
were all that the Jews and Christians claim for him) there is no Misery, no
War, no marrying and giving in marriage, no change, no Individual
Consciousness.* All is absorbed in the spirit of the most Powerful. It is
emphatically a kingdom of Peace and loyal Submission as that of the
'Arch-Rebel' is one of War and Revolution. . . . . It (the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] master, a Guru, he became a mystic; then a theosophist
who doubted, despaired; threw up white for black magic, went insane and joined
the Roman Church. Then again turning round, anathematized her, re-became an
atheist, and died cursing humanity, knowledge, and God, in whom he had ceased
to believe. Furnished with all the esoteric data to write his "War in
Heaven," he made a semi-political article out of it, mixing Malthus with
Satan, and Darwin with the astral light. Peace be to his -- Shell. He is a
warning to the chelas who fail. His forgotten tomb may now be seen in the
Mussulman burial ground of the Joonagad, Kathiawar, in India.
*
The author talks of the active, fighting, damning Jehovah as though he were a
synonym of Parabrahm! We have quoted from this article to show where it
dissents from theosophic teachings; otherwise it would be quoted some day
against us, as everything published in the Theosophist generally is.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 246 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
former)
is in fact what Theosophy calls Nirvana. But then Theosophy teaches that
separation from the Primal Source having once occurred, Re-union can only be
achieved by Will -- Effort -- which is distinctly Satanic in the sense of this
essay."
It
is "Satanic" from the standpoint of orthodox Romanism, for it is
owing to the prototype of that which became in time the Christian Devil -- to
the Radiant Archangels, Dhyans-Chohans, who refused to create, because they
wanted Man to become his own creator and an immortal god -- that men can reach
Nirvana and the haven of heavenly divine Peace.
To
close this rather lengthy comment, the Secret Doctrine teaches that the
Fire-Devas, the Rudras, and the Kumaras, the "Virgin-Angels," (to
whom Michael and Gabriel, the Archangels, both belong), the divine
"Rebels" -- called by the all-materializing and positive Jews, the
Nahash or "Deprived" -- preferred the curse of incarnation and the
long cycles of terrestrial existence and rebirths, to seeing the misery (even
if unconscious) of the beings (evolved as shadows out of their Brethren)
through the semi-passive energy of their too spiritual Creators. If "man's
uses of life should be such as neither to animalize nor to spiritualize, but to
humanize Self,"* before he can do so, he must be born human not angelic.
Hence, tradition shows the celestial Yogis offering themselves as voluntary
victims in order to redeem Humanity -- created god-like and perfect at first --
and to endow him with human affections and aspirations. To do this they had to
give up their natural status and, descending on our globe, take up their abode
on it for the whole cycle of the Mahayuga, thus exchanging their impersonal
individualities for individual personalities -- the bliss of sidereal existence
for the curse of terrestrial life. This voluntary sacrifice of the Fiery
Angels, whose nature was Knowledge and Love, was construed by the exoteric
theologies into a statement that shows "the rebel angels hurled down from
heaven into the darkness of Hell" -- our Earth. Hindu philosophy hints at
the truth by teaching that the Asuras hurled down by Siva, are only in an
intermediate state in which they prepare for higher degrees of purification and
redemption from their
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Explaining the Kabala, Dr. H. Pratt says, "Spirit was to man (to the
Jewish Rabbin, rather?) a bodiless, disembodied, or deprived, and degraded
being, and hence was termed by the ideograph Nahash 'Deprived;' represented as
appearing to and seducing the human race -- men through the Woman. . . . In the
picture from this Nahash, this spirit was represented by a serpent, because
from its destitution of bodily members, the Serpent was looked upon as a
deprived and depraved and degraded creature" ("New Aspects," p.
235). Symbol for symbol there are those who would prefer that of the serpent --
the symbol of wisdom and eternity, deprived of limbs as it is -- to the Jod
([[diagram]]) -- the poetical ideograph of Jehovah in the Kabala -- the god of
the male symbol of generation.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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wretched
condition; but Christian theology, claiming to be based on the rock of divine
love, charity, and justice of him it appeals to as its Saviour -- has invented,
to enforce that claim paradoxically, the dreary dogma of hell, that Archimedean
lever of Roman Catholic philosophy.
As
to Rabbinical Wisdom -- than which there is none more positive, materialistic, or
grossly terrestrial, as it brings everything down to physiological mysteries --
it calls these Beings, the "Evil One;" and the Kabalists -- Nahash,
"Deprived," as just said, and the Souls, that have thrown themselves,
after having been alienated in Heaven from the Holy One, into an abyss at the
dawn of their very existence, and have anticipated the time when they are to
descend on earth. (Zohar iii., 61, C.)
And
let me explain at once that our quarrel is not with the Zohar and the Kabala in
their right interpretation -- for the latter is ours -- but only with the
gross, pseudo-esoteric explanations of the later, and especially those of the
Christian Kabalists.
"Our
earth and man," says the Commentary, "being the products of the three
Fires" -- whose three names answer, in Sanskrit, to "the electric
fire, the Solar fire, and the fire produced by friction," -- these three
fires, explained on the Cosmic and human planes, are Spirit, Soul, and Body,
the three great Root groups, with their four additional divisions. These vary
with the Schools, and become -- according to their applications -- the upadhis
and the vehicles, or the noumena of these. In the exoteric accounts, they are
personified by the "three sons of surpassing brilliancy and splendour"
of Agni Abhimanin, the eldest son of Brahma, the Cosmic LOGOS, by Swaha, one of
Daksha's* daughters. In the metaphysical sense the "Fire of friction"
means the Union between Buddhi, the sixth, and Manas, the fifth, principles,
which thus are united or cemented together; the fifth merging partially into
and becoming part of the monad; in the physical, it relates to the creative
spark, or germ, which fructifies and generates the human being. The three
Fires, it is said (whose names are Pavaka, Pavamana and Suchi) were condemned
by a curse of Vasishta, the great sage, "to be born over and over
again." (Bhagavata-Purana iv. 24, 4.) This is clear enough.
Therefore,
the FLAMES, whose functions are confused in the exoteric books, and who are
called indifferently Prajapati, Pitris, Manus, Asuras,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Daksha, the "intelligent, the competent." "This name generally
carries with it the idea of creative power." He is a son of Brahma, and of
Aditi, and agreeably to other versions, a self-born power, which, like Minerva,
sprang from his father's body. He is the chief of the Prajapati -- the Lords or
Creators of Being. In Vishnu Purana, Parasara says of him, "in every Kalpa
(or manvantara) Daksha and the rest are born and are again destroyed." And
the Rig-Veda says that "Daksha sprang from Aditi and Aditi from
Daksha," a reference to the eternal cyclic re-birth of the same divine
Essence.
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[[Vol.
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Rishis,
Kumaras,* etc. etc., are said to incarnate personally in the Third Root-Race
and thus find themselves "reborn over and over again." In the
Esoteric doctrine they are generally named the Asuras, or the Asu-ra Devata or
Pitar-devata (gods) for, as said, they were first Gods -- and the highest --
before they became "no-gods," and had from Spirits of Heaven fallen
into Spirits of the Earth** -- exoterically, note well, in orthodox dogma.
No
Theologian, any more than an Orientalist, can ever understand the genealogies
of the Prajapati, the Manus, and the Rishis, nor the direct connection of these
-- or their correlation rather -- with the Gods, unless he has the key to the
old primitive Cosmogony and Theogony, which all the Nations originally had in
common. All these gods and demi-gods are found reborn on earth, in various
Kalpas and in as various characters; each, moreover, having his Karma
distinctly traced, and every effect assigned to its cause.
Before
other Stanzas could be explained, it was, as seen, absolutely necessary to show
that the sons of "Dark Wisdom," though identical with the Archangels
which Theology has chosen to call the "Fallen," are as divine and as
pure and more so than all the Michaels and Gabriels so glorified in the
churches. The "old Book" goes into various details of Astral life,
which at this juncture would be quite incomprehensible to the reader. It may,
therefore, be left for later explanations, and the First and Second Races can now
only receive bare notice. Not so for the Third Race -- the Root-Race which
separated into sexes, and which was the first to be endowed with reason. Men
evolving pari passu with the globe, and the latter having
"incrustated" more than a hundred million of years before -- the
first human sub-race had already begun to materialize or solidify, so to say.
But, as the Stanza has it: "the inner man (the conscious Entity) was
not." This "Conscious Entity" Occultism says, comes from, nay, in
many cases is, the very entire essence and esse of the high Intelligences
condemned, by the undeviating law of Karmic evolution, to reincarnate in this
manvantara.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
No one of these orders is distinct from the Pitris or Progenitors, as says Manu
(iii. 284). "The wise call our fathers Vasus; our paternal grandfathers,
Rudras; our paternal great grandfathers, Adityas; agreeably to a text of the
Vedas," or "this is an everlasting Vedic text" in another
translation.
**
As now discovered by the late G. Smith in the Babylonian cylinder literature,
it was the same in Chaldean theogony. Ishtar, "eldest of Heaven and of
Earth." Below him the Igaga or Angels of Heaven, and the Anunnaki, or
angels of Earth. Below these again various classes of Spirits and
"Genii" called Sadu, Vadukku, Ekimu, Gallu -- of which some were
good, some evil. (See "Babylonian Mythology.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(b)
This verse (thirty-ninth) relates exclusively to the racial divisions. Strictly
speaking, esoteric philosophy teaches a modified polygenesis. For, while it
assigns to humanity a oneness of origin, in so far that its forefathers or
"Creators" were all divine beings -- though of different classes or
degrees of perfection in their hierarchy -- men were nevertheless born on seven
different centres of the continent of that period. Though all of one common
origin, yet for reasons given their potentialities and mental capabilities,
outward or physical forms, and future characteristics, were very different.* As
to their complexions, there is a suggestive allegory told in Linga Purana. The
Kumdra -- the Rudra gods, so called (see further), are described as
incarnations of Siva, the destroyer (of outward forms), named also Vamadeva.
The latter, as a Kumara, the "Eternal Celibate," the chaste Virgin
youth, springs from Brahma in each great Manvantara, and "again becomes four";
a reference to the four great divisions of the human races, as regards
complexion and type -- and three chief variations of these. Thus in the 29th
Kalpa -- in this case a reference to the transformation and evolution of the
human form which Siva ever destroys and remodels periodically, down to the
manvantaric great turning point about the middle of the Fourth (Atlantean) Race
-- in the 29th Kalpa, Siva, as Swetalohita, the root Kumara, becomes, from
moon-coloured, white; in his next transformation -- he is red (and in this the
exoteric version differs from the Esoteric teaching); in the third -- yellow;
in the fourth -- black.
Esotericism
now classes these seven variations, with their four great divisions, into only
three distinct primeval races -- as it does not take into consideration the
First Race, which had neither type nor colour, and hardly an objective, though
colossal form. The evolution of these races, their formation and development,
went pari passu and on parallel lines with the evolution, formation, and development
of three geological strata, from which the human complexion was as much derived
as it was determined by the climates of those zones. It names three great
divisions, namely, the RED-YELLOW, the BLACK, and the BROWN-WHITE.** The Aryan
races, for instance, now varying from dark brown, almost black,
red-brown-yellow, down to the whitest creamy colour, are yet all of one and the
same stock -- the Fifth Root-Race -- and spring
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Some superior, others inferior, to suit the Karma of the various reincarnating
Monads which could not be all of the same degree of purity in their last births
in other worlds. This accounts for the difference of races, the inferiority of
the savage, and other human varieties.
**
"There are," says Topinard (English edition of
"Anthropology," with preface by Professor Broca), "THREE
fundamental elements of colour in the human organism -- namely, the red, the
yellow, and the black, which, mixed in variable quantities with the white of
the tissues, give rise to those numerous shades seen in the human family."
Here is science unintentionally supporting Occultism again.
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[[Vol.
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from
one single progenitor, called in Hindu exotericism by the generic name of
Vaivasvata Manu: the latter, remember, being that generic personage, the Sage,
who is said to have lived over 18,000,000 years ago, and also 850,000 years ago
-- at the time of the sinking of the last remnants of the great continent of
Atlantis* (See the Root and Seed Manus further on), and who is said to live
even now in his mankind. (Vide at the end of this Stanza, "THE PRIMEVAL
MANUS OF HUMANITY.") The light yellow is the colour of the first SOLID
human race, which appeared after the middle of the Third Root Race (after its
fall into generation -- as just explained), bringing on the final changes. For,
it is only at that period that the last transformation took place, which
brought forth man as he is now, only on a magnified scale. This Race gave birth
to the Fourth Race; "Siva" gradually transforming that portion of
Humanity which became "black with sin" into red-yellow (the red Indians
and the Mongolians being the descendants of these) and finally into Brown-white
races -- which now, together with the yellow Races, form the great bulk of
Humanity. The allegory in Linga Purana is curious, as showing the great
ethnological knowledge of the ancients.
When
reading of "the last transformation," let the reader consider at this
juncture, if that took place 18,000,000 years ago, how many millions more it
must have required to reach that final stage? And if man, in his gradual
consolidation, developed pari passu with the earth, how many millions of years
must have elapsed during the First, Second, and the first half of the Third
Race? For the Earth was in a comparatively ethereal condition before it reached
its last consolidated state; the archaic teachings, moreover, telling us that,
during the middle period of the Lemuro-Atlantean Race, three and a half Races
after the Genesis of man, the Earth, man, and everything on the Globe was of a
still grosser and more material nature, while such things as corals and some shells
were still in a semi-gelatinous, astral state. The cycles that intervened since
then, have already carried us onward, on the opposite ascending arc, some steps
toward our dematerialization, as the spiritualists would say. The Earth,
ourselves, and all things have softened since then -- aye, even our brains. But
it has been objected by some theosophists that an ethereal Earth even some 15,
or 20,000,000 years ago, does not square with Geology, which teaches us that
winds blew, rains fell, waves broke on the shore, sands shifted and
accumulated,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It must be remembered that the "last remnants" here spoken of, refer
to those portions of the "great continent" which still remained, and
not to any of the numerous islands which existed contemporaneously with the
continent. Plato's "island" was, for instance, one of such remnants;
the others having sunk at various periods previously. An occult
"tradition" teaches that such submersions occur whenever there is an
eclipse of the "spiritual sun."
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[[Vol.
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etc.,
etc., that, in short, all natural causes now in operation were then in force,
"in the very earliest ages of geological time, aye, that of the oldest
palaeozoic rocks." To this the following answers are given. Firstly, what
is the date assigned by geology to those "oldest palaezoic rocks"?
And secondly, why could not the winds blow, rain fall, and waves (of carbonic
acid apparently, as science seems to imply) break on the shore, on an Earth
semi-astral, i.e., viscid? The word "astral" does not necessarily
mean as thin as smoke, in occult phraseology, but rather "starry,"
shining or pellucid, in various and numerous degrees, from a quite filmy to a
viscid state, as just observed. But it is further objected: How could an astral
Earth have affected the other planets in this system? Would not the whole
process get out of gear now if the attraction of one planet was suddenly
removed? The objection is evidently invalid, since our system is composed of
older and younger planets, some dead (like the moon), others in process of
formation, for all astronomy knows to the contrary. Nor has the latter ever
affirmed, so far as we know, that all the bodies of our system have sprung into
existence and developed simultaneously. The Cis-Himalayan secret teachings
differ from those of India in this respect. Hindu Occultism teaches that the
Vaivasvata Manu Humanity is eighteen million and odd years old. We say, yes;
but only so far as physical, or approximately physical, man is concerned, who
dates from the close of the Third Root-Race. Beyond that period MAN, or his
filmy image, may have existed for 300 million years, for all we know; since we
are not taught figures which are and will remain secret with the Masters of
Occult Science, as justly stated in "Esoteric Buddhism." Moreover,
whereas the Hindu Puranas speak of one Vaivasvata Manu, we affirm that there were
several, the name being a generic one. (Vide supra).
We
must now say a few more words on the physical evolution of man.
-------
[[Vol.
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ARCHAIC
TEACHINGS IN THE PURANAS AND GENESIS.
PHYSICAL
EVOLUTION.
The
writer cannot give too much proof that the system of Cosmogony and Anthropogony
as described actually existed, that its records are preserved, and that it is
found mirrored even in the modern versions of ancient Scriptures.
The
Puranas on the one hand, and the Jewish Scriptures on the other, are based on
the same scheme of evolution, which, read esoterically and expressed in modern
language, would be found to be quite as scientific as much of what now passes
current as the final word of recent discovery. The only difference between the
two schemes is, that
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the
Puranas, giving as much, and perhaps more attention to the causes than to the
effects, allude to the pre-Cosmic and pre-Genetic periods rather than to those
of so-called Creation, whereas the Bible, saying only a few words of the former
period, plunges forthwith into material genesis, and, while nearly skipping the
pre-Adamic races, proceeds with its allegories concerning the Fifth Race.
Now,
whatever the onslaught made on the Order of creation in Genesis, and its dead
letter account certainly lends itself admirably to criticism,* he who reads the
Hindu Puranas -- its allegorical exaggerations notwithstanding -- will find
them quite in accordance with physical Science.
Even
what appears to be the, on the face of it, perfectly nonsensical allegory of
Brahma assuming the form of a Boar to rescue the Earth from under the waters,
finds in the Secret Commentaries a perfectly scientific explanation, relating
as it does to the many risings and sinkings, and the constant alternation of
water and land from the earliest to the latest geological periods of our globe;
for Science teaches us now that nine-tenths of the stratified formations of the
earth's crust have been gradually constructed beneath water, at the bottom of
the seas. The ancient Aryans are credited with having known nothing whatever of
natural history, geology, and so on. The Jewish race is, on the other hand,
proclaimed even by its severest critic, an uncompromising opponent of the
Bible, (See "Modern Science and Modern Thought," p. 337), to have the
merit of having conceived the idea of monotheism "earlier, and retained it
more firmly, than any of the less philosophical and more immoral religions (!
!) of the ancient world." Only, while we find in Biblical esotericism
physiological sexual mysteries symbolised, and very little
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate attempt to reconcile the Genetic account with
science (see Nineteenth Century, "Dawn of Creation" and the
"Proem to Genesis," 1886) has brought upon him the Jovian thunderbolt
hurled by Mr. Huxley. The dead-letter account warranted no such attempt; and
his fourfold order, or division of animated creation, has turned into the stone
which, instead of killing the fly on the sleeping friend's brow, killed the man
instead. Mr. Gladstone killed Genesis for ever. But this does not prove that
there is no esotericism in the latter. The fact that the Jews and all the
Christians, the modern as well as the early sects, have accepted the narrative
literally for two thousand years, shows only their ignorance; and shows the
great ingenuity and constructive ability of the initiated Rabbis, who have
built the two accounts -- the Elohistic and the Jehovistic -- esoterically, and
have purposely confused the meaning by the vowelless glyphs or word-signs in
the original text. The six days -- yom -- of creation do mean six periods of
evolution, and the seventh that of culmination of perfection (not of rest), and
refer to the seven Rounds and the seven Races with a distinct
"creation" in each; though the use of the words boker, dawn or
morning, and crib, evening twilight -- which have esoterically the same meaning
as sandhya, twilight, in Sanskrit -- have led to a charge of the most crass
ignorance of the order of evolution.
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[[Vol.
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more
(something for which very little real philosophy is requisite), in the Puranas
one may find the most scientific and philosophical "dawn of
creation," which, if impartially analyzed and rendered into plain language
from its fairy tale-like allegories, would show that modern zoology, geology,
astronomy, and nearly all the branches of modern knowledge, have been
anticipated in the ancient Science, and were known to the philosophers in their
general features, if not in such detail as at present!
Puranic
astronomy, with all its deliberate concealment and confusion for the purpose of
leading the profane off the real track, was shown even by Bentley to be a real
science; and those who are versed in the mysteries of Hindu astronomical
treatises, will prove that the modern theories of the progressive condensation
of nebulae, nebulous stars and suns, with the most minute details about the
cyclic progress of asterisms -- far more correct than Europeans have even now
-- for chronological and other purposes, were known in India to perfection.
If
we turn to geology and zoology we find the same. What are all the myths and
endless genealogies of the seven Prajapati, and their sons, the seven Rishis or
Manus, and of their wives, sons and progeny, but a vast detailed account of the
progressive development and evolution of animal creation, one species after the
other? Were the highly philosophical and metaphysical Aryans -- the authors of
the most perfect philosophical systems of transcendental psychology, of Codes
of Ethics, and such a grammar as Panini's, of the Sankhya and Vedanta systems,
and a moral code (Buddhism), proclaimed by Max Muller the most perfect on earth
-- such fools, or children, as to lose their time in writing fairy-tales; such
tales as the Puranas now seem to be in the eyes of those who have not the
remotest idea of their secret meaning? What is the fable, the genealogy and
origin of Kasyapa, with his twelve wives, by whom he had a numerous and diversified
progeny of nagas (serpents), reptiles, birds, and all kinds of living things,
and who was thus the father of all kinds of animals, but a veiled record of the
order of evolution in this round? So far, we do not see that any Orientalist
ever had the remotest conception of the truths concealed under the allegories
and personifications. "The Satapatha Brahmana," says one, "gives
a not very intelligible account of Kasyapa's origin. . . . He was the son of
Marichi, the Son of Brahma, the father of Vivasvat, the father of Manu, the
progenitor of mankind. . . . Having assumed the form of a tortoise, Prajapati
created offspring. That which he created he made akarot, hence the word kurma
(tortoise). Kasyapa means tortoise; hence men say: 'All creatures are descendants
of Kasyapa,' etc., etc. (Hindu Class. Dict.)
He
was all this; he was also the father of Garuda, the bird, the "King
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[[Vol.
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of
the feathered tribe," who descends from, and is of one stock with the
reptiles, the nagas; and who becomes their mortal enemy subsequently as he is
also a cycle, a period of time, when in the course of evolution the birds which
developed from reptiles in their "struggle for life," --
"survival of the fittest," etc., etc., turned in preference on those
they issued from, to devour them, -- perhaps prompted by natural law, in order
to make room for other and more perfect species. (Vide Part II.,
"Symbolism.")
In
that admirable epitome of "Modern Science and Modern Thought," a
lesson in natural history is offered to Mr. Gladstone, showing the utter
variance with it of the Bible. The author remarks that Geology, commencing with
--
"
. . . the earliest known fossil, the Eozoon Canadense of the Laurentian,
continued in a chain, every link of which is firmly welded, through the
Silurian, with its abundance of molluscous, crustacean, and vermiform life and
first indication of fishes; the Devonian, with its predominance of fish and
first appearance of reptiles; the Mesozoic with its batrachians (or frog
family); the Secondary formations, in which reptiles of the sea, land and air
preponderated, and the first humble forms of vertebrate land animals began to
appear; and finally, the Tertiary, in which mammalian life has become abundant,
and type succeeding to type and species to species, are gradually
differentiated and specialized, through the Eocene, Miocene, and Pliocene
periods, until we arrive at the Glacial and Pre-historic periods, and at
positive proof of the existence of man."
The
same order, plus the description of animals unknown to modern science, is found
in the commentaries on the Puranas in general, and in the Book of Dzyan --
especially. The only difference, a grave one, no doubt, -- as implying a
spiritual and divine nature of man independent of his physical body in this
illusionary world, in which the false personality and its cerebral basis alone
is known to orthodox psychology -- is as follows. Having been in all the
so-called "Seven creations," allegorizing the seven evolutionary
changes, or the sub-races, we may call them, of the First Root-race of Mankind
-- MAN was on earth in this Round from the beginning. Having passed through all
the kingdoms of nature in the previous three Rounds,* his physical frame -- one
adapted to the thermal conditions of those early periods -- was ready to
receive the divine Pilgrim at the first dawn of human life, i.e., 18,000,000
years ago. It is only at the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Follow the law of analogy" -- the Masters teach. Atma-Buddhi is dual
and Manas is triple; inasmuch as the former has two aspects, and the latter
three, i.e., as a principle per se, which gravitates, in its higher aspect, to
Atma-Buddhi, and follows, in its lower nature, Kama, the seat of terrestrial
and animal desires and passions. Now compare the evolution of the Races, the
First and the Second of which are of the nature of Atma-Buddhi, their passive
Spiritual progeny, and the Third Root-Race shows three distinct divisions or
aspects physiologically and psychically; the earliest, sinless; the middle
portions awakening to intelligence; and the third and last decidedly animal:
i.e., Manas succumbs to the temptations of Kama.
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[[Vol.
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mid-point
of the 3rd Root Race that man was endowed with Manas. Once united, the two and
then the three made one; for though the lower animals, from the amoeba to man,
received their monads, in which all the higher qualities are potential, all
have to remain dormant till each reaches its human form, before which stage
manas (mind) has no development in them.* In the animals every principle is
paralysed, and in a foetus-like state, save the second (vital) and the third
(the astral), and the rudiments of the fourth (Kama, which is desire, instinct)
whose intensity and development varies and changes with the species. To the materialist
wedded to the Darwinian theory, this will read like a fairy-tale, a
mystification; to the believer in the inner, spiritual man, the statement will
have nothing unnatural in it.
Now
the writer is certain to meet what will be termed insuperable objections. We
shall be told that the line of embryology, the gradual development of every
individual life, and the progress of what is known to take place in the order
of progressive stages of specialization -- that all this is opposed to the idea
of man preceding mammals. Man begins as the humblest and most primitive
vermiform creature, "from the primitive speck of protoplasm and the
nucleated cell in which all life originates," and "is developed
through stages undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile and mammal, until
the cell finally attains the highly specialized development of the
quadrumanous, and last of all, of the human type." (Laing, 335.)
This
is perfectly scientific, and we have nothing against that; for all this relates
to the shell of man -- his body, which in its growth is subject, of course,
like every other (once called) morphological unit, to such metamorphoses. It is
not those who teach the transformation of the mineral atom through
crystallization -- which is the same function, and bears the same relation to
its inorganic (so-called) upadhi (or basis) as the formation of cells to their
organic nuclei, through plant, insect and animal into man -- it is not they who
will reject this theory, as it will finally lead to the recognition of a
Universal Deity in nature, ever-present and as ever invisible, and unknowable,
and of intra-Cosmic gods, who all were men.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Men are made complete only during their third, toward the fourth cycle
(race). They are made 'gods' for good and evil, and responsible only when the
two arcs meet (after 31/2 rounds towards the fifth Race). They are made so by
the Nirmanakaya (spiritual or astral remains) of the Rudra-Kumaras, 'cursed to
be reborn on earth again; meaning -- doomed in their natural turn to
reincarnation in the higher ascending arc of the terrestrial cycle.'
(Commentary IX.)
**
The whole trouble is this: neither physiologists nor pathologists will
recognize that the cell-germinating substance (the cytoblastema) and the
mother-lye from which crystals originate, are one and the same essence, save in
differentiation for purposes.
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[[Vol.
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But
we would ask, what does science and its exact and now axiomatic discoveries
prove against our Occult theory? Those who believe in the law of Evolution and
gradual progressive development from a cell (which from a vital has become a
morphological cell, until it awoke as protoplasm pure and simple) -- these can
surely never limit their belief to one line of evolution. The types of life are
innumerable; and the progress of evolution, moreover, does not go at the same
rate in every kind of species. The constitution of primordial matter in the
Silurian age -- we mean "primordial" matter of science -- is the same
in every essential particular, save its degree of present grossness, as the
primordial living matter of to-day. Nor do we find that which ought to be
found, if the now orthodox theory of Evolution were quite correct, namely, a
constant, ever-flowing progress in every species of being. Instead of that,
what does one see? While the intermediate groups of animal being all tend
toward a higher type, and while specializations, now of one type and now of
another, develop through the geological ages, change forms, assume new shapes,
appear and disappear with a kaleidoscopic rapidity in the description of
paleontologists from one period to another, the two solitary exceptions to the
general rule are those at the two opposite poles of life and type, namely --
MAN and the lower genera of being!
"Certain
well-marked forms of living beings have existed through enormous epochs,
surviving not only the changes of physical conditions, but persisting
comparatively unaltered, while other forms of life have appeared and
disappeared. Such forms may be termed 'persistent types' of life; and examples
of them are abundant enough in both the animal and the vegetable worlds"
(Huxley, "Proceed. of Roy. Inst.," vol. iii., p. 151).
Nevertheless,
we are not given any good reason why Darwin links together reptiles, birds,
amphibians, fishes, mollusca, etc., etc., as off-shoots of a moneric ancestry.
Nor are we told whether reptiles, for instance, are direct descendants of the
amphibian, the latter of fishes, and fishes of lower forms -- which they
certainly are. For the Monads have passed through all these forms of being up
to man, on every planet, in the Three preceding Rounds; every Round, as well as
every subsequent Globe, from A to G, having been, and still having to be the
arena of the same evolution, only repeated each time on a more solid material
basis. Therefore the question:-- "What relation is there between the Third
Round astral prototypes and ordinary physical development in the course of the
origination of pre-mammalian organic species?" -- is easily answered. One
is the shadowy prototype of the other, the preliminary, hardly defined, and
evanescent sketch on the canvas, of objects, which are destined to receive the
final and vivid
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[[Vol.
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form
under the brush of the painter. The fish evolved into an amphibian -- a frog --
in the shadows of ponds, and man passed through all his metamorphoses on this
Globe in the Third Round as he did in this, his Fourth Cycle. The Third Round
types contributed to the formation of the types in this one. On strict analogy,
the cycle of Seven Rounds in their work of the gradual formation of man through
every kingdom of Nature, are repeated on a microscopical scale in the first
seven months of gestation of a future human being. Let the student think over
and work out this analogy. As the seven months' old unborn baby, though quite
ready, yet needs two months more in which to acquire strength and consolidate;
so man, having perfected his evolution during seven Rounds, remains two periods
more in the womb of mother-Nature before he is born, or rather reborn a Dhyani,
still more perfect than he was before he launched forth as a Monad on the newly
built chain of worlds. Let the student ponder over this mystery, and then he
will easily convince himself that, as there are also physical links between
many classes, so there are precise domains wherein the astral merges into
physical evolution. Of this Science breathes not one word. Man has evolved with
and from the monkey, it says. But now see the contradiction.
Huxley
proceeds to point out plants, ferns, club mosses, some of them generically
identical with those now living, which are met with in the carboniferous epoch,
for:-- "The cone of the oolitic Araucaria is hardly distinguishable from
that of existing species. . . . . Subkingdoms of animals yield the same
instances. The globigerina of the Atlantic soundings is identical with the
cretaceous species of the same genus . . . the tabulate corals of the Silurian
epoch are wonderfully like the millepores of our own seas. . . . The arachnida,
the highest group of which, the scorpions, is represented in the coal by a
genus differing only from its living congeners only in . . . the eyes,"
etc., etc.; all of which may be closed with Dr. Carpenter's authoritative
statement about the Foraminifera. "There is no evidence," he says,
"of any fundamental modification or advance in the Foraminiferous type
from the palaeozoic period to the present time. . . . The Forminiferous Fauna
of our own series probably present a greater range of variety than existed at
any previous period; but there is no indication of any tendency to elevation
towards a higher type." ("Introduction to the study of the
Forminifera," p. xi.)
Now,
if there is no indication of change in the Forminifera, a protozoon of the
lowest type of life, mouthless and eyeless, except its greater variety now than
before, man, who is on the uppermost rung of the ladder of being, indicates
still less change, as we have seen; the skeleton of his Palaeolithic ancestor
being even found
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[[Vol.
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superior
in some respects to his present frame. Where is, then, the claimed uniformity of
law, the absolute rule for one species shading off into another, and, by
insensible gradations, into higher types? We see Sir William Thomson admitting
as much as 400,000,000 of years in the earth's history, since the surface of
the globe became sufficiently cool to permit of the presence of living
things;" and during that enormous lapse of time in the Oolitic period
alone, the so-called "age of reptiles," we find a most extraordinary
variety and abundance of Saurian forms, the Amphibian type reaching its highest
developments. We learn of Ichthyosauri and Plesiosauri in the lakes and rivers,
and of winged crocodiles or lizards flying in the air. After which, in the
Tertiary period "we find the Mammalian type exhibiting remarkable
divergences from previously existing forms . . . . Mastodons, Megatheriums, and
other unwieldy denizens of the ancient forests and plains; and
subsequently," are notified of -- "the gradual modification of one of
the ramifications of the Quadrumanous order, into those beings from whom
primeval man himself may claim to have been evolved." ("The
Beginnings of Life.")
He
may; but no one, except materialists, can see why he should; as there is not
the slightest necessity for it, nor is such an evolution warranted by facts,
for those most interested in the proofs thereof confess their utter failure to
find one single fact to support their theory. There is no need for the
numberless types of life to represent the members of one progressive series.
They are "the products of various and different evolutional divergences,
taking place now in one direction and now in another." Therefore it is far
more justifiable to say that the monkey evolved into the Quadrumanous order,
than that primeval man, who has remained stationary in his human specialization
ever since his fossil is found in the oldest strata, and of whom no variety is
found save in colour and facial type -- has developed from a common ancestor
together with the ape.
That
man originates like other animals in a cell and develops "through stages
undistinguishable from those of fish, reptile, and mammal until the cell
attains the highly specialized development of the quadrumanous and at last the
human type," is an Occult axiom thousands of years old. The Kabalistic
axiom: "A stone becomes a plant; a plant a beast; a beast a man; a man a
God," holds good throughout the ages. Haeckel, in his Shopfungsgeschichte,
shows a double drawing representing two embryos -- that of a dog six weeks old,
and that of a man, eight weeks. The two, except the slight difference in the
head, larger and wider about the brain in the man, are
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Trans. of Geolog. Soc. of Glasgow," vol. iii. Very strangely,
however, he has just changed his opinion. The sun, he says, is only 15,000,000
old.
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[[Vol.
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undistinguishable.
"In fact, we may say that every human being passes through the stage of
fish and reptile before arriving at that of mammal and finally of man. If we
take him up at the more advanced stage where the embryo has already passed the
reptilian form . . . for a considerable time, the line of development remains
the same as that of other mammalia. The rudimentary limbs are exactly similar,
the five fingers and toes develop in the same way, and the resemblance after
the first four weeks' growth between the embryo of a man and a dog is such that
it is scarcely possible to distinguish them. Even at the age of eight weeks the
embryo man is an animal with a tail hardly to be distinguished from an embryo
puppy" ("Modern Science," etc., p. 171).
Why,
then, not make man and dog evolve from a common ancestor, or from a reptile --
a Naga, instead of coupling man with the quadrumana? This would be just as
logical as the other, and more so. The shape and the stages of the human embryo
have not changed since historical times, and these metamorphoses were known to
AEsculapius and Hippocrates as well as to Mr. Huxley. Therefore, since the
Kabalists had remarked it since prehistoric times, it is no new discovery. In
"Isis," Vol. I., 389, it is noticed and half explained.
As
the embryo of man has no more of the ape in it than of any other mammal, but
contains in itself the totality of the kingdoms of nature, and since it seems
to be "a persistent type" of life, far more so than even the
Foraminifera, it seems as illogical to make him evolve from the ape as it would
be to trace his origin to the frog or the dog. Both Occult and Eastern
philosophies believe in evolution, which Manu and Kapila* give with far more
clearness than any scientist does at present. No need to repeat that which was
fully debated in Isis Unveiled, as the reader may find all these arguments and
the description of the basis on which all the Eastern doctrines of Evolution
rested, in our earlier books.** But no Occultist can accept the unreasonable
proposition that all the now existing forms, "from the structureless
Amoeba to man," are the direct lineal descendants of organisms which lived
millions and millions of years before the birth of man, in the pre-Silurian
epochs, in the sea or land-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence the philosophy in the allegory of the 7, 10, and finally 21 Prajapati,
Rishis, Munis, etc., who all are made the fathers of various things and beings.
The order of the seven classes or orders of plants, animals, and even inanimate
things, given at random in the Puranas, is found in several commentaries in the
correct rotation. Thus, Prithu is the father of the Earth. He milks her, and
makes her bear every kind of grain and vegetable, all enumerated and specified.
Kasyapa is the father of all the reptiles, snakes, demons, etc., etc.
**
See Vol. I. 152, et seq., about the tree of evolution -- The "Mundane
Tree."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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mud.
The Occultists believe in an inherent law of progressive development.* Mr.
Darwin never did, and says so himself.
On
page 145 of the "Origin of Species" we find him stating that, since
there can be no advantage "to the infusorian animalcule or an intestinal
worm . . . to become highly organized," therefore, "natural
selection," not including necessarily progressive development -- leaves
the animalcule and the worm (the "persistent types") quiet.
There
does not appear much uniform law in such behaviour of Nature; and it looks more
like the discriminative action of some Super-Natural selection; perhaps, that
aspect of Karma, which Eastern Occultists would call the "Law of
Retardation," may have something to do with it.
But
there is every reason to doubt whether Mr. Darwin himself ever gave such an
importance to his law -- as is given to it now by his atheistic followers. The
knowledge of the various living forms in the geological periods that have gone
by is very meagre. The reasons given for this by Dr. Bastian are very
suggestive: (1) On account of the imperfect manner in which the several forms
may be represented in the strata pertaining to the period; (2) on account of
the extremely limited nature of the explorations which have been made in these
imperfectly representative strata; and (3) because so many parts of the record
are absolutely inaccessible to us -- nearly all beneath the Silurian system
having been blotted out by time, whilst those two-thirds of the earth's surface
in which the remaining strata are to be found are now covered over by seas.
Hence Mr. Darwin says himself:--
"For
my part, following out Lyell's metaphor, I look at the geological record as a
history of the world imperfectly kept, and written in a changing dialect; of
this history we possess the last volume alone, relating only to two or three
countries. Of this volume, only here and there a short chapter has been
preserved, and of each page only here and there a few lines."
It
is not on such meagre data, certainly, that the last word of Science can be
said. Nor is it on any ground of human pride or unreasonable belief in man's
representing even here on earth -- (in our period, perhaps) -- the highest type
of life, that Occultism denies that all the preceding forms of human life
belonged to types lower than our own, for it is not so. But simply because the
"missing link," such as to prove the existing theory undeniably, will
never be found by palaeontologists. Believing as we do that man has evolved
from, and passed through, (during the preceding Rounds) the lowest forms of
every life, vegetable and animal, on earth, there is nothing very degrading in
the idea of having the orangoutang as an ancestor of our physical form. Quite
the reverse; as it
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Checked and modified, however, by the Law of Retardation, which imposes a
restriction on the advance of all species when a Higher Type makes its
appearance.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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would
forward the Occult doctrine with regard to the final evolution of everything in
terrestrial nature into man, most irresistibly. One may even enquire how it is
that biologists and anthropologists, having once firmly accepted the theory of
the descent of man from the ape -- how it is that they have hitherto left
untouched the future evolution of the existing apes into man? This is only a
logical sequence of the first theory, unless Science would make of man a
privileged being, and his evolution a non-precedent in nature, quite a special
and unique case. And that is what all this leads physical Science to. The
reason, however, why the Occultists reject the Darwinian, and especially the
Haeckelian, hypothesis is because it is the ape which is, in sober truth, a
special and unique instance, not man. The pithecoid is an accidental creation,
a forced growth, the result of an unnatural process.
The
occult doctrine, is, we think, more logical. It teaches a cyclic, never varying
law in nature, the latter having no personal, "special design," but
acting on a uniform plan that prevails through the whole manvantaric period and
deals with the land worm as it deals with man. Neither the one nor the other
have sought to come into being, hence both are under the same evolutionary law,
and both have to progress according to Karmic law. Both have started from the
same neutral centre of Life and both have to re-merge into it at the
consummation of the cycle.
It
is not denied that in the preceding Round man was a gigantic apelike creature;
and when we say "man" we ought perhaps to say, the rough mould that
was developing for the use of man in this Round only -- the middle, or the
transition point of which we have hardly reached. Nor was man what he is now
during the first two and a half Root-races. That point he reached, as said
before, only 18,000,000 years ago, during the secondary period, as we claim.
Till
then he was, according to tradition and Occult teaching, "a god on earth
who had fallen into matter," or generation. This may or may not be
accepted, since the Secret Doctrine does not impose itself as an infallible
dogma; and since, whether its prehistoric records are accepted or rejected, it
has nothing to do with the question of the actual man and his inner nature, the
Fall mentioned above having left no original sin on Humanity. But all this has
been sufficiently dealt with.
Furthermore,
we are taught that the transformations through which man passed on the
descending arc -- which is centrifugal for spirit and centripetal for matter --
and those he prepares to go through, henceforward, on his ascending path, which
will reverse the direction of the two forces -- viz., matter will become
centrifugal and spirit centripetal -- that all such transformations are next in
store for the anthropoid ape also, all those, at any rate, who have reached the
remove next to man in this
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Round
-- and these will all be men in the Fifth Round, as present men inhabited
ape-like forms in the Third, the preceding Round.
Behold,
then, in the modern denizens of the great forests of Sumatra the degraded and
dwarfed examples -- "blurred copies," as Mr. Huxley has it -- of
ourselves, as we (the majority of mankind) were in the earliest sub-races of
the Fourth Root-race during the period of what is called the "Fall into
generation." The ape we know is not the product of natural evolution but
an accident, a cross-breed between an animal being, or form, and man. As has
been shown in the present volume (anthropogenesis), it is the speechless animal
that first started sexual connection, having been the first to separate into
males and females. Nor was it intended by Nature that man should follow the
bestial example -- as shown by the comparatively painless procreation of their
species by the animals, and the terrible suffering and danger of the same in
the woman. The Ape is, indeed, as remarked in Isis Unveiled (Vol. II 278)
"a transformation of species most directly connected with that of the
human family -- a hybrid branch engrafted on their own stock before the final
perfection of the latter" -- or man. The apes are millions of years later
than the speaking human being, and are the latest contemporaries of our Fifth
Race. Thus, it is most important to remember that the Egos of the apes are
entities compelled by their Karma to incarnate in the animal forms, which
resulted from the bestiality of the latest Third and the earliest Fourth Race
men. They are entities who had already reached the "human stage"
before this Round. Consequently, they form an exception to the general rule.
The numberless traditions about Satyrs are no fables, but represent an extinct
race of animal men. The animal "Eves" were their foremothers, and the
human "Adams" their forefathers; hence the Kabalistic allegory of
Lilith or Lilatu, Adam's first wife, whom the Talmud describes as a charming
woman, with long wavy hair, i.e.-- a female hairy animal of a character now
unknown, still a female animal, who in the Kabalistic and Talmudic allegories
is called the female reflection of Samael, Samael-Lilith, or man-animal united,
a being called Hayo Bischat, the Beast or Evil Beast (Zohar). It is from this
unnatural union that the present apes descended. The latter are truly
"speechless men," and will become speaking animals (or men of a lower
order) in the Fifth Round, while the adepts of a certain school hope that some
of the Egos of the apes of a higher intelligence will reappear at the close of
the Sixth Root-race. What their form will be is of secondary consideration. The
form means nothing. Species and genera of the flora, fauna, and the highest
animal, its crown -- man, change and vary according to the environments and
climatic variations, not only with every Round, but every Root-Race likewise,
as well as after every geological
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 263 MILLIONS OF YEARS HENCE.
cataclysm
that puts an end to, or produces a turning point in the latter. In the Sixth
Root-Race the fossils of the Orang, the Gorilla and the Chimpanzee will be
those of extinct quadrumanous mammals; and new forms -- though fewer and ever
wider apart as ages pass on and the close of the Manvantara approaches -- will
develop from the "cast off" types of the human races as they revert
once again to astral, out of the mire of physical, life. There were none before
man, and they will be extinct before the Seventh Race develops. Karma will lead
on the monads of the unprogressed men of our race and lodge them in the newly
evolved human frames of the thus physiologically regenerated baboon. (But see
Part III., Addenda.)
This
will take place, of course, millions of years hence. But the picture of this
cyclic precession of all that lives and breathes now on earth, of each species
in its turn, is a true one, and needs no "special creation" or
miraculous formation of man, beast, and plant ex nihilo.
This
is how Occult Science explains the absence of any link between ape and man, and
shows the former evolving from the latter.
-------
A
PANORAMIC VIEW OF THE EARLY RACES.
There
is a period of a few millions of years to cover between the first
"mindless" race and the highly intelligent and intellectual later
"Lemurians"; there is another between the earliest civilization of
the Atlanteans and the historic period.
As
witnesses to the Lemurians but a few silent records in the shape of half a
dozen broken colossi and old cyclopean ruins are left. These are not allowed a
hearing, as they are "productions of blind natural forces," we are
assured by some; "quite modern" we are told by others. Tradition is
left contemptuously unnoticed by sceptic and materialist, and made subservient
to the Bible in every case by the too zealous Churchman. Whenever a legend,
however, refuses to fit in with the Noachian "deluge theory," it is
declared by the Christian clergy "the insanely delirious voice of old
superstition." Atlantis is denied, when not confused with Lemuria and
other departed continents, because, perhaps, Lemuria is half the creation of
modern science, and has, therefore, to be believed in; while Plato's Atlantis
is regarded by most of the scientists as a dream.
Atlantis
is often described by believers in Plato as a prolongation of Africa. An old
continent is also suspected to have existed on the Eastern coast. Only Africa,
as a continent, was never part and parcel of either Lemuria or Atlantis, as we
have agreed to call the Third and Fourth Continents. Their archaic appellations
are never mentioned in the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Puranas,
nor anywhere else. But with simply one of the esoteric keys in hand it becomes
an easy task to identify these departed lands in the numberless "lands of
the gods," Devas and Munis described in the Puranas, in their Varshas,
Dwipas, and zones. Their Sweta-Dwipa, during the early day of Lemuria, stood
out like a giant-peak from the bottom of the sea; the area between Atlas and
Madagascar being occupied by the waters till about the early period of Atlantis
(after the disappearance of Lemuria), when Africa emerged from the bottom of
the ocean, and Atlas was half-sunk.
It
is of course impossible to attempt, within the compass of even several volumes,
a consecutive and detailed account of the evolution and progress of the first
three races -- except so far as to give a general view of it, as will be done
presently. Race the first had no history of its own. Of race the second the
same may be said. We shall have, therefore, to pay careful attention only to
the Lemurians and the Atlanteans before the history of our own race (the Fifth)
can be attempted.
What
is known of other continents, besides our own, and what does history know or
accept of the early races? Everything outside the repulsive speculations of
materialistic science is daubed with the contemptuous term
"Superstition." The wise men of to-day will believe nothing. Plato's
"winged" and hermaphrodite races, and his golden age, under the reign
of Saturn and the gods, are quietly brought back by Haeckel to their new place
in nature: our divine races are shown to be the descendants of Catarrhine apes,
and our ancestor, a piece of sea slime.
Nevertheless,
as expressed by Faber, "the fictions of ancient poetry . . . . will be
found to comprehend some portion of historical truth." However one-sided
the efforts of the learned author of the "Mysteries of the Kabiri,"
-- efforts directed throughout his two volumes to constrain the classical myths
and symbols of old paganism, "to bear testimony to the truth of
Scripture," -- time and further research have avenged, partially at least,
that "truth" by showing it unveiled. Thus it is the clever
adaptations of Scripture, on the contrary, which are made to bear evidence to
the great wisdom of archaic paganism. This, notwithstanding the inextricable
confusion into which the truth about the Kabiri -- the most mysterious gods of
antiquity -- was thrown by the wild and contradictory speculations of Bishop
Cumberland, Dr. Shuckford, Cudworth, Vallancey, etc., etc., and finally by
Faber. Nevertheless, all, from first to last, of these scholars had to come to
a certain conclusion framed by the latter. "We have no reason to
think," he writes, "that the idolatry of the Gentile world was of a
merely arbitrary contrivance; on the contrary, it seems to have been built,
almost universally, upon a traditional remembrance of certain real events.
These events I apprehend to be the destruction of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 265 BAILLY AND FABER.
the
first (the fourth in esoteric teachings) Race of mankind by the waters of the
Deluge." (Chap. I. p. 9). To this, Faber adds:--
"I
am persuaded that the tradition of the sinking of the Phlegian isle is the very
same as that of the sinking of the island Atlantis. They both appear to me to
allude to one great event, the sinking of the whole world beneath the waters of
the deluge, or, if we suppose the arch of the earth to have remained in its
original position, the rising of the central water above it. M. Bailly, indeed,
in his work upon the Atlantis of Plato, the object of which is evidently to
depreciate the authority of Scriptural chronology, labours to prove that the
Atlanteans were a very ancient northern nation, long prior to the Hindoos, the
Phoenicians, and the Egyptians." ("A Dissertation on the
Kabiri," p. 284.)
In
this Faber is in agreement with Bailly, who shows himself more learned and
intuitional than those who accept Biblical chronology. Nor is the latter wrong
when saying that the Atlanteans were the same as the Titans and the giants.
(See "Lettres sur l'Atlantide.") Faber adopts the more willingly the
opinion of his French confrere, as Bailly mentions Cosmas Indico-Pleustes, who
preserved an ancient tradition about Noah -- that he "formerly inhabited
the island Atlantis" (ibid). This island, whether it was the "Poseidonis"
mentioned in "Esoteric Buddhism," or the Continent of Atlantis, does
not much matter. The tradition is there, recorded by a Christian.
No
Occultist would ever think of dispossessing Noah of his prerogatives, if he is
claimed to be an Atlantean; for this would simply show that the Israelites
repeated the story of Vaivasvata Manu, Xisuthrus, and so many others, and that
they only changed the name, to do which they had the same right as any other
nation or tribe. What we object to is the literal acceptation of Biblical
chronology, as it is absurd, and in accord with neither geological data nor
reason. Moreover, if Noah was an Atlantean, then he was a Titan, a giant, as
Faber shows; and if a giant, then why is he not shown as such in Genesis?*
Bailly's
mistake was to reject the submersion of Atlantis, and to call the Atlanteans
simply a Northern and post diluvian nation, which, however, as he says,
certainly "flourished before the foundation of the Hindu, the Egyptian,
and the Phoenician empires." In this, had
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is shown by Faber, again a pious Christian, who says that "the Noetic
family also . . . bore the appellations of Atlanteans and Titans, and the great
patriarch himself was called by way of eminence Atlas and Titan." (Vol.
II. p. 285). And if so, then, according to the Bible, Noah must have been the
progeny of the Sons of God, the fallen angels, agreeably to the same authority,
and of the "daughters of men who were fair," (See Genesis, chap. vi.)
And why not, since his father Lamech slew a man, and was, with all his sons and
daughters (who perished in the Deluge), as bad as the rest of mankind?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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he
only known of the existence of what we have agreed to call Lemuria, he would
have again been right. For the Atlanteans were post diluvian to the Lemurians,
and Lemuria was not submerged as Atlantis was, but was sunk under the waves,
owing to earthquakes and subterranean fires, as Great Britain and Europe will
be one day. It is the ignorance of our men of science, who will accept neither
the tradition that several continents have already sunk, nor the periodical law
which acts throughout the Manvantaric cycle -- it is this ignorance that is the
chief cause of all the confusion. Nor is Bailly wrong again in assuring us that
the Hindus, Egyptians, and Phoenicians came after the Atlanteans, for the
latter belonged to the Fourth, while the Aryans and their Semitic Branch are of
the Fifth Race. Plato, while repeating the story as narrated to Solon by the
priests of Egypt, intentionally confuses (as every Initiate would) the two
continents, and assigns to the small island which sunk last all the events
pertaining to the two enormous continents, the prehistoric and traditional.
Therefore, he describes the first couple, from whom the whole island was
peopled, as being formed of the Earth. In saying so, he means neither Adam and
Eve, nor yet his own Hellenic forefathers. His language is simply allegorical,
and by alluding to "Earth," he means "matter," as the
Atlanteans were really the first purely human and terrestrial race -- those
that preceded it being more divine and ethereal than human and solid.
Yet
Plato must have known, as would any other initiated adept, about the history of
the Third Race after its "Fall," though as one pledged to silence and
secrecy he never showed his knowledge in so many words. Nevertheless, it may
become easier now, after acquainting oneself with even the approximate
chronology of the Eastern nations -- all of which was based upon, and followed
the early Aryan calculations -- to realize the immense periods of time that
must have elapsed since the separation of the sexes, without mentioning the
First or even the Second Root-Races. As these must remain beyond the
comprehension of minds trained in Western thought, it is found useless to speak
in detail of the First and Second, and even of the Third Race in its earliest
stage.* One has to begin with the latter, when it reached its full human
period, lest the uninitiated reader should find himself hopelessly bewildered.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In that wonderful volume of Donnelly's "Atlantis, the Antediluvian
World," the author, speaking of the Aryan colonies from Atlantis, and of
the arts and sciences the legacy of our Fourth Race -- bravely announces that
"the roots of the institutions of to-day reach back to the Miocene
age." This is an enormous allowance for a modern scholar to make; but
civilization dates still further back than the Miocene Atlanteans.
"Secondary-period" man will be discovered, and with him his long
forgotten civilization.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 267 THE NATURAL "FALL."
The
THIRD RACE FELL -- and created no longer: it begot its progeny. Being still
mindless at the period of separation it begot, moreover, anomalous offspring,
until its physiological nature had adjusted its instincts in the right
direction. Like the "lords the gods" of the Bible ' the "Sons of
Wisdom," the Dhyan-Chohans, had warned them to leave alone the fruit
forbidden by Nature: but the warning proved of no value. Men realized the
unfitness -- we must not say sin -- of what they had done, only when too late:
after the angelic monads from higher spheres had incarnated in, and endowed
them with understanding. To that day they had remained simply physical, like
the animals generated from them. For what is the distinction? The doctrine
teaches that the only difference between animate and inanimate objects on
earth, between an animal and a human frame, is that in some the various
"fires" are latent, and in others they are active. The vital fires
are in all things and not an atom is devoid of them. But no animal has the
three higher principles awakened in him; they are simply potential, latent, and
thus non-existing. And so would the animal frames of men be to this day, had
they been left as they came out from the bodies of their Progenitors, whose
shadows they were, to grow, unfolded only by the powers and forces immanent in
matter. But as said in PYMANDER:--
"This
is a Mystery that to this day was sealed and hidden. Nature* being mingled with
Man** brought forth a wondrous miracle; the harmonious commingling of the
essence of the Seven (Pitris, governors) and her own; the Fire and the Spirit
and Nature (the noumenon of matter); which (commingling) forthwith brought
forth seven men of opposite sexes (negative and positive) according to the
essences of the seven governors." (Divine Pymander, Chap. I., Sect. 16.)
Thus
saith Hermes, the thrice great Initiate,*** "the Power of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nature is the natural body, the shadow of the Progenitors; and --
**
MAN is the "Heavenly man," as already stated.
***
The "Pymander" of our museums and libraries is an abridgement of one
of the Books of Thoth, by a Platonist of Alexandria. In the Third Century it
was remodelled after old Hebrew and Phoenician MSS. by a Jewish Kabalist, and
called the "Genesis of Enoch." But even its disfigured remnants show
how closely its text agrees with the Archaic Doctrine, as is shown in the
creation of the Seven Creators and seven primitive men. As to Enoch, Thoth or
Hermes, Orpheus and Kadmus, these are all generic names, branches and offshoots
of the seven primordial sages (incarnated Dhyan Chohans or Devas, in illusive,
not mortal bodies) who taught Humanity all it knew, and whose earliest
disciples assumed their master's names. This custom passed from the Fourth to
the Fifth Race. Hence the sameness of the traditions about Hermes (of whom
Egyptologists count five) Enoch, etc., they are all inventors of letters; none
of them dies but still lives, and they are the first Initiators into, and
Founders of the Mysteries. The Genesis of Enoch disappeared only very lately
among the Kabalists. Guillaume [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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Thought
Divine." St. Paul, another Initiate, called our world "the
enigmatical mirror of pure truth," and St. Gregory, of Nazianzen,
corroborated Hermes by stating that "things visible are but the shadow and
delineation of things that we cannot see." It is an eternal combination,
and images are repeated from the higher rung of the ladder of being down to the
lower. The "Fall of the Angels," and the "War in Heaven"
are repeated on every plane, the lower "mirror" disfiguring the image
of the superior mirror, and each repeating it in its own way. Thus the
Christian dogmas are but the reminiscences of the paradigms of Plato, who spoke
of these things cautiously, as every Initiate would. But it is all as expressed
in these few sentences of the Desatir:--
"All
that is on Earth, saith the Lord (Ormazd), is the shadow of something that is
in the superior spheres. This luminous object (light, fire, etc.) is the shadow
of that which is still more luminous than itself, and so on till it reaches ME,
who am the light of lights."
In
the Kabalistic books, and in the Zohar pre-eminently, the idea that everything
objective on earth or in this Universe is the Shadow -- Dyooknah -- of the
eternal Light or Deity, is very strong.
The
Third Race was pre-eminently the bright shadow, at first, of the gods, whom
tradition exiles on Earth after the allegorical war in Heaven; which became still
more allegorical on Earth, for it was the war between spirit and matter. This
war will last till the inner and divine man adjusts his outer terrestrial self
to his own spiritual nature. Till then the dark and fierce passions of the
former will be at eternal feud with his master, the Divine Man. But the animal
will be tamed one day, because its nature will be changed, and harmony will
reign once more between the two as before the "Fall," when even
mortal man was created by the Elements and was not born.
The
above is made clear in all the great theogonies, principally in the Grecian
(see Hesiod and Theogony). The mutilation of Uranos by his son Kronos, who thus
condemns him to impotency, has never been understood by the modern
Mythographers. Yet, it is very plain; and having been universal* (vide foot
note infra), it must have contained a great abstract
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Postel saw it. It was most certainly in a great
measure a transcript from the books of Hermes, and far anterior to the Books of
Moses, as Eliphas Levi tells his readers.
*
Uranos is a modified Varuna, "the Universal encompasser," the
all-embracer, and one of the oldest of the Vedic deities -- SPACE, the maker of
Heaven and Earth, since both are manifested out of his (or its) seed. It is
only later that Varuna became the chief of the Adityas and a kind of Neptune
riding on the Leviathan -- Makara, now the most sacred and mysterious of the
signs of the Zodiac. Varuna, "without whom no creature can even
wink," was degraded like Uranos, and, like him, he fell into generation,
his functions, "the grandest cosmical functions," as Muir calls them,
having been lowered down from heaven to earth by exoteric anthropomorphism. As
the same [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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and
philosophical idea, now lost to our modern sages. This punishment in the
allegory marks, indeed "a new period, a second phase in the development of
creation," as justly remarked by Decharme (Mythologie de la Grece Antique,
p. 7), who, however, renounces the attempt to explain it. Uranos has tried to
oppose an impediment to that development, or natural evolution, by destroying
all his children as soon as born. Uranos, who personifies all the creative
powers of, and in, Chaos (Space, or the unmanifested Deity) is thus made to pay
the penalty; for it is those powers which cause the Pitris to evolve primordial
men from themselves -- as, later on, these men evolve their progeny -- without
any sense or desire for procreation. The work of generation, suspended during a
moment, passes into the hands of Kronos,* time, who unites himself with Rhea
(the earth in esotericism -- matter in general), and thus produces, after
celestial -- terrestrial Titans. The whole of this symbolism relates to the
mysteries of Evolution.
This
allegory is the exoteric version of the esoteric doctrine given in this part of
our work. For in Kronos we see the same story repeated again. As Uranos
destroyed his children from Gaia (one, in the world of manifestation, with
Aditi or the Great Cosmic Deep) by confining them in the bosom of the Earth,
Tythea, so Kronos at this second stage of creation destroyed his children from
Rhea -- by devouring them. This is an allusion to the fruitless efforts of
Earth or Nature alone to create real human men. (See our Stanzas III. -- X., et
seq., and also Berosus' account of primeval creation.) Time swallows its own
fruitless work. Then comes Zeus -- Jupiter, who dethrones his father in his
turn.** Jupiter the Titan, is Prometheus, in one sense,*** and varies from
Zeus, the Great
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Orientalist says, "The attributes ascribed
to Varuna (in the Vedas) impart to his character a moral elevation and sanctity
far surpassing that attributed to any other Vedic Deity." But to understand
correctly the reason of his fall, like that of Uranos, one has to see in every
exoteric religion the imperfect and sinful work of man's fancy, and also to
study the mysteries which Varuna is said to have imparted to Vasishta. Only . .
. "his secrets and those of Mitra are not to be revealed to the
foolish."
*
Kronos is not only [[Chronos]], time, but also, as Breal showed in his Hercule
et Cacus (p. 57), comes from the root Kar, "to make, to create."
Whether Breal and Decharme, who quotes him, are as right in saying that in the
Vedas Kronan is a creative god, we have our doubts. Breal probably meant Karma,
or rather Visva-Karma, the creative god, the "Omnificent" and the
"great Architect of the world."
**
The Titanic struggle, in theogony at least, is the fight for supremacy between
the children of Uranos and Gaia (or Heaven and Earth in their abstract sense),
the Titans, against the children of Kronos, whose chief is Zeus. It is the
everlasting struggle going on to this day between the spiritual inner man and
the man of flesh, in one sense.
***
Just as the "Lord God," or Jehovah, is Cain esoterically, and the
"tempting serpent" as well, the male portion of the androgynous Eve,
before her "Fall;" the female portion of Adam Kadmon; the left side
or Binah of the right side Chochmah in the first Sephirothal Triad.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Father
of the Gods." He is the "disrespectful son" in Hesiod. Hermes calls
him the "Heavenly man" (Pymander); and even in the Bible he is found
again under the name of Adam, and, later on -- by transmutation -- under that
of Ham. Yet these are all personifications of the "sons of Wisdom."
The necessary corroboration that Jupiter belongs to the purely human Atlantean
cycle -- if Uranus and Kronos who precede him are found insufficient -- may be
found in Hesiod, who tells us that the Immortals have made men and created the
Golden and the Silver age (First and Second Races); while Jupiter created the
generations of Bronze (an admixture of two elements), of Heroes, and the men of
the age of Iron. After this he sends his fatal present, by Pandora, to
Epimetheus,* which present Hesiod calls "a fatal gift," or the first woman.
It was a punishment, he explains, sent to man "for the theft of divine
creative fire." Her apparition on earth is the signal of every kind of
evil. Before her appearance, the human races lived happy, exempt from sickness
and suffering -- as the same races are made to live under Yima's rule, in the
Mazdean Vendidad.
Two
deluges may also be traced in universal tradition by carefully comparing
Hesiod, the Rig Veda, the Zend-Avesta, etc., while no first man is ever
mentioned in any of the theogonies save the Bible.** Everywhere the man of our
race appears after a cataclysm of water, after which tradition mentions only
the several designations of continents and islands which sink under the ocean
waves in due time.*** "Gods and mortals have one common origin" says
Hesiod (ibid. v. 108); and Pindar echoes the statement (Nem. VI., 1). Deucalion
and Pyrrha, who escape the Deluge by constructing an ark like Noah's (see
Apollod., 1, 7, 2, and Ovid, Metam. I, 260, 899.), ask Jupiter to re-animate
the human race whom he had made to perish under the waters of the Flood. In the
Slavonian Mythology (Lithuanian legend, in Grimm, Deutsche Myth. 1, 545), all
men were drowned, and two old people, a man and his wife, alone remained. Then
Pram-gimas (the "master of all") advised them to jump seven times on
the rocks of the earth, and seven new races (couples) were born, from which
came the nine Lithuanian tribes. As well understood by the author of the
Mythologie de la Grece Antique -- the four ages
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Egyptian legend, translated by M. Maspero (the ex-director of the Bulaq
Museum), called the "two Brothers," the original of Pandora is given.
Noum, the famous heavenly artist, creates a marvellous beauty, a girl which he
sends to Batoo, after which the happiness of the latter is destroyed. Batoo is
man, and the girl Eve, of course. (See Maspero's Egyptian Legends, and also
Decharme's "Mythologie de la Grece Antique.")
**
Yima is not the "first man" in the Vendidad, but only in the theories
of the Orientalists. -- See further on.
***
Boeotia, then ancient Athens, and Eleusis were submerged.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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signify
periods of time, and are also an allegorical allusion to the races. "The
successive races, destroyed and replaced by others," he says,
"without any period of transition, are characterized in Greece by the name
of metals, to express their ever-decreasing value. Gold, the most brilliant and
precious of all, symbol of purity . . . . qualifies the first race. . . . . The
men of the second race, those of the age of Silver, are already inferior to the
first. Inert and weak creatures, all their life is no better than a long and
stupid infancy. . . . They disappear. . . . The men of the age of Bronze are
robust and violent (the third race); their strength is extreme. They had arms
made of bronze, habitations of bronze; used nought but bronze. Iron, the black metal,
was yet unknown" (Op. at D., 143-155). The fourth generation (race) is,
with Hesiod, that of the heroes who fell before Thebes (see "The Seven
Against Thebes," by AEschylus), or under the walls of Troy.
Thus,
the four races being found mentioned by the oldest Greek poets, though very
much confused anachronistically, our doctrines are once more corroborated by
the classics. But this is all "Mythology" and poetry. What can modern
science have to say to such an euhemerization of old fictions? The verdict is
not difficult to foresee. Therefore an attempt must be made to answer by
anticipation, and prove that fictions and empirical speculations are so much of
the domain of that same science, that none of the men of learning have the
slightest right, with such a heavy beam in their own eye, to point to the speck
in the eye of the Occultist, even if that speck be not a figment of our
opponents' imagination.
---------
STANZA
X. -- (Continued.)
40.
THEN THE THIRD AND FOURTH (races) BECAME TALL WITH PRIDE. WE ARE THE KINGS, WE
ARE THE GODS (a).
41.
THEY TOOK WIVES FAIR TO LOOK AT. WIVES FROM THE "MINDLESS," THE
NARROW-HEADED. THEY BRED MONSTERS, WICKED DEMONS, MALE AND FEMALE. ALSO KHADO
(Dakini) WITH LITTLE MINDS (b).
42.
THEY BUILT TEMPLES FOR HUMAN BODY. MALE AND FEMALE THEY WORSHIPPED (c). THEN
THE THIRD EYE ACTED NO LONGER (d).
(a)
Such were the first truly physical men, whose first characteristic was --
pride! It is the Third Race and the gigantic Atlanteans, the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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memory
of whom lingered from one generation and race to another generation and race
down to the days of Moses, and which found an objective form in those
antediluvian giants, those terrible sorcerers and magicians, of whom the Roman
Church has preserved such vivid and at the same time distorted legends. One who
has read and studied the Commentaries on the archaic doctrine, will easily
recognise in some Atlanteans, the prototypes of the Nimrods, the Builders of
the Tower of Babel, the Hamites, and all these tutti quanti of "accursed
memory," as theological literature expresses it: of those, in short, who
have furnished posterity with the orthodox types of Satan. And this leads us
naturally to inquire into the religious ethics of these early races, mythical
as these may be.
What
was the religion of the Third and Fourth Races? In the common acceptation of
the term, neither the Lemurians, nor yet their progeny, the Lemuro-Atlanteans,
had any, as they knew no dogma, nor had they to believe on faith. No sooner had
the mental eye of man been opened to understanding, than the Third Race felt
itself one with the ever-present as the ever to be unknown and invisible ALL,
the One Universal Deity. Endowed with divine powers, and feeling in himself his
inner God, each felt he was a Man-God in his nature, though an animal in his
physical Self. The struggle between the two began from the very day they tasted
of the fruit of the Tree of Wisdom; a struggle for life between the spiritual
and the psychic, the psychic and the physical. Those who conquered the lower
principles by obtaining mastery over the body, joined the "Sons of
Light." Those who fell victims to their lower natures, became the slaves
of Matter. From "Sons of Light and Wisdom" they ended by becoming the
"Sons of Darkness." They had fallen in the battle of mortal life with
Life immortal, and all those so fallen became the seed of the future
generations of Atlanteans.*
At
the dawn of his consciousness, the man of the Third Root Race had thus no
beliefs that could be called religion. That is to say, he was equally as
ignorant of "gay religions, full of pomp and gold" as of any system
of faith or outward worship. But if the term is to be defined as the binding
together of the masses in one form of reverence paid to those we feel higher
than ourselves, of piety -- as a feeling expressed by a child toward a loved
parent -- then even the earliest Lemurians had a religion -- and a most
beautiful one -- from the very beginning of their intellectual life. Had they
not their bright gods of the elements around
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The name is used here in the sense of, and as a synonym of
"sorcerers." The Atlantean races were many, and lasted in their
evolution for millions of years: all were not bad. They became so toward their
end, as we (the fifth) are fast becoming now.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 273 THE GOLDEN AGE.
them,
and even within themselves?* Was not their childhood passed with, nursed and
tendered by those who had given them life and called them forth to intelligent,
conscious life? We are assured it was so, and we believe it. For the evolution
of Spirit into matter could never have been achieved; nor would it have
received its first impulse, had not the bright Spirits sacrificed their own
respective super-ethereal essences to animate the man of clay, by endowing each
of his inner principles with a portion, or rather, a reflection of that
essence. The Dhyanis of the Seven Heavens (the seven planes of Being) are the
NOUMENOI of the actual and the future Elements, just as the Angels of the Seven
Powers of nature - the grosser effects of which are perceived by us in what
Science is pleased to call the "modes of motion" -- the imponderable
forces and what not -- are the still higher noumenoi of still higher
Hierarchies.
It
was the "Golden Age" in those days of old, the age when the
"gods walked the earth, and mixed freely with the mortals." Since
then, the gods departed (i.e., became invisible), and later generations ended
by worshipping their kingdoms -- the Elements.
It
was the Atlanteans, the first progeny of semi-divine man after his separation
into sexes -- hence the first-begotten and humanly-born mortals -- who became
the first "Sacrificers" to the god of matter. They stand in the
far-away dim past, in ages more than prehistoric, as the prototype on which the
great symbol of Cain was built,** as the first anthropomorphists who worshipped
form and matter. That worship degenerated very soon into self-worship, thence
led to phallicism, or that which reigns supreme to this day in the symbolisms of
every exoteric religion of ritual, dogma, and form. Adam and Eve became matter,
or furnished the soil, Cain and Abel -- the latter the life-bearing soil, the
former "the tiller of that ground or field."
Thus
the first Atlantean races, born on the Lemurian Continent, separated from their
earliest tribes into the righteous and the unrighteous; into those who
worshipped the one unseen Spirit of Nature, the ray of which man feels within
himself -- or the Pantheists, and those who offered fanatical worship to the
Spirits of the Earth, the dark Cosmic, anthropomorphic Powers, with whom they
made alliance. These were the earliest Gibborim, "the mighty men of renown
in those
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Gods of the Elements" are by no means the Elementals. The latter
are at best used by them as vehicles and materials in which to clothe
themselves. . . . .
**
Cain was the sacrificer, as shown at first in chap. iv. of Genesis, of
"the fruit of the ground," of which he was first tiller, while Abel
"brought of the firstlings of his flock" to the Lord. Cain is the
symbol of the first male, Abel of the first female humanity, Adam and Eve being
the types of the third race. (See "The Mystery of Cain and Abel.") The
"murdering" is blood-shedding, but not taking life.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 274 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
days"
(Gen. vi.); who become with the Fifth Race the Kabirim: Kabiri with the Egyptians
and the Phoenicians, Titans with the Greeks, and Rakshasas and Daityas with the
Indian races.
Such
was the secret and mysterious origin of all the subsequent and modern
religions, especially of the worship of the later Hebrews for their tribal god.
At the same time this sexual religion was closely allied to, based upon and
blended, so to say, with astronomical phenomena. The Lemurians gravitated
toward the North Pole, or the Heaven of their Progenitors (the Hyperborean
Continent); the Atlanteans, toward the Southern Pole, the pit, cosmically and
terrestrially -- whence breathe the hot passions blown into hurricanes by the
cosmic Elementals, whose abode it is. The two poles were denominated, by the
ancients, Dragons and Serpents -- hence good and bad Dragons and Serpents, and
also the names given to the "Sons of God" (Sons of Spirit and
Matter): the good and bad Magicians. This is the origin of this dual and triple
nature in man. The legend of the "Fallen Angels" in its esoteric signification,
contains the key to the manifold contradictions of human character; it points
to the secret of man's self-consciousness; it is the angle-iron on which hinges
his entire life-cycle; -- the history of his evolution and growth.
On
a firm grasp of this doctrine depends the correct understanding of esoteric
anthropogenesis. It gives a clue to the vexed question of the Origin of Evil;
and shows how man himself is the separator of the ONE into various contrasted
aspects.
The
reader, therefore, will not be surprised if so considerable space is devoted in
each case to an attempt to elucidate this difficult and obscure subject. A good
deal must necessarily be said on its symbological aspect; because, by so doing,
hints are given to the thoughtful student for his own investigations, and more
light can thus be suggested than it is possible to convey in the technical
phrases of a more formal, philosophical exposition. The "Fallen
Angels," so-called, are Humanity itself. The Demon of Pride, Lust,
Rebellion, and Hatred, has never had any being before the appearance of
physical conscious man. It is man who has begotten, nurtured, and allowed the
fiend to develop in his heart; he, again, who has contaminated the indwelling
god in himself, by linking the pure spirit with the impure demon of matter.
And, if the Kabalistic saying, "Demon est Deus inversus" finds its
metaphysical and theoretical corroboration in dual manifested nature, its
practical application is found in Mankind alone.
Thus
it has now become self-evident that postulating as we do (a) the appearance of
man before that of other mammalia, and even before the ages of the huge
reptiles; (b) periodical deluges and glacial periods owing to the karmic
disturbance of the axis; and chiefly (c) the birth of man
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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from
a Superior Being, or what materialism would call a supernatural Being, though
it is only super-human -- it is evident that our teachings have very few
chances of an impartial hearing. Add to it the claim that a portion of the
Mankind in the Third Race -- all those Monads of men who had reached the
highest point of Merit and Karma in the preceding Manvantara -- owed their
psychic and rational natures to divine Beings hypostasizing into their fifth
principles, and the Secret Doctrine must lose caste in the eyes of not only
Materialism but even of dogmatic Christianity. For, no sooner will the latter
have learned that those angels are identical with their "Fallen"
Spirits, than the esoteric tenet will be proclaimed most terribly heretical and
pernicious.* The divine man dwelt in the animal, and, therefore, when the
physiological separation took place in the natural course of evolution -- when also
"all the animal creation was untied," and males were attracted to
females -- that race fell: not because they had eaten of the fruit of Knowledge
and knew good from evil, but because they knew no better. Propelled by the
sexless creative instinct, the early sub-races had evolved an intermediate race
in which, as hinted in the Stanzas, the higher Dhyan-Chohans had incarnated.**
"When we have ascertained the extent of the Universe and learnt to know
all that there is in it, we will multiply our race," answer the Sons of
Will and Yoga to their brethren of the same race, who invite them to do as they
do. This means that the great Adepts and Initiated ascetics will
"multiply," i.e., once more produce Mind-born immaculate Sons -- in
the Seventh Root-Race.
It
is so stated in the Puranas; in Adi Parvan (p. 115) and Brahma Purana, etc. In
one portion of the Pushkara Mahatmya, moreover, the separation of the sexes is
allegorized by Daksha, who, seeing that his will-born progeny (the "Sons
of passive Yoga"), will not create men, "converts half himself into a
female by whom he begets daughters," the future females of the Third Race
which begat the giants of Atlantis,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is, perhaps, with an eye to this degradation of the highest and purest
Spirits, who broke through the intermediate planes of lower consciousness (the
"Seven circles of fire" of Pymander), that St. James is made to say
that "this Wisdom (psuche in the original) descended not from above, but
is earthly, sensual, devilish"; and Psuche is Manas, the "human
soul," the Spiritual Wisdom or Soul being Buddhi. Yet Buddhi per se, being
so near the Absolute, is only latent consciousness.
**
This is the "undying race" as it is called in Esotericism, and exoterically
the fruitless generation of the first progeny of Daksha, who curses Narada, the
divine Rishi, alleged to have dissuaded the Haryaswas and the Sabalaswas, the
sons of Daksha, from procreating their species, by saying "Be born in the
womb; there shall not be a resting place for thee in all these regions";
after this Narada, the representative of that race of fruitless ascetics, is
said, as soon as he dies in one body, to be reborn in another.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Fourth Race, so called. In the Vishnu Purana it is simply said that Daksha, the
father of mankind, established sexual intercourse as the means of peopling the
world.
Happily
for the human race the "Elect Race" had already become the vehicle of
incarnation of the (intellectually and spiritually) highest Dhyanis before
Humanity had become quite material. When the last sub-races -- save some lowest
-- of the Third Race had perished with the great Lemurian Continent, "the
seeds of the Trinity of Wisdom" had already acquired the secret of
immortality on Earth, that gift which allows the same great personality to step
ad libitum from one worn-out body into another.
(b)
The first war that earth knew, the first human gore shed, was the result of
man's eyes and senses being opened; which made him see that the daughters of
his Brethren were fairer than his own, and their wives also. There were rapes
committed before that of the Sabines, and Menelauses robbed of their Helens
before the Fifth Race was born. Titans or giants were the stronger; their
adversaries, the wiser. This took place during the Fourth Race -- that of the
giants.
For
"there were giants" in the days of old, indeed* and the evolutionary
series of the animal world is a warrant that the same thing took place within
the human races. Lower still in the order of creation we find witnesses for the
same in the flora going pari passu with the fauna in respect of size. The
pretty ferns we collect and dry among the leaves of our favourite volumes are
the descendants of the gigantic ferns which grew during the carboniferous
period.
Scriptures,
and fragments of philosophical and scientific works -- in short, almost every
record that has come down to us from antiquity -- contain references to giants.
No one can fail to recognize the Atlanteans of the Secret Doctrine in the
Rakshasas of Lanka -- the opponents conquered by Rama. Are these accounts no
better than the production of empty fancy? Let us give the subject a few
moments of attention.
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The traditions of every country and nation point to this fact. Donnelly quotes
from Father Duran's Historia Antigua de la Nueva Espana of 1885, in which a
native of Cholula, a centenarian, accounts for the building of the great
pyramid of Cholula, by saying as follows: "In the beginning, before the
light of the Sun had been created, this land (Cholula) was in obscurity and
darkness . . . . but immediately after the light of the Sun arose in the East,
there appeared gigantic men . . . . who built the said pyramid, its builders
being scattered after that to all parts of the Earth."
"A
great deal of the Central American history is taken up with the doings of an
ancient race of giants called Quinanes," says the author of
"Atlantis" (p. 204.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 277 THE GIANTS.
ARE
GIANTS A FICTION?
Here,
again, we come into collision with Science. The latter denies, so far, that man
has ever been much larger than the average of the tall and powerful men one
meets with occasionally now. Dr. Henry Gregor denounces such traditions as
resting upon ill-digested facts. Instances of mistaken judgments are brought
forward. Thus, in 1613, in a locality called from time immemorial the
"Field of Giants" in the Lower Dauphine (France, four miles from St.
Romans) enormous bones were found deeply buried in the sandy soil. They were
attributed to human remains, and even to Teutobochus, the Teuton chief slain by
Marius. But Cuvier's later research proved them to be the fossil remains of the
Dinotherium giganteum of the family of tapirs, 18 feet long. Ancient buildings
are pointed to as an evidence that our earliest ancestors were not much larger
than we are, the entrance doors being of no larger size then than they are now.
The tallest man of antiquity known to us was the Roman Emperor Maximus, we are
told, whose height was only seven and a half feet. Nevertheless, in our modern
day we see every year men taller than this. The Hungarian who exhibited himself
in the London Pavilion was nearly 9 feet high. In America a giant was shown 9
1/2 feet tall; the Montenegrin Danilo was 8 feet 7 inches. In Russia and
Germany one often sees men in the lower classes above 7 feet. And as the
ape-theorists are told by Mr. Darwin that the species of animals which result
from cross breeding "always betray a tendency to revert to the original
type," they ought to apply the same law to men. Had there been no giants
as a rule in ancient days, there would be none now.
All
this applies only to the historic period. And if the skeletons of the
prehistoric ages have failed so far (which is positively denied) to prove undeniably
in the opinion of science the claim here advanced, it is but a question of
time. Moreover, as already stated, human stature is little changed since the
last racial cycle. The Giants of old are all buried under the Oceans, and
hundreds of thousands of years of constant friction by water would reduce to
dust and pulverize a brazen, far more a human skeleton. But whence the
testimony of well-known classical writers, of philosophers and men who,
otherwise, never had the reputation for lying? Let us bear in mind,
furthermore, that before the year 1847, when Boucher de Perthes forced it upon
the attention of Science, almost nothing was known of fossil man, for
archaeology complacently ignored his existence. Of Giants who were "in the
earth in those days" of old, the Bible alone had spoken to the wise men of
the West, the Zodiac being the solitary witness called upon to corroborate the
statement in the persons of Atlas or Orion, whose mighty shoulders are said to
support the world.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Nevertheless,
even the "Giants" have not been left without their witnesses, and one
may as well examine both sides of the question. The three Sciences -- Geological,
Sidereal and Scriptural (the latter in its Universal character) -- may furnish
us with the needed proofs. To begin with geology; it has already confessed that
the older the excavated skeletons, the larger, taller and the more powerful
their structure. This is already a certain proof in hand. "All those
bones" writes Frederic de Rougemont -- who, though believing too piously
in Noah's ark and the Bible, is none the less a Scientific witness -- "all
those skeletons found in the Departments of the Gard, in Austria, Liege, etc.,
etc. . . those skulls which remind all of the negro type. . . and which by
reason of that type might be mistaken for animals, have all belonged to men of
very high stature" . . . ("Histoire de la Terre," p. 154) The same
is repeated by Lartet, an authority, who attributes a tall stature to those who
were submerged in the deluge (not necessarily "Noah's") and a smaller
stature to the races which lived subsequently.
As
for the evidence furnished by ancient writers, we need not stop at that of
Tertullian, who assures us that in his day a number of giants were found at
Carthage -- for, before his testimony can be accepted, his own identity* and
actual existence would have to be proven. But we may turn to the scientific
journals of 1858, which spoke of a sarcophagus of giants found that year on the
site of that same city. As to the ancient pagan writers -- we have the evidence
of Philostratus, who speaks of a giant skeleton twenty-two cubits long, as well
as of another of twelve cubits, seen by himself at Sigeus. This skeleton may
perhaps not have belonged, as believed by Protesilaus, to the giant killed by
Apollo at the siege of Troy; nevertheless, it was that of a giant, as well as
that other one discovered by Messecrates of Stire, at Lemnos -- "horrible
to behold," according to Philostratus (Heroica, p. 35). Is it possible
that prejudice would carry Science so far as to class all these men as either
fools or liars?
Pliny
speaks of a giant in whom he thought he recognised Orion, the son of Ephialtes
(Nat. Hist., vol. VII, ch. xvi.). Plutarch declares that Sertorius saw the tomb
of Antaeus, the giant; and Pausanias vouches for the actual existence of the
tombs of Asterius and of Geryon, or Hillus, son of Hercules -- all giants,
Titans and mighty men. Finally the Abbe Pegues (cited in de Mirville's
Pneumatologie) affirms in his curious work on "The Volcanoes of
Greece" that "in the neighbourhood of the volcanoes of the isle of
Thera, giants with enormous skulls were found laid out under colossal stones,
the erection of which must have necessi-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There are critics who, finding no evidence about the existence of Tertullian
save in the writings of Eusebius "the veracious," are inclined to
doubt it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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tated
everywhere the use of titanic powers, and which tradition associates in all
countries with the ideas about giants, volcanoes and magic." (Page 48.)
In
the same work above cited of the Abbe Pegues, the author wonders why in Bible
and tradition the Gibborim, (Giants, the mighty ones) the Rephaim, or the
spectres (Phantoms), the Nephilim, or the fallen ones -- (irruentes) -- are
shown "as if identical, though they are all men, since the Bible calls
them the primitive and the mighty ones" -- e.g., Nimrod. The
"Doctrine" explains the secret. These names, which belong by right
only to the four preceding races and the earliest beginning of the Fifth,
allude very clearly to the first two Phantom (astral) races; to the fallen one
-- the Third; and to the race of the Atlantean Giants -- the Fourth, after
which "men began to decrease in stature."
Bossuet
(Elevations p. 56) sees the cause of subsequent universal idolatry in the
"original sin." "Ye shall be as gods," says the serpent of
Genesis to Eve, thus laying the first germ of the worship of false divinities.
Hence, he thinks, came idolatry, or the cult and adoration of images, of
anthropomorphized or human figures. But, if it is the latter that idolatry is
made to rest upon, then the two Churches, the Greek and the Latin especially,
are as idolatrous and pagan as any other religion.* It is only in the Fourth
Race that men, who had lost all right to be considered divine, resorted to body
worship, in other words to phallicism. Till then, they had been truly gods, as
pure and as divine as their progenitors, and the expression of the allegorical
serpent does not, as sufficiently shown in the preceding pages, refer at all to
the physiological fall of men, but to their acquiring the knowledge of good and
evil, which knowledge comes to them prior to their fall. It must not be
forgotten that it is only after his forced expulsion from Eden that "Adam
knew Eve his wife" (Genesis iv.). It is not, however, by the dead-letter
of the Hebrew Bible that we shall check the tenets of the Secret Doctrine; but
point out, rather, the great similarities between the two in their esoteric
meaning.
It
is only after his defection from the Neo-Platonists, that Clement
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And that, notwithstanding the formal prohibition at the great Church Council of
Elyrus in A.D. 303, when it was declared that "the form of God, which is
immaterial and invisible, shall not be limited by figure or shape." In
692, the council of Constantinople had similarly prohibited "to paint or
represent Jesus as a lamb," as also "to bow the knee in praying, as
it is the act of idolatry." But the council of Nicaea (787) brought this
idolatry back, while that of Rome (883) excommunicated John, the Patriarch of
Constantinople, for his showing himself a declared enemy of image worship.
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[[Vol.
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of
Alexandria began to translate gigantes by serpentes, explaining that
"Serpents and Giants signify Demons." (Genesis, chapter v.)*
We
may be told that, before we draw parallels between our tenets and those of the
Bible, we have to show better evidence of the existence of the giants of the
Fourth Race than the reference to them found in Genesis. We answer, that the
proofs we give are more satisfactory, at any rate they belong to a more
literary and scientific evidence, than those of Noah's Deluge will ever be.
Even the historical works of China are full of such reminiscences about the
Fourth Race. In Shoo-King (4th part, chap. XXVII, p. 291), anyone can read in
the French translation, "When the Mao-tse" ("that antediluvian
and perverted race," explains the Annotator, "which had retired in
the days of old to the rocky caves, and the descendants of whom are said to be still
found in the neighbourhood of Canton"),**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Treating of the Chinese Dragon and the literature of China, Mr. Ch. Gould
writes in his "Mythical Monsters" on p. 212:-- "Its mythologies,
histories, religions, popular stories and proverbs, all teem with references to
a mysterious being who has a physical nature and spiritual attributes. Gifted
with an accepted form, which he has the supernatural power of casting off for
the assumption of others, he has the power of influencing the weather,
producing droughts or fertilizing rains at pleasure, of raising tempests and
allaying them. Volumes could be compiled from the scattered legends which
everywhere abound relating to this subject. . . . "
This
"mysterious being" is the mythical Dragon, i.e., the symbol of the
historical, actual Adept, the master and professor of occult sciences of old.
It is stated already elsewhere, that the great "magicians" of the
Fourth and Fifth Races were generally called the "Serpents" and the
"Dragons" after their progenitors. All these belonged to the
hierarchy of the so-called "Fiery Dragons of Wisdom," the Dhyan
Chohans, answering to the Agnishwatta Pitris, the Maruts and Rudras generally,
as the issue of Rudra their father, identified with the god of fire. More is
said in the text. Now Clement, an initiated Neo-Platonist, knew, of course, the
origin of the word "Dragon," and why the initiated Adepts were
so-called, as he knew the secret of Agathodaemon, the Christ, the seven-vowelled
Serpent of the Gnostics. He knew that the dogma of his new faith required the
transformation of all the rivals of Jehovah, the angels supposed to have
rebelled against that Elohim as the Titan-Prometheus rebelled against Zeus, the
usurper of his father's kingdom; and that "Dragon" was the mystic
appellation of the "Sons of Wisdom"; from this knowledge came his
definition, as cruel as it was arbitrary, "Serpents and Giants signify
Demons," i.e., not "Spirits," but Devils, in Church parlance.
**
"What would you say to our affirmation that the Chinese -- I speak of the
inland, the true Chinaman, not of the hybrid mixture between the Fourth and
Fifth Races now occupying the throne, the aborigines who belong in their
unallied nationality wholly to the highest and last branch of the Fourth Race
-- reached their highest civilization when the Fifth had hardly appeared in
Asia" (Esoteric Buddhism, p. 67). And this handful of the inland Chinese
are all of a very high stature. Could the most ancient MSS. in the Lolo language
(that of the aborigines of China) be got at and translated correctly, many a
priceless piece of evidence would be found. But they are as rare as their
language is unintelligible. So far, one or two European archaeologists only
have been able to procure such priceless works.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"according
to our ancient documents, had, owing to the beguilements of Tchy-Yeoo, troubled
all the earth, it became full of brigands. . . . ." The Lord Chang-ty (a
king of the divine dynasty) saw that his people had lost the last vestiges of
virtue. Then he commanded Tehong and Lhy (two lower Dhyan Chohans) to cut away
every communication between heaven and earth. Since then, there was no more
going up and down!"**
"Going
up and down" means an untrammelled communication and intercourse between
the two worlds. Not being in a position to give out a full and detailed history
of the Third and Fourth Races, as many isolated facts concerning them as are
permitted must be now collated together; especially those corroborated by
direct as well as by inferential evidence found in ancient literature and
history. As the "coats of skin" of men thickened, and they fell more
and more into physical sin, the intercourse between physical and ethereal
divine man was stopped. The veil of matter between the two planes became too
dense for even the inner man to penetrate. The mysteries of Heaven and Earth,
revealed to the Third Race by their celestial teachers in the days of their
purity, became a great focus of light, the rays from which became necessarily
weakened as they were diffused and shed upon an uncongenial, because too
material soil. With the masses they degenerated into Sorcery, taking later on
the shape of exoteric religions, of idolatry full of superstitions, and man-,
or hero-worship. Alone a handful of primitive men -- in whom the spark of
divine Wisdom burnt bright, and only strengthened in its intensity as it got
dimmer and dimmer with every age in those who turned it to bad purposes --
remained the elect custodians of the Mysteries revealed to mankind by the
divine Teachers. There were those among them, who remained in their Kumaric
condition from the beginning; and tradition whispers, what the secret teachings
affirm, namely, that these Elect were the germ of a Hierarchy which never died
since that period:--
"The
inner man of the first * * * only changes his body from time to time; he is
ever the same, knowing neither rest nor Nirvana, spurning Devachan and
remaining constantly on Earth for the salvation of mankind. . . . . ."
"Out of the seven virgin-men (Kumara**) four sacrificed themselves for the
sins of the world and the instruction of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Remember the same statement in the Book of Enoch, as also the ladder seen by
Jacob in his dream. The "two worlds" mean of course the "two
planes of Consciousness and Being." A seer can commune with beings of a
higher plane than the earth, without quitting his arm-chair.
**
Vide supra the Commentary on the Four Races -- and on the "Sons of Will
and Yoga," the immaculate progeny of the Androgynous Third Race.
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[[Vol.
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the
ignorant, to remain till the end of the present Manvantara. Though unseen, they
are ever present. When people say of one of them, "He is dead";
behold, he is alive and under another form. These are the Head, the Heart, the
Soul, and the Seed of undying knowledge (Gnyana). Thou shalt never speak, O
Lanoo, of these great ones (Maha . . .) before a multitude, mentioning them by
their names. The wise alone will understand." . . . * (Catechism of the
inner Schools.)
It
is these sacred "Four" who have been allegorized and symbolized in
the "Linga Purana," which states that Vamadeva (Siva) as Kumara is
reborn in each Kalpa (Race in this instance), as four youths -- four, white;
four, red; four, yellow; and four, dark or brown. Let us remember that Siva is
pre-eminently and chiefly an ascetic, the patron of all Yogis and Adepts, and
the allegory will become quite comprehensible. It is the spirit of Divine
Wisdom and chaste asceticism itself which incarnates in these Elect. It is only
after getting married and being dragged by the gods from his terrible ascetic
life, that Rudra becomes Siva, a god, and not one of a very virtuous or
merciful type, in the Hindu Pantheon. Higher than the "Four" is only
ONE on Earth as in Heavens -- that still more mysterious and solitary Being
described in Book I.
We
have now to examine the nature of the "Sons of the Flame" and of
"Dark Wisdom," as well as the pros and cons of the Satanic
assumption.
Such
broken sentences as could be made out from the fragments on the tile, which
George Smith calls "the Curse after the Fall" (see p. 81 of his
"Chaldean Account of Genesis"), are of course allegorical; yet they
corroborate that which is taught of the true nature of the fall of the angels
in our Books. Thus, it is said in line 12 that the "Lord of the earth his
name called out, the father Elu" (Elohim), and pronounced his curse, which
"The God Hea heard, and his liver was angry, because his man (Angelic man)
had corrupted his purity (14 and 15)," for which Hea expresses the desire
that " 'Wisdom and knowledge' hostilely may they injure him (man)."
The
latter sentence points to the direct connection of the Chaldean with the Genetic
account. While Hea tries to bring to nought the wisdom and knowledge gained by
man, through his newly-acquired intellectual and conscious capacity of creating
in his turn (thus taking the monopoly of creation out of the hands of God (the
Gods)), the Elohim do the same in the third chapter of Genesis. Therefore the
Elohim sent him out of Eden.
But
this was of no avail. For the spirit of divine Wisdom being
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Kabala the pronunciation of the four-lettered ineffable name is "a
most secret arcanum" --- "a secret of secrets."
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[[Vol.
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upon
and in man -- verily the Serpent of Eternity and all Knowledge, that Manasic
spirit, which made him learn the secret of creation on the Kriyasaktic, and of
procreation on the earthly planes -- led him as naturally to discover his way
to immortality, notwithstanding the jealousy of all the Gods.
The
early Atlanto-Lemurians are charged with taking unto themselves (divine
incarnations) wives of a lower race, namely, the race of the hitherto mindless
men. Every ancient Scripture has the same, more or less disfigured legend.
Primarily, the angelic Fall, which has transformed the "first-born"
of God into the Asuras, or into the Ahriman and Typhon of the
"pagans" (i.e., if the accounts given in the Book of Enoch,* and in
Hermes, in Puranas and Bible are taken literally), when read esoterically means
simply this:--
Sentences
such as: "In his (Satan's) ambition he raises his hand against the
Sanctuary of the God of Heaven" etc., ought to read: "Prompted by the
law of eternal evolution and Karma, the angel incarnated on earth in man; and as
his Wisdom and Knowledge are still divine, although his body is earthly, he is
(allegorically) accused of divulging the mysteries of Heaven." He combines
and uses the two for purposes of human, instead of super-human, procreation.
Henceforth, "man will beget, not create."** But as, by so doing, he
has to use
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Returning once more to the most important subject in the archaic Cosmogony, it
may be said that even in the Norse legends, in the Sacred Scrolls of the
goddess Saga, we find Loki, the brother by blood of Odin (as Typhon, Ahriman,
and others are brothers of Osiris and Ormazd), becoming evil only later, when
he has mixed too long with humanity. Like all other fire or light gods -- fire
burning and destroying as well as warming and giving life -- he ended by being
accepted in the destructive sense of "fire." The name Loki, we learn
("Asgard and the Gods," p. 250), has been derived from the old word
"liechan," to enlighten. It has, therefore, the same origin as the
Latin "lux, light." Hence Loki is identical with Lucifer
(light-bringer). This title, given to the Prince of Darkness, is very
suggestive and is a vindication in itself against theological slander. But Loki
is still more closely related to Prometheus, as he is shown chained to a sharp
rock, while Lucifer, identified with Satan, was chained down in hell; a
circumstance, however, which prevented neither of them from acting in all
freedom on Earth, if we accept the theological paradox in its fulness. Loki is
a beneficent, generous and powerful god in the beginning of times, and the
principle of good, not of evil, in early Scandinavian theogony.
**
The Greek mythos just alluded to a few pages back, namely the mutilation of
Uranos by his son Kronos in the Greek theogony, is an allusion to this theft by
the Son of the Earth and Heavens of the divine creative fire. If Uranos, the
personification of the celestial Powers, has to stop creating (he is made
impotent by Kronos, the god in time) so, in the Egyptian Cosmogony it is Thot,
the god of Wisdom, who regulates this fight between Horus and Set, the latter
being served by the former as Uranos is by Kronos (see "Book of the
Dead" ch. XVII. V. 26). In the Babylonian account it is the god Zu, who
strips "the father of the gods" of umsimi -- the ideal creative organ
not the crown (!) as G. Smith thought (see pp. 115 and 116 Chaldean Account).
For, in the fragment K. 3454 (British Museum) it is said very clearly, that Zu
having stripped the "venerable [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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his
weak body as the means of procreation, that body will pay the penalty for this
wisdom, carried from heaven down to the earth; hence the corruption of physical
purity will become a temporary curse.
The
mediaeval Kabalists knew this well, since one of them did not fear to write:
"The Kabala was first taught by God himself to a select Company of Angels
who formed a theosophic school in Paradise. After the FALL the Angels most
graciously communicated this heavenly doctrine to the disobedient child of
Earth, to furnish the protoplasts with the means of returning to their pristine
nobility and felicity" (Quoted by Christian Ginsburg from the Kabala).
This shows how the event -- of the Sons of God, marrying and imparting the
divine Secrets of Heaven to the daughters of men -- allegorically told by Enoch
and in the sixth chapter of Genesis was interpreted by the Christian Kabalists.
The whole of this period may be regarded as the pre-human period, that of
divine man, or as plastic Protestant theology now has it -- the pre-adamite
period. But even Genesis begins its real history (chap. vi.) by the giants of
"those days" and the "Sons of god" marrying and teaching
their wives -- the daughters of man.
This
period is the one described in the Puranas; and relating as it does to days
lost in archaic ages, hence pre-historic, how can any anthropologist feel certain
whether the mankind of that period was or was not as he knows it now? The whole
personnel of the Brahmanas and Puranas -- the Rishis, Prajapatis, Manus, their
wives and progeny -- belong to that pre-human period. All these are the Seed of
Humanity, so to speak. It is around these "Sons of God," the
"Mind born" astral children of Brahma, that our physical frames have
grown and developed to what they are now. For, the Puranic histories of all
those men are those of our Monads, in their various and numberless incarnations
on this and other spheres, events perceived by the "Siva eye" of the
ancient Seers, (the "third eye" of our Stanzas) and described
allegorically. Later on, they were disfigured for Sectarian purposes;
mutilated, but still left with a considerable ground-work of truth in them. Nor
is the philosophy less profound in such allegories for being so thickly veiled
by the overgrowth of fancy.
But
with the Fourth Race we reach the purely human period. Those who were hitherto
semi-divine Beings, self-imprisoned in bodies which were human only in
appearance, became physiologically changed and took unto themselves wives who
were entirely human and fair to look
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of Heaven" of his desire, he carried away
the umsimi of the gods, and burnt thereby the teroti (the power) of all the
other gods, thus "governing the seed of all the angels" (15). As the
umsimi was on the seat of Bel, it could hardly be the "crown." A
fourth version is in the Bible. Ham is the Chaldean Zu, and both are cursed for
the same allegorically described crime.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 285 THE TIBETAN LILITH.
at,
but in whom lower, more material, though sidereal, beings had incarnated. These
beings in female forms (Lilith is the prototype of these in the Jewish
traditions) are called in the esoteric accounts "Khado" (Dakini, in
Sanskrit). Allegorical legends call the chief of these Liliths, Sangye Khado,
(Buddha Dakini, in Sanskrit); all are credited with the art of "walking in
the air," and the greatest kindness to mortals; but no mind -- only animal
instinct.*
(c)
This is the beginning of a worship which, ages later, was doomed to degenerate
into phallicism and sexual worship. It began by the worship of the human body
-- that "miracle of miracles," as an English author calls it -- and
ended by that of its respective sexes. The worshippers were giants in stature;
but they were giants in knowledge and learning, though it came to them more
easily than it does to the men of our modern times. Their Science was innate in
them. The Lemuro-Atlantean had no need of discovering and fixing in his memory
that which his informing PRINCIPLE knew at the moment of its incarnation. Time
alone, and the ever-growing obtuseness of the matter in which the Principles
had clothed themselves, could, the one, weaken the memory of their pre-natal
knowledge, the other, blunt and even extinguish every spark of the spiritual
and divine in them. Therefore had they, from the first, fallen victims to their
animal natures and bred "monsters" -- i.e., men of distinct varieties
from themselves.
Speaking
of the Giants, Creuzer describes them well in saying that:--
"Those
children of Heaven and Earth were endowed at their birth by the Sovereign
Powers, the authors of their being, with extraordinary faculties both moral and
physical. They commanded the Elements, knew the secrets of heaven and the
earth, of the sea and the whole world, and read futurity in the stars. . . . It
seems, indeed, as though one has to deal, when reading of them, not with men as
we are but with Spirits of the Elements sprung from the bosom of Nature and
having full sway over her. . . . All these beings are marked with a character
of MAGIC and SORCERY. . . . "
And
so they were, those (now) legendary heroes of the pre-historic, still, once
really existing races. Creuzer was wise in his generation, for he did not
charge with deliberate deceit, or dullness and superstition, an endless series
of recognized philosophers, who mention these races and assert that, even in
their own time, they saw their fossils. There were sceptics in days of old --
no fewer and as great as they are now. But even a Lucian, a Democritus and an
Epicurus yielded to the evidence of facts and showed the discriminative
capacity of really
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These are the beings whose legendary existence has served as a ground-work upon
which to build the rabbinical Lilith, and what the believers in the Bible would
term the antediluvian women, and the Kabalists the pre-Adamite races. They are
no fiction -- this is certain, however fantastic the exuberance of later
growth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 286 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
great
intellects, which can distinguish fiction from fact, and truth from exaggeration
and fraud. Ancient writers were no more fools than our modern wise men are;
for, as well remarked by the author of some "Notes on Aristotle's
Psychology in Relation to Modern Thought" (in Mind):--
"The
common division of history into ancient and modern is . . . . misleading. The
Greeks in the 4th century, B.C. were in many respects moderns especially, we
may add, in their scepticism. They were not very likely to accept fables so
easily . . . . ."
Yet
the "Lemurians" and the Atlanteans, "those children of Heaven
and Earth," were indeed marked with a character of SORCERY; for the
Esoteric doctrine charges them precisely with that, which, if believed, would
put an end to the difficulties of science with regard to the origin of man, or
rather, his anatomical similarities to the Anthropoid Ape. It accuses them of
having committed the (to us) abominable crime of breeding with so-called
"animals," and thus producing a truly pithecoid species, now extinct.
Of course, as in the question of spontaneous generation -- in which Esoteric
Science believes, and which it teaches -- the possibility of such a cross-breed
between man and an animal of any kind will be denied. But apart from the
consideration that in those early days, as already remarked, neither the human
Atlantean giants, nor yet the "animals," were the physiologically
perfect men and mammalians that are now known to us, the modern notions upon
this subject -- those of the physiologists included -- are too uncertain and
fluctuating to permit them an absolute denial a priori of such a fact.
A
careful perusal of the Commentaries would make one think that the Being that
the new "incarnate" bred with, was called an "animal," not
because he was no human being, but rather because he was so dissimilar
physically and mentally to the more perfect races, which had developed
physiologically at an earlier period. Remember Stanza VII. and what is said in
its first verse (24th):-- that when the "Sons of Wisdom" came to
incarnate the first time, some of them incarnated fully, others projected into
the forms only a spark, while some of the shadows were left over from being
filled and perfected, till the Fourth Race. Those races, then, which
"remained destitute of knowledge," or those again which were left
"mindless," remained as they were, even after the natural separation
of the sexes. It is these who committed the first cross-breeding, so to speak,
and bred monsters; and it is from the descendants of these that the Atlanteans
chose their wives. Adam and Eve were supposed, with Cain and Abel, to be the
only human family on Earth. Yet we see Cain going to the land of Nod and taking
there a wife. Evidently one race only was supposed perfect enough to be called
human; and, even in our own day, while the Singhalese
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[[Vol.
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regard
the Veddhas of their jungles as speaking animals and no more, some British
people believe firmly, in their arrogance, that every other human family --
especially the dark Indians -- is an inferior race. Moreover there are
naturalists who have sincerely considered the problem whether some savage
tribes -- like the Bushmen for instance -- can be regarded as men at all. The
Commentary says, in describing that species (or race) of animals "fair to
look at" as a biped:-- "Having human shape, but having the lower
extremities, from the waist down, covered with hair." Hence the race of
the satyrs, perhaps.
If
men existed two million years ago, they must have been -- just as the animals
were -- quite different physically and anatomically from what they have become;
and they were nearer then to the type of pure mammalian animal than they are
now. Anyhow, we learn that the animal world breeds strictly inter se, i.e., in
accordance with genus and species -- only since the appearance on this earth of
the Atlantean race. As demonstrated by the author of that able work,
"Modern Science and Modern Thought," this idea of the refusal to
breed with another species, or that sterility is the only result of such
breeding, "appears to be a prima facie deduction rather than an absolute
law" even now. He shows that "different species, do, in fact, often
breed together, as may be seen in the familiar instance of the horse and ass.
It is true that in this case the mule is sterile. . . . but this rule is not
universal, and recently one new hybrid race, that of the leporine, or
hare-rabbit, has been created which is perfectly fertile." The progeny of
wolf and dog is also instanced, as that of several other domestic animals (p.
101); "like foxes and dogs again, and the modern Swiss cattle shown by
Rutimeyer as descended from three distinct species of fossil-oxen, the Bos primigenius,
Bos longifrons and Bos frontosus." Yet some of those species, as the ape
family, which so clearly resembles man in physical structure, contain, we are
told, "numerous branches, which graduate into one another, but the
extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest of the ape
series" -- the gorilla and chimpanzee, for instance (see Addenda).
Thus
Mr. Darwin's remark -- or shall we say the remark of Linnaeus? -- natura non
facit saltum, is not only corroborated by Esoteric Science but would -- were
there any chance of the real doctrine being accepted by any others than its
direct votaries -- reconcile in more than one way, if not entirely, the modern
Evolution theory with facts, as also with the absolute failure of the
Anthropologists to meet with the "missing link" in our Fourth Round
geological formations.
We
will show elsewhere that, however unconsciously to itself, modern Science
pleads our case upon its own admissions, and that de Quatrefages is perfectly
right, when he suggests in his last work, that it is far more likely that the
anthropoid ape should be discovered to be
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
descendant of man, than that these two types should have a common, fantastic
and nowhere-to-be-found ancestor. Thus the wisdom of the compilers of the old
Stanzas is vindicated by at least one eminent man of Science, and the Occultist
prefers to believe as he ever did that --
"Man
was the first and highest (mammalian) animal that appeared in this (Fourth
Round) creation. Then came still huger animals; and last of all the dumb man
who walks on all fours." For, "the Rakshasas (giant-demons) and
Daityas (Titans) of the "White Dwipa" (continent) spoiled his (the
dumb man's) Sires." (Commentary.)
Furthermore,
as we see, there are anthropologists who have traced man back to an epoch which
goes far to break down the apparent barrier that exists between the
chronologies of modern science and the Archaic Doctrine. It is true that
English scientists generally have declined to commit themselves to the sanction
of the hypothesis of even a Tertiary Man. They, each and all, measure the
antiquity of Homo primigenius by their own lights and prejudices. Huxley, indeed,
ventures to speculate on a possible Pliocene or Miocene Man. Prof. Seeman and
Mr. Grant Allen have relegated his advent to the Eocene, but, speaking
generally, English scientists consider that we cannot safely go beyond the
quaternary. Unfortunately, the facts do not accommodate the too cautious
reserve of these latter. The French school of anthropology, basing their views
on the discoveries of l'Abbe Bourgeois, Capellini, and others, has accepted,
almost without exception, the doctrine that the traces of our ancestors are
certainly to be found in the Miocene, while M. de Quatrefages now inclines to
postulate a Secondary-Age Man. Further on we shall compare such estimates with
the figures given in the Brahminical exoteric books which approximate to the esoteric
teaching.
(d)
. . . . Then, "the third eye acted no longer," says the Stanza,
because MAN had sunk too deep into the mire of matter.
What
is the meaning of this strange and weird statement in Verse 42, concerning the
"third eye of the Third Race which had died and acted no longer"?
A
few more occult teachings must now be given with reference to this point as
well as some others. The history of the Third and Fourth Races must be
amplified, in order that it may throw some more light on the development of our
present humanity; and show how the faculties, called into activity by occult
training, restore man to the position he previously occupied in reference to
spiritual perception and consciousness. But the phenomenon of the third Eye has
to be first explained.
-------
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[[Vol.
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THE
RACES WITH THE "THIRD EYE."
The
subject is so unusual, the paths pursued so intricate, so full of dangerous pitfalls
prepared by adverse theories and criticism, that good reasons have to be given
for every step taken. While turning the light of the bull's eye called
esotericism on almost every inch of the occult grounds travelled over, we have
also to use its lens to throw into stronger objectivity the regions explored by
exact science; this, not only in order to contrast the two, but to defend our
position.*
It
may be complained by some that too little is said of the physical, human side
of the extinct races, in this history of their growth and evolution. Much more
might be said assuredly, if simple prudence did not make us hesitate at the
threshold of every new revelation. That, which finds its possibility and
landmarks in the discoveries of modern science, is given; all that of which
exact knowledge knows nothing and upon which it is unable to speculate -- and
therefore denies as facts in nature -- is withheld.
But
even such statements as these -- e.g., that of all the mammalians, man was the
earliest; that it is man who is the indirect ancestor of the Ape; and that he
was a kind of a Cyclops in days of old -- will all be contested, yet,
scientists will never be able to prove -- except to their own satisfaction --
that it was not so. Nor can they admit that the first two races of men were too
ethereal and phantom-like in their constitution, organism, and shape, even to
be called physical men. For, if they do, it will be found that this is one of
the reasons why their relics can never be expected to be exhumed among other
fossils. Nevertheless all this is maintained. Man was the store-house, so to
speak, of all the seeds of life
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For suggestiveness, we would recommend a short article in the Theosophist of
August, 1887, "Esoteric Studies." Its author expounds therein quite
an occult theory, though to the world a new idea: "the progress of the
Monad concurring with the retrogression of Form" (666), i.e., "with
decrease of the vis formativa." He says, "Who knows what shape
vehicled the Ego in remote rings (Rounds, or races?) . . . ? May not man's type
have been that of the Simiadae in its variety? Might not the monkey-kingdom of
Ramayana fame rest on some far-off tradition relating to a period when that was
the common lot, or rather aspect, of man?" . . . and winds up a very
clever, though too short, exposition of his theory by saying that which every
true occultist will endorse: "With physico-ethereal man there must be
involution of sex. As physico-astral man depended on entities of the sub-human
class (evolved from animal prototypes) for rebirth, so will physico-ethereal
man find among the graceful, shapely orders issuing from the air-plane, one or
more which will be developed for his successive embodiments when procreated
forms are given -- a process which will include all mankind only very
gradually. The (pre?) Adamic and post-Adamic races were giants; their ethereal
counterparts may possibly be liliputians -- beauteous, luminous, diaphanous --
but will assuredly be giants in mind" (p. 671, art. by Visconde de
Figaniere, F.T.S.).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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for
this Round, vegetable and animal alike.* As En-Soph is "One,
notwithstanding the innumerable forms which are in him" (Zohar," i.
2la), so is man, on Earth the microcosm of the macrocosm. "As soon as man
appeared, everything was complete. . . . for everything is comprised in man. He
unites in himself all forms (Ibid., iii. 48a)." "The mystery of the
earthly man is after the mystery of the Heavenly Man" (ii. 76a). The human
form -- so called, because it is the vehicle (under whatever shape) of the
divine man -- is, as so intuitionally remarked by the author of "Esoteric
Studies,"** the new type, at the beginning of every Round, "as man
never can be, so he never has been, manifested in a shape belonging to the
animal kingdom in esse." The author proceeds, "he never formed part
of that kingdom. Derived, only derived, from the most finished class of the
latter, a new human form must always have been the new type of the cycle. The
human shape, in one ring (?), as I imagine, becomes cast-off clothes in the
next; it is then appropriated by the highest order in the servant-kingdom
below."
If
the idea is what we understand it to mean -- for the "rings" spoken
of throw some confusion upon it -- then it is the correct esoteric teaching.
Having appeared at the very beginning, and at the head of sentient and
conscious life, man (the astral, or the "Soul," for the Zohar,
repeating the archaic teaching, distinctly says that "the real man is the
Soul, and his material frame no part of him") -- man became the living and
animal UNIT, from which the "cast-off clothes" determined the shape
of every life and animal in this Round.***
Thus,
he "created" for ages the insects, reptiles, birds, and animals,
unconsciously to himself, from his remains and relics from the Third and the
Fourth Rounds. The same idea and teaching are as distinctly given in the
Vendidad of the Mazdeans, as they are in the Chaldean and the Mosaic allegory
of the Ark, all of which are the many national versions of the original legend
given in the Hindu Scriptures. It is found in the allegory of Vaivasvata Manu
and his Ark with the Seven Rishis, as in that of the Rishis, each of whom is
shown the father and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It may be objected that this is a contradiction. That, as the first Root-Race
appeared 300,000,000 years after the vegetation had evolved, the seed of
vegetable life could not be in the First Race. We say it could; for up to man's
appearance in this Round, the vegetation was of quite another kind than it is
now, and quite ethereal, this for the simple reason that no grass or plants
could have been physical, before there were animal or other organisms to
breathe out the carbonic acid which vegetation has to imbibe for its
development, its nutrition and growth. They are inter-dependent in their physical
and achieved forms.
**
"Visconde de Figaniere, F.T.S." (The Theosophist, Aug. 1887, page
676.)
***
It is stated in the Zohar that the "primordial worlds" (sparks) could
not continue because man was not as yet. "The human form contains
everything; and as it did not as yet exist, the worlds were destroyed."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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progenitor
of specified animals, reptiles, and even monsters (See Vishnu and other Puranas).
Open the Mazdean Vendidad, at Fargard ii., at verse 27 (73) and read the
command of Ormazd to Yima, a Spirit of the Earth, who symbolizes the three
races, after telling him to build a vara ("an enclosure," an argua or
vehicle) . . . .
"Thither
(into the vara) thou shalt bring the seeds of men and women, of the greatest,
best, and finest kinds on this earth; thither thou shalt bring the seeds of
every kind of cattle," etc., etc.; and v. 28 (74) . . . ."all those
seeds shalt thou bring, two of every kind, to be kept inexhaustible there, so
long as those men shall stay in the vara." Those "men" in the
"Vara" are the "Progenitors," the heavenly men or Dhyani,
the future Egos who are commissioned to inform mankind. For "Vara,"
or the "Ark" (or again the Vehicle) simply means MAN.* Verse 30 says:
. . . . "thou shalt seal up the vara (after filling it up with the seeds),
and thou shalt make a door and a window self-shining within," which is the
Soul. And when Yima inquires of Ahura Mazda how he shall manage to make that
vara, he is answered: "Crush the earth . . . and knead it with thy hands,
as the potter does when kneading the potter's clay" (31).
The
Egyptian ram-headed god makes man of clay on a potter's wheel, and so in
Genesis do the Elohim fashion him out of the same material.
When
the "Maker of the material world" (Ahura Mazda) is asked,
furthermore, what is to give light "to the Vara which Yima made," he
is told that "There are uncreated lights and created lights" and that
"there" (in Airyana Vaego, where Vara is built), "the stars, the
moon, and the Sun are only once (a year) seen to rise and set" and a year
seems only as a day (and night) a clear reference to the "land of the
Gods" or the (now) polar regions. Moreover another hint is contained in
this verse: a distinct allusion to the "uncreated lights" which
enlighten man within -- his principles. Otherwise, no sense or reason could be
found in Ahura Mazda's answer (V. 40), which is forthwith followed by Verse 41
saying that "Every fortieth year, to every couple (hermaphrodite) two are
born, a male and female,"** the latter being a distinct echo of the Secret
Doctrine, of a Stanza which says --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is the meaning when the allegory and symbol are opened and read by means
of the human key, or the key to terrestrial anthroposophy. This interpretation
of the "ark" symbolism does not in the least interfere with its
astronomical, or even theogonic keys; nor with any of the other six meanings.
Nor does it seem less scientific than the modern theories about the origin of
man. As said, it has seven keys to it, like the rest.
**
Vendidad Sadah, See also Bund. XV.; and J. Darmesteter's translation of the
Vendidad. "Sacred Books of the East."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"At
the expiration of every forty (annual) Suns, at the end of every fortieth Day,
the double one becomes four; male and female in one, in the first and second
and the third. . . . . ."
Which
is clear, since "every sun" meant a whole year, the latter being
composed of one day then, as in the arctic circle it is now composed of six
months. According to the old teaching, the axis of the earth gradually changes
its inclination to the ecliptic, and at the period referred to, this
inclination was such that a polar day lasted during the whole period of the
earth's revolution about the sun, when a kind of twilight of very short
duration intervened; after which the polar land resumed its position directly
under the solar rays. This may be contrary to astronomy as now taught and
understood: but who can say that changes in the motion of the earth, which do
not take place now, did not occur millions of years back?
Returning
once more to the statement that Vara meant the MAN of the Fourth Round, as much
as the Earth of those days, the moon, and even Noah's ark, if one will so have
it -- this is again shown in the dialogue between Ahura Mazda and Zarathustra.
Thus when the latter asks --
V.
42. "O Maker of the Material World, thou Holy One! Who is he who brought
the law of Mazda into the Vara which Yima made?"
"Ahura
Mazda answered: 'It was the bird Karshipta, O holy Zarathustra.' . . . ."
"The
bird Karshipta dwells in the heavens: were he living on the earth he would be
king of birds. He brought into the var of Yima, and recites the Avesta in the
language of birds." (Bund. xix and xxiv.)
This
again is an allegory and a symbol misunderstood by the Orientalists only, who
see in this bird "an incarnation of lightning," and say its song was
"often thought to be the utterance of a god and a revelation," and
what not. Karshipta is the human mind-soul, and the deity thereof, symbolized
in ancient Magianism by a bird, as the Greeks symbolized it by a butterfly. No
sooner had Karshipta entered the Vara or man, than he understood the law of
Mazda, or Divine Wisdom. In the "Book of Concealed Mystery" it is
said of the tree, which is the tree of knowledge of good and evil: "In its
branches (of the tree) the birds lodge and build their nests," or the
Souls and the Angels have their place!.* Therefore, with the Kabalists it was a
like symbol. "Bird" was a Chaldean, and has become a Hebrew synonym
and symbol for Angel, a Soul, a Spirit, or Deva; and the "Bird's
Nest" was with both Heaven, and is God's bosom in the Zohar. The perfect
Messiah enters Eden "into that place which is called the Bird's Nest"
(Zohar, ii., 8b).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Kabbalah Unveiled" by S. McGregor Mathers, p. 104.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"Like
a bird that is flying from its nest, and that is the Soul from which the
Shekeenah (divine wisdom or grace) does not move away" (Zohar, iii., 278a;
Myer's Qabbalah, 217). "The Nest of the eternal Bird, the flutter of whose
wings produces life, is boundless space," says the Commentary, meaning
Hansa, the bird of Wisdom.
It
is Adam Kadmon who is the (Sephirothal) tree, and it is he who becomes the
"Tree of knowledge of good and evil" esoterically. And that
"tree hath around it seven columns (seven pillars) of the world, or
Rectores"; the same "Progenitors" or "Sephiroth" again
"operating through the respective orders of Angels in the spheres of the
seven planets," etc., one of which orders begets giants (Nephilim) on Earth.
It
was the belief of entire antiquity, Pagan and Christian, that the earliest
mankind was a race of giants. Certain excavations in America in mounds and in
caves, have already yielded in isolated cases groups of skeletons of nine and
twelve feet high.* These belong to tribes of the early Fifth Race, now
degenerated to an average size of between five and six feet. But we can easily
believe that the Titans and Cyclopes of old really belonged to the Fourth
(Atlantean) Race, and that all the subsequent legends and allegories found in
the Hindu Puranas and the Greek Hesiod and Homer, were based on the hazy
reminiscences of real Titans -- men of a superhuman tremendous physical power,
which enabled them to defend themselves, and hold at bay the gigantic monsters
of the Mesozoic and early Cenozoic times -- and of actual Cyclopes --
three-eyed mortals.
It
has been often remarked by observant writers, that the "origin of nearly
every popular myth and legend could be traced invariably to a fact in
Nature."
In
these fantastic creations of an exuberant subjectivism, there is always an
element of the objective and real. The imagination of the masses, disorderly
and ill-regulated as it may be, could never have conceived and fabricated ex
nihilo so many monstrous figures, such a wealth of extraordinary tales, had it
not had, to serve it as a central nucleus, those floating reminiscences,
obscure and vague, which unite the broken links of the chain of time to form
with them the mysterious, dream foundation of our collective consciousness.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Darwinian Evolutionists who are so wont to refer to the evidence of reversion
to type -- the full meaning of which, in the case of human monsters, is
embraced in the esoteric solution of the embryological problem -- as proof of
their arguments, would do well to inquire into those instances of modern giants
who are often 8, 9, and even 11 feet high. Such reversions are imperfect, yet
undeniable reproductions of the original towering man of primeval times.
**
See "Mythical Monsters," by Ch. Gould, from whose interesting and
scientific volume a few passages are quoted further on. See in Mr. Sinnett's
"Occult World," the description of a cavern in the Himalayas filled
with relics of human and animal giant bones.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
evidence for the Cyclopes -- a race of giants -- will be pointed out in forthcoming
Sections, in the Cyclopean remnants, so called to this day. An indication that,
during its evolution and before the final adjustment of the human organism --
which became perfect and symmetrical only in the Fifth Race -- the early Fourth
Race may have been three-eyed, without having necessarily a third eye in the
middle of the brow, like the legendary Cyclops, is also furnished by Science.
To
the Occultists who believe that spiritual and psychic involution proceeds on
parallel lines with physical evolution; that the inner senses -- innate in the
first human races -- atrophied during racial growth and the material
development of the outer senses; to the student of Esoteric symbology, finally,
this statement is no conjecture or possibility, but simply a phase of the law
of growth, a proven fact, in short. They understand the meaning of this passage
in the Commentaries which says:--
"There
were four-armed human creatures in those early days of the male-females
(hermaphrodites); with one head, yet three eyes. They could see before them and
behind them.* A KALPA later (after the separation of the sexes) men having
fallen into matter, their spiritual vision became dim; and coordinately the
third eye commenced to lose its power. . . . When the Fourth (Race) arrived at
its middle age, the inner vision had to be awakened, and acquired by artificial
stimuli, the process of which was known to the old sages.** . . . The third
eye, likewise, getting gradually PETRIFIED,*** soon disappeared. The
double-faced became the one-faced, and the eye was drawn deep into the head and
is now buried under the hair. During the activity of the inner man (during
trances and spiritual visions) the eye swells and expands. The Arhat sees and
feels it, and regulates his action accordingly. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Viz., the third eye was at the back of the head. The statement that the latest
hermaphrodite humanity was "four-armed," unriddles probably the
mystery of all the representations and idols of the exoteric gods of India. On
the Acropolis of Argos, there was a [[Zoanon]], a rudely carved wooden statue
(attributed to Daedalus), representing a three-eyed colossus, which was
consecrated to Zeus Triopas (three-eyed). The head of the "god" has
two eyes in its face and one above on the top of the forehead. It is considered
the most archaic of all the ancient statues (Schol. Vatic. ad Eurip. Troad.
14).
**
The Inner sight could henceforth be acquired only through training and
initiation, save in the cases of "natural and born magicians,"
sensitives and mediums, as they are called now.
***
This expression "petrified" instead of "ossified" is
curious. The "back eye," which is of course the pineal gland, now
so-called, the small pea-like mass of grey nervous matter attached to the back
of the third ventricle of the brain, is said to almost invariably contain
mineral concretions and sand, and "nothing more." (Vide Infra.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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The
undefiled Lanoo (disciple, chela) need fear no danger; he who keeps himself not
in purity (who is not chaste) will receive no help from the 'deva eye.' "
Unfortunately
not. The "deva-eye" exists no more for the majority of mankind. The
third eye is dead, and acts no longer; but it has left behind a witness to its
existence. This witness is now the PINEAL GLAND. As for the
"four-armed" men, it is they who become the prototypes of the four-armed
Hindu gods, as shown in a preceding footnote.
Such
is the mystery of the human eye that, in their vain endeavours to explain and
account for all the difficulties surrounding its action, some scientists have
been forced to resort to occult explanations. The development of the Human eye
gives more support to the occult anthropology than to that of the materialistic
physiologists. "The eyes in the human embryo grow from within
without" out of the brain, instead of being part of the skin, as in the insects
and cuttlefish. Professor Lankester, thinking the brain a queer place for the
eye, and attempting to explain the phenomenon on Darwinian lines, suggests the
curious view that "our" earliest vertebrate ancestor was a
transparent creature and hence did not mind where the eye was! And so was man
"a transparent creature" once upon a time, we are taught, hence our
theory holds good. But how does the Lankester hypothesis square with the
Haeckelian view that the vertebrate eye originated by changes in the epidermis?
If it started inside, the theory goes into the waste-basket. This seems to be
proved by embryology. Moreover, Professor Lankester's extraordinary suggestion
-- or shall we say admission? -- is rendered perhaps necessary by evolutionist
necessities. Occultism with its teaching as to the gradual development of
senses "FROM WITHIN WITHOUT," from astral prototypes, is far more
satisfactory: The third eye retreated inwards when its course was run --
another point in favour of Occultism.
The
allegorical expression of the Hindu mystics when speaking of the "eye of
Siva," the Tri-bochana ("three-eyed"), thus receives its
justification and raison d'etre -- the transference of the pineal gland (once
that "third eye") to the forehead, being an exoteric licence. This
throws also a light on the mystery -- incomprehensible to some -- of the
connection between abnormal, or Spiritual Seership, and the physiological
purity of the Seer. The question is often asked, "Why should celibacy and
chastity be a sine qua non rule and condition of regular chelaship, or the
development of psychic and occult powers" The answer is contained in the
Commentary. When we learn that the "third eye" was once a
physiological organ, and that later on, owing to the gradual
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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disappearance
of spirituality and increase of materiality (Spiritual nature being
extinguished by the physical), it became an atrophied organ, as little understood
now by physiologists as the spleen is -- when we learn this, the connection
will become clear. During human life the greatest impediment in the way of
spiritual development, and especially to the acquirement of Yoga powers, is the
activity of our physiological senses. Sexual action being closely connected, by
interaction, with the spinal cord and the grey matter of the brain, it is
useless to give any longer explanation. Of course, the normal and abnormal
state of the brain, and the degree of active work in the medulla oblongata,
reacts powerfully on the pineal gland, for, owing to the number of
"centres" in that region, which controls by far the greater majority
of the physiological actions of the animal economy, and also owing to the close
and intimate neighbourhood of the two, there must be exerted a very powerful
"inductive" action by the medulla on the pineal gland.
All
this is quite plain to the Occultist, but is very vague in the sight of the general
reader. The latter must then be shown the possibility of a three-eyed man in
nature, in those periods when his formation was yet in a comparatively chaotic
state. Such a possibility may be inferred from anatomical and zoological
knowledge, first of all; then it may rest on the assumptions of materialistic
science itself.
It
is asserted upon the authority of Science, and upon evidence, which is not
merely a fiction of theoretical speculation this time, that many of the animals
-- especially among the lower orders of the vertebrata -- have a third eye, now
atrophied, but necessarily active in its origin.* The Hatteria species, a
lizard of the order Lacertilia, recently discovered in New Zealand (a part of
ancient Lemuria so called, mark well), presents this peculiarity in a most
extraordinary manner; and not only the Hatteria punctata, but the chameleon,
certain reptiles, and even fishes. It was thought, at first, that it was no
more than the prolongation of the brain ending with a small protuberance, called
epiphysis, a little bone separated from the main bone by a cartilage, and found
in every animal. But it was soon found to be more than this. It offered -- as
its development and anatomical structure showed -- such an analogy with that of
the eye, that it was found impossible to see in it any-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Deeply placed within the head, covered by thick skin and muscles, true
eyes that cannot see are found in certain animals," also, says Haeckel:
"Vertebrate . . . blind moles and field mice, blind snakes and lizards. .
. . They shun daylight . . . dwelling under the ground. They were not
originally blind but have evolved from ancestors that lived in the light and
had well-developed eyes. The atrophied eye beneath the opaque skin may be found
in these blind beings in every stage of reversion." ("Sense
Organs," Haeckel.) And if two eyes could become so atrophied in lower
animals, why not one eye -- the pineal gland -- in man, who is but a higher animal
in his physical aspect?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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thing
else. There were and are paleontologists who feel convinced to this day that
this "third eye" has functioned in its origin, and they are certainly
right. For this is what is said of the pineal gland in Quain's Anatomy (Vol.
II. ninth edit., pp. 830-851. "Thalamencephalon" Interbrain):--
"It
is from this part, constituting at first the whole and subsequently the hinder
part of the anterior primary encephalic vesicle, that the optic vesicles are
developed in the earliest period, and the fore part is that in connection with
which the cerebral hemispheres and accompanying parts are formed. The thalamus
opticus of each side is formed by a lateral thickening of the medullary wall,
while the interval between, descending towards the base, constitutes the cavity
of the third ventricle with its prolongation in the infundibulum. The grey
commissure afterwards stretches across the ventricular cavity. . . . . The
hinder part of the roof is developed by a peculiar process, to be noticed
later, into the pineal gland, which remains united on each side by its pedicles
to the thalamus, and behind these a transverse band is formed as posterior
commissure.
"The
lamina terminalis (lamina cinerea) continues to close the third ventricle in
front, below it the optic commissure forms the floor of the ventricle, and
further back the infundibulum descends to be united in the sella turcica with
the tissue adjoining the posterior lobe of the pituitary body.
"The
two optic thalami formed from the posterior and outer part of the anterior
vesicle, consist at first of a single hollow sac of nervous matter, the cavity
of which communicates on each side in front with that of the commencing
cerebral hemispheres, and behind with that of the middle cephalic vesicle
(corpora quadrigemina). Soon, however, by increased deposit taking place in
their interior, behind, below, and at the sides, the thalami become solid, and
at the same time a cleft or fissure appears between them above, and penetrates
down to the internal cavity, which continues open at the back part opposite the
entrance of the Sylvian aqueduct. This cleft or fissure is the third ventricle.
Behind, the two thalami continue united by the posterior commissure, which is
distinguishable about the end of the third month, and also by the peduncles of
the pineal gland. . . . .
"At
an early period the optic tracts may be recognised as hollow prolongations from
the outer part of the wall of the thalami while they are still vesicular. At
the fourth month these tracts are distinctly formed. They subsequently are
prolonged backwards into connection with the corpora quadrigemina.
"The
formation of the pineal gland and pituitary body presents some of the most
interesting phenomena which are connected with the development of the
Thalamencephalon."
The
above is specially interesting when it is remembered that, were it not for the
development of the hinder part of the cerebral hemispheres backwards, the
pineal gland would be perfectly visible on the removal of the parietal bones.
It is very interesting also to note the obvious connection to be traced between
the (originally) hollow optic tracts and the eyes anteriorly, the pineal gland
and its peduncles behind, and all
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
these with the optic thalami. So that the recent discoveries in connection with
the third eye of Hatteria punctata have a very important bearing on the
developmental history of the human senses, and on the occult assertions in the
text.
It
is well known, (and also regarded as a fiction now, by those who have ceased to
believe in the existence of an immortal principle in man,) that Descartes saw
in the pineal gland the Seat of the Soul. Although it is joined to every part
of the body, he said, there is one special portion of it in which the Soul
exercises its functions more specially than in any other. And, as neither the
heart, nor yet the brain could be that "special" locality, he
concluded that it was that little gland tied to the brain, yet having an action
independent of it, as it could easily be put into a kind of swinging motion
"by the animal Spirits* which cross the cavities of the skull in every
sense."
Unscientific
as this may appear in our day of exact learning, Descartes was yet far nearer
the occult truth than is any Haeckel. For the pineal gland, as shown, is far
more connected with Soul and Spirit than with the physiological senses of man.
Had the leading Scientists a glimmer of the real processes employed by the
Evolutionary Impulse, and the winding cyclic course of this great law, they
would know instead of conjecturing; and feel as certain of the future physical
transformations of the human kind by the knowledge of its past forms. Then,
would they see the fallacy and all the absurdity of their modern
"blind-force" and mechanical processes of nature; realizing, in
consequence of such knowledge, that the said pineal gland, for instance, could
not but be disabled for physical use at this stage of our cycle. If the odd
"eye" in man is now atrophied, it is a proof that, as in the lower
animal, it has once been active; for nature never creates the smallest, the
most insignificant form without some definite purpose and use. It was an active
organ, we say, at that stage of evolution when the spiritual element in man
reigned supreme over the hardly nascent intellectual and psychic elements. And,
as the cycle ran down toward that point when the physiological senses were
developed by, and went pari passu with, the growth and consolidation of the
physical man, the interminable and complex vicissitudes and tribulations of
zoological development, that median "eye" ended by atrophying along
with the early spiritual and purely psychic characteristics in man. The eye is
the mirror and also the window of the soul, says popular wisdom,** and Vox
populi Vox Dei.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Nervous Ether" of Dr. B. W. Richardson, F.R.S. -- the nerve-aura
of occultism. The "animal spirits" (?) are equivalent to the currents
of nerve-auric compound circulation.
**
Let us remember that the First Race is shown in Occult sciences as spiritual
within [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 299 THE EVOLUTION OF THE EYE.
In
the beginning, every class and family of living species was hermaphrodite and
objectively one-eyed. In the animal, whose form was as ethereal (astrally) as
that of man, before the bodies of both began to evolve their coats of skin,
viz., to evolve from within without the thick coating of physical substance or
matter with its internal physiological mechanism -- the third eye was
primarily, as in man, the only seeing organ. The two physical front eyes
developed* later on in both brute and man, whose organ of physical sight was,
at the commencement of the Third Race, in the same position as that of some of
the blind vertebrata, in our day, i.e., beneath an opaque skin.** Only the
stages of the odd, or primeval eye, in man and brute, are now inverted, as the
former has already passed that animal non-rational stage in the Third Round,
and is ahead of mere brute creation by a whole plane of consciousness.
Therefore, while the "Cyclopean" eye was, and still is, in man the
organ of spiritual sight, in the animal it was that of objective vision. And
this eye, having performed its function, was replaced, in the course of
physical evolution from the simple to the complex, by two eyes, and thus was
stored and laid aside by nature for further use in AEons to come.
This
explains why the pineal gland reached its highest development proportionately
with the lowest physical development. It is the vertebrata in which it is the
most prominent and objective, and in man it is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] and ethereal without; the second,
psycho-spiritual mentally, and ethero-physical bodily; the third, still bereft
of intellect in its beginning, is astro-physical in its body, and lives an
inner life, in which the psycho-spiritual element is in no way interfered with
as yet by the hardly nascent physiological senses. Its two front eyes look
before them without seeing either past or future. But the "third eye"
"embraces ETERNITY."
*
But in a very different manner to that pictured by Haeckel as an
"evolution by natural selection in the struggle for existence"
("Pedigree of Man." "Sense Organs," p. 335). The mere
"thermal sensibility of the skin," to hypothetical light-waves, is
absurdly incompetent to account for the beautiful combination of adaptations
present in the eye. It has, moreover, been previously shown that "natural
Selection" is a pure myth when credited with the origination of variations
(vide infra, Part III., on Darwinian mechanical causation); as the
"survival of the fittest" can only take place after useful variations
have sprung up, together with improved organisms. Whence came the "useful
variations," which developed the eye? Only from "blind forces . . .
without aim, without design?" The argument is puerile. The true solution
of the mystery is to be found in the impersonal Divine Wisdom, in its IDEATION
-- reflected through matter.
**
Palaeontology has ascertained that in the animals of the Cenozoic age -- the
Saurians especially, such as the antediluvian Labyrinthodon, whose fossil skull
exhibits a perforation otherwise inexplicable -- the third, or odd eye must
have been much developed. Several naturalists, among others E. Korscheldt, feel
convinced that whereas, notwithstanding the opaque skin covering it, such an
eye in the reptiles of the present period can only distinguish light from
darkness (as the human eyes do when bound with a handkerchief, or even tightly
closed), in the now extinct animals that eye functioned and was a real organ of
vision.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 300 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
most
carefully hidden and inaccessible, except to the anatomist. No less light is thrown
thereby on the future physical, spiritual, and intellectual state of mankind,
in periods corresponding on parallel lines with other past periods, and always
on the lines of ascending and descending cyclic evolution and development.
Thus, a few centuries before the Kali yuga -- the black age which began nearly
5,000 years ago -- it was said (paraphrased into comprehensible sentences):
"We
(the Fifth Root-Race) in our first half (of duration) onward (on the now
ASCENDING arc of the cycle) are on the mid point of (or between) the First and
the Second Races -- falling downward (i.e., the races were then on the
descending arc of the cycle). . . . . Calculate for thyself, Lanoo, and
see." (Commentary xx.).
Calculating
as advised, we find that during that transitional period -- namely, in the
second half of the First Spiritual ethero-astral race -- nascent mankind was
devoid of the intellectual brain element. As it was on its descending line, and
as we are parallel to it, on the ascending, we are,
EVOLUTION
OF ROOT RACES IN THE FOURTH ROUND
[[diagram]]
DOWNWARD
CYCLE.
Evolution
of physical and intellectual nature and the gradual regression of Spirituality.
1st
R. Race
II
R. R.
III
R. R.
MERIDIAN
OF RACES.
3
1/2
ASCENDING
CYCLE.
Re-evolution
or reversion of Spirituality and the gradual decrease of materiality and mere
brain intellectuality.
IV
R. R.
4
1/2
V
R. R.
5
1/2
VI
R. R.
6
1/2
VII
ROOT RACE
therefore
devoid of the Spiritual element, which is now replaced by the intellectual. For,
remember well, as we are in the manasa period of our cycle of races, or in the
Fifth, we have, therefore, crossed the meridian point of the perfect adjustment
of Spirit and Matter -- or that equilibrium between brain intellect and
Spiritual perception. One important point has, however, to be borne in mind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 301 THE ODD EYE IS NOW A GLAND.
We
are only in the Fourth Round, and it is in the Fifth that the full development
of Manas, as a direct ray from the Universal MAHAT -- a ray unimpeded by matter
-- will be finally reached. Nevertheless, as every sub-race and nation have
their cycles and stages of developmental evolution repeated on a smaller scale,
it must be the more so in the case of a Root-Race. Our race then has, as a
Root-race, crossed the equatorial line and is cycling onward on the Spiritual
side; but some of our sub-races still find themselves on the shadowy descending
arc of their respective national cycles; while others again -- the oldest --
having crossed their crucial point, which alone decides whether a race, a
nation, or a tribe will live or perish, are at the apex of spiritual
development as sub-races.
It
becomes comprehensible now why the "odd eye" has been gradually
transformed into a simple gland, after the physical Fall of those we have
agreed to call the "Lemurians."
It
is a curious fact that it is especially in human beings that the cerebral
hemispheres and the lateral ventricles have been developed, and that the optic
thalami, corpora quadrigemina, and corpora striata are the principal parts
which are developed in the mammalian brain. Moreover it is asserted that the
intellect of any man may to some extent be gauged by the development of the
central convolutions and the fore part of the cerebral hemispheres. It would
seem a natural corollary that if the development and increased size of the
pineal gland may be considered to be an index of the astral capacities and
spiritual proclivities of any man, there will be a corresponding development of
that part of the cranium, or an increase in the size of the pineal gland at the
expense of the hinder part of the cerebral hemispheres. It is a curious
speculation which would receive a confirmation in this case. We should see,
below and behind, the cerebellum which has been held to be the seat of all the
animal proclivities of a human being, and which is allowed by science to be the
great centre for all the physiologically co-ordinated movements of the body,
such as walking, eating, etc., etc.; in front, the fore-part of the brain --
the cerebral hemispheres -- the part especially connected with the development
of the intellectual powers in man; and in the middle, dominating them both, and
especially the animal functions, the developed pineal gland, in connection with
the more highly evolved, or spiritual man.
It
must be remembered that these are only physical correspondences; just as the
ordinary human brain is the registering organ of memory, but not memory itself.
This
is, then, the organ which gave rise to so many legends and traditions, among
others to that of man with one head but two faces. These may be found in
several Chinese works, besides being referred to in the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 302 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Chaldean
fragments. Apart from the work already cited -- the Shan Hai King, compiled by
King Chia from engravings on nine urns made 2,255 B.C., by the Emperor Yu, they
may be found in another work, called the "Bamboo Books," and in a
third one, the "Rh Ya" -- "initiated according to tradition by
Chow Kung, uncle of Wu Wang, the first Emperor of the Chow Dynasty, B.C.,
1,122":-- says Mr. Ch. Gould in his "Mythical Monsters." The
Bamboo Books contain the ancient annals of China, found A.D. 279 at the opening
of the grave of King Seang of Wai, who died B.C. 295. Both these works mention
men with two faces on one head -- one in front and one behind (p. 27).
Now
that which the students of Occultism ought to know is that THE "THIRD
EYE" IS INDISSOLUBLY CONNECTED WITH KARMA. The tenet is so mysterious that
very few have heard of it.
The
"eye of Siva" did not become entirely atrophied before the close of
the Fourth Race. When spirituality and all the divine powers and attributes of
the deva-man of the Third had been made the hand-maidens of the newly-awakened
physiological and psychic passions of the physical man, instead of the reverse,
the eye lost its powers. But such was the law of Evolution, and it was, in
strict accuracy, no FALL. The sin was not in using those newly-developed
powers, but in misusing them; in making of the tabernacle, designed to contain
a god, the fane of every spiritual iniquity. And if we say "sin" it
is merely that everyone should understand our meaning; as the term Karma* would
be the right one to use in this case; while the reader who would feel perplexed
at the use of the term "spiritual" instead of "physical"
iniquity, is reminded of the fact that there can be no physical iniquity. The
body is simply the irresponsible organ, the tool of the psychic, if not of the
"Spiritual man." While in the case of the Atlanteans, it was
precisely the Spiritual being which sinned, the Spirit element being still the
"Master" principle in man, in those days. Thus it is in those days
that the heaviest Karma of the Fifth Race was generated by our Monads.
As
this sentence may again be found puzzling, it is better that it should be
explained for the benefit of those who are ignorant of the theosophical
teachings.
Questions
with regard to Karma and re-births are constantly offered, and a great
confusion seems to exist upon this subject. Those who are born and bred in the
Christian faith, and have been trained in the idea
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Karma is a word of many meanings, and has a special term for almost every one
of its aspects. It means, as a synonym of sin, the performance of some action
for the attainment of an object of worldly, hence selfish, desire, which cannot
fail to be hurtful to somebody else. Karman is action, the Cause; and Karma
again is "the law of ethical causation"; the effect of an act
produced egotistically, when the great law of harmony depends on altruism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 303 THE NUMBER OF MONADS IS LIMITED.
that
a new soul is created by God for every newly-born infant, are among the most
perplexed. They ask whether in such case the number of incarnating Monads on
earth is limited; to which they are answered in the affirmative. For, however
countless, in our conceptions, the number of the incarnating monads -- even if
we take into account the fact that ever since the Second Race, when their
respective seven groups were furnished with bodies, several births and deaths
may be allowed for every second of time in the aeons already passed -- still,
there must be a limit. It was stated that Karma-Nemesis, whose bond-maid is
Nature, adjusted everything in the most harmonious manner; and that, therefore,
the fresh pouring-in, or arrival of new Monads, had ceased as soon as Humanity
had reached its full physical development. No fresh Monads have incarnated
since the middle-point of the Atlanteans. Hence, remembering that, save in the
case of young children, and of individuals whose lives were violently cut off
by some accident, no Spiritual Entity can re-incarnate before a period of many
centuries has elapsed, such gaps alone must show that the number of Monads is
necessarily finite and limited. Moreover, a reasonable time must be given to
other animals for their evolutionary progress.
Hence
the assertion that many of us are now working off the effects of the evil
Karmic causes produced by us in Atlantean bodies. The Law of KARMA is
inextricably interwoven with that of Re-incarnation.
It
is only the knowledge of the constant re-births of one and the same
individuality throughout the life-cycle; the assurance that the same MONADS --
among whom are many Dhyan-Chohans, or the "Gods" themselves -- have
to pass through the "Circle of Necessity," rewarded or punished by
such rebirth for the suffering endured or crimes committed in the former life;
that those very Monads, which entered the empty, senseless shells, or astral
figures of the First Race emanated by the Pitris, are the same who are now
amongst us -- nay, ourselves, perchance; it is only this doctrine, we say, that
can explain to us the mysterious problem of Good and Evil, and reconcile man to
the terrible and apparent injustice of life. Nothing but such certainty can
quiet our revolted sense of justice. For, when one unacquainted with the noble
doctrine looks around him, and observes the inequalities of birth and fortune,
of intellect and capacities; when one sees honour paid fools and profligates,
on whom fortune has heaped her favours by mere privilege of birth, and their
nearest neighbour, with all his intellect and noble virtues ---far more
deserving in every way --perishing of want and for lack of sympathy; when one
sees all this and has to turn away, helpless to relieve the undeserved
suffering, one's ears ringing and heart aching with the cries of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 304 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
pain
around him -- that blessed knowledge of Karma alone prevents him from cursing
life and men, as well as their supposed Creator.*
Of
all the terrible blasphemies and accusations virtually thrown on their God by
the Monotheists, none is greater or more unpardonable than that (almost always)
false humility which makes the presumably "pious" Christian assert,
in connection with every evil and undeserved blow, that "such is the will
of God."
Dolts
and hypocrites! Blasphemers and impious Pharisees, who speak in the same breath
of the endless merciful love and care of their God and creator for helpless
man, and of that God scourging the good, the very best of his creatures,
bleeding them to death like an insatiable Moloch! Shall we be answered to this,
in Congreve's words:--
"But
who shall dare to tax Eternal Justice?" Logic and simple common sense, we
answer: if we are made to believe in the "original Sin," in one life,
on this Earth only, for every Soul, and in an anthropomorphic Deity, who seems
to have created some men only for the pleasure of condemning them to eternal
hell-fire (and this whether they are good or bad, says the Predestinarian),**
why should not every man endowed with reasoning powers condemn in his turn such
a villainous Deity? Life would become unbearable, if one had to believe in the
God created by man's unclean fancy. Luckily he exists only in human dogmas, and
in the unhealthy imagination of some poets, who believe they have solved the
problem by addressing him as --
"Thou
great Mysterious Power, who hast involved
The
pride of human wisdom, to confound
The
daring scrutiny and prove the faith
Of
thy presuming creatures! . . . ."
Truly
a robust "faith" is required to believe that it is
"presumption" to question the justice of one, who creates helpless
little man but to "perplex" him, and to test a "faith" with
which that "Power," moreover, may have forgotten, if not neglected,
to endow him, as happens sometimes.
Compare
this blind faith with the philosophical belief, based on every reasonable
evidence and life-experience, in Karma-Nemesis, or the Law of Retribution. This
Law -- whether Conscious or Uncon-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Objectors to the doctrine of Karma should recall the fact that it is absolutely
out of the question to attempt a reply to the Pessimists on other data. A firm
grasp of the principles of Karmic Law knocks away the whole basis of the
imposing fabric reared by the disciples of Schopenhauer and Von Hartmann.
**
The doctrine and theology of Calvinists. "The purpose of God from eternity
respecting all events" (which becomes fatalism and kills free will, or any
attempt of exerting it for good). . . . ." It is the pre-assignment or
allotment of men to everlasting happiness or misery" (Catechism). A noble
and encouraging Doctrine this!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 305 THE LAW OF RETRIBUTION.
scious
-- predestines nothing and no one. It exists from and in Eternity, truly, for
it is ETERNITY itself; and as such, since no act can be co-equal with eternity,
it cannot be said to act, for it is ACTION itself. It is not the Wave which
drowns a man, but the personal action of the wretch, who goes deliberately and
places himself under the impersonal action of the laws that govern the Ocean's
motion. Karma creates nothing, nor does it design. It is man who plans and
creates causes, and Karmic law adjusts the effects; which adjustment is not an
act, but universal harmony, tending ever to resume its original position, like
a bough, which, bent down too forcibly, rebounds with corresponding vigour. If
it happen to dislocate the arm that tried to bend it out of its natural
position, shall we say that it is the bough which broke our arm, or that our
own folly has brought us to grief? Karma has never sought to destroy
intellectual and individual liberty, like the God invented by the Monotheists.
It has not involved its decrees in darkness purposely to perplex man; nor shall
it punish him who dares to scrutinise its mysteries. On the contrary, he who
unveils through study and meditation its intricate paths, and throws light on
those dark ways, in the windings of which so many men perish owing to their ignorance
of the labyrinth of life, is working for the good of his fellow-men. KARMA is
an Absolute and Eternal law in the World of manifestation; and as there can
only be one Absolute, as One eternal ever present Cause, believers in Karma
cannot be regarded as Atheists or materialists -- still less as
fatalists:"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Some theosophists, in order to make Karma more comprehensible to the Western
mind, as being better acquainted with the Greek than with Aryan philosophy,
have made an attempt to translate it by Nemesis. Had the latter been known to
the profane in antiquity, as it was understood by the Initiate, this
translation of the term would be unobjectionable. As it is, it has been too
much anthropomorphised by Greek fancy to permit our using it without an
elaborate explanation. With the early Greeks, "from Homer to Herodotus,
she was no goddess, but a moral feeling rather," says Decharme; the
barrier to evil and immorality. He who transgresses it, commits a sacrilege in
the eyes of the gods, and is pursued by Nemesis. But, with time, that
"feeling" was deified, and its personification became an ever-fatal
and punishing goddess. Therefore, if we would connect Karma with Nemesis, it has
to be done in the triple character of the latter, viz., as Nemesis, Adrasteia
and Themis. For, while the latter is the goddess of Universal Order and
Harmony, who, like Nemesis, is commissioned to repress every excess, and keep
man within the limits of Nature and righteousness under severe penalty,
Adrasteia -- "the inevitable" -- represents Nemesis as the immutable
effect of causes created by man himself. Nemesis, as the daughter of Dike, is
the equitable goddess reserving her wrath for those alone who are maddened with
pride, egoism, and impiety. (See Mesomed. Hymn. Nemes., V. 2. Brunck, Analecta
II. p. 292; Mythol. de la Grece Antique, p. 304.) In short, while Nemesis is a
mythological, exoteric goddess, or Power, personified and anthropomorphised in
its various aspects, Karma is a highly philosophical truth, a most divine noble
expression of the primitive intuition of man concerning Deity. It is a doctrine
which explains the origin of Evil, and [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 306 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
for
Karma is one with the Unknowable, of which it is an aspect in its effects in
the phenomenal world.
Intimately,
or rather indissolubly, connected with Karma, then, is the law of re-birth, or
of the re-incarnation of the same spiritual individuality in a long, almost
interminable, series of personalities. The latter are like the various costumes
and characters played by the same actor, with each of which that actor identifies
himself and is identified by the public, for the space of a few hours. The
inner, or real man, who personates those characters, knows the whole time that
he is Hamlet for the brief space of a few acts, which represent, however, on
the plane of human illusion the whole life of Hamlet. And he knows that he was,
the night before, King Lear, the transformation in his turn of the Othello of a
still earlier preceding night; but the outer, visible character is supposed to
be ignorant of the fact. In actual life that ignorance is, unfortunately, but
too real. Nevertheless, the permanent individuality is fully aware of the fact,
though, through the atrophy of the "spiritual" eye in the physical
body, that knowledge is unable to impress itself on the consciousness of the
false personality.
The
possession of a physical third eye, we are told, was enjoyed by the men of the
Third Root-Race down to nearly the middle period of Third SUB-race of the Fourth
Root-Race, when the consolidation and perfection of the human frame made it
disappear from the outward anatomy of man. Psychically and spiritually,
however, its mental and visual perceptions lasted till nearly the end of the
Fourth Race, when its functions, owing to the materiality and depraved
condition of mankind, died out altogether before the submersion of the bulk of
the Atlantean continent. And now we may return to the Deluges and their many
"Noahs."
The
student has to bear in mind that there were many such deluges as that mentioned
in Genesis, and three far more important ones, which will be mentioned and
described in the Section devoted to the subject of pre-historic continents. To
avoid erroneous conjectures, however, with regard to the claim that the
esoteric doctrine has much in it of the legends contained in the Hindu
Scriptures; that, again, the chronology of the latter is almost that of the
former -- only explained and made clear; and that finally the belief that
"Vaivasvata Manu" -- a generic name indeed! -- was the Noah of the
Aryans and his prototype, all this, which is also the belief of the Occultists,
necessitates at this juncture a new explanation. (Vide Part III.
"Submerged Continents.")
-------
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] ennobles our conceptions of what divine
immutable justice ought to be, instead of degrading the unknown and unknowable
Deity by making it the whimsical, cruel tyrant, which we call Providence.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 307 THE SEVEN AND FOURTEEN MANUS.
THE
PRIMEVAL MANUS OF HUMANITY.
Those
who are aware that the "great Flood," which was connected with the
sinking of an entire continent -- save what became a few islands -- could not
have happened so far back as 18,000,000 years ago; and that Vaivasvata Manu is
the Indian Noah connected with the Matsya (or the fish) Avatar of Vishnu -- may
feel perplexed at this discrepancy between facts stated and the chronology
previously given. But there is no discrepancy in truth. The reader is asked to
turn to the Theosophist of July, 1883, and after studying the article therein,
"The Septenary Principle in Esotericism," the whole question can be
explained to him. It is in this explanation, I believe, that the Occultists
differ from the Brahmins.
For
the benefit of those, however, who may not have "The Theosophist" of
that month and year to hand, a passage or two may now be quoted from it:
"Who
was Manu, the son of Swayambhuva? The secret doctrine tells us that this Manu
was no man, but the representation of the first human races evolved with the
help of the Dhyan-Chohans (Devas) at the beginning of the first round. But we
are told in his Laws (Book I. 80) that there are fourteen Manus for every Kalpa
-- or interval from creation to creation (read interval from one minor
'Pralaya' to another*) -- and that in the present divine age, there have been
as yet seven Manus. Those who know that there are seven rounds, of which we
have passed three, and are now in the fourth; and who are
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pralaya -- a word already explained -- is not a term that applies only to every
"Night of Brahma," or the world's dissolution following every
Manvantara, equal to 71 Maha-yugas. It applies also to each
"obscuration" as well, and even to every Cataclysm that puts an end,
by Fire or by Water in turn, to each Root-Race. Pralaya is a term like that of
"Manu" -- the generic name for the Sishtas, who, under the
appellation of "King," are shown in the Puranas as preserved
"with the seed of all things in an ark from the waters of that flood"
(or the fires of a general volcanic conflagration, the commencement of which we
already see for our Fifth-Race in the terrible earthquakes and eruptions of
these late years, and especially in the present one) . . . . which in the
season of a pralaya overspreads the world" (the Earth). (See Preface, p.
lxxxi., to Wilson's "Vishnu Purana.") Time is only a form of
"Vishnu" -- truly, as Parasara says in that Purana. In the Hindu Yuga
Kalpa, we have the regular descending series 4, 3, 2, with ciphers multiplied
as occasion requires for esoteric purposes, but not, as Wilson and other
Orientalists thought, for "sectarian embellishments." A Kalpa may be
an age, a "Day" of Brahma, or a sidereal Kalpa, astronomical and
earthly. Those calculations are found in all the Puranas, but some differ -- as
for instance, "the year of the seven Rishis, 3,030 mortal years, and the
year of Dhruva, 9,090 in the Linga Purana," which are again esoteric, and
which do represent actual (secret) chronology. As said in the Brahma Vaivarta:
"Chronologers compute a Kalpa by the life of Brahma. Minor Kalpas, as
Samvarta and the rest, are numerous." "Minor Kalpas" denote here
every period of destruction, as was well understood by Wilson himself, who
explains the latter as "those in which the Samvarta wind or other
destructive agents operate" (Vishnu Purana, p. 54, vol. I.).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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taught
that there are seven dawns and seven twilights or fourteen Manvantaras; that at
the beginning of every Round and at the end, and on, and between the planets
there is an awakening to illusive life, and an awakening to real life; and
that, moreover, there are root-Manus, and what we have to clumsily translate as
the seed-Manus -- the seeds for the human races of the forthcoming Round (or
the Sishtas -- the surviving fittest*; a mystery divulged only to those who
have passed their third degree in initiation) -- those who have learned all
that will be better prepared to understand the meaning of the following. We are
told in the Sacred Hindu scriptures that the first Manu produced six other
Manus (seven primary Manus in all), and these produced in their turn each seven
other Manus** (Bhrigu I, 61-63) -- the production of the latter standing in the
occult treatises as 7 x 7. Thus it becomes clear that Manu -- the last one, the
progenitor of our Fourth Round Humanity -- must be the seventh, since we are on
our fourth Round,*** and there is a root-Manu at globe A and a seed Manu at
globe G. Just as each planetary Round commences with the appearance of a 'Root
Manu' (Dhyan Chohan) and closes with a 'Seed-Manu,' so a Root and a Seed Manu
appear respectively at the beginning and the termination of the human period on
any particular planet.**** It will be easily seen from the foregoing statement
that a Manu-antaric period means, as the term implies, the time between the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
An intuition and a presentiment of the Sishtas may be found in Mr. Sinnett's
"Esoteric Buddhism," Fifth Edition. See in it Annotations -- the
"Noah's Ark Theory" pp. 146, 147.
**
The fact that Manu himself is made to declare that he was created by Viraj, and
that he then produced the ten Prajapatis, who again produced seven Manus, who
in their turn gave birth to seven other Manus (Manu, I, 33-36) relates to other
still earlier mysteries, and is at the same time a blind with regard to the
doctrine of the Septenary chain, and the simultaneous evolution of seven humanities,
or MEN. However, the present work is written on the records of Cis-Himalayan
Secret Teachings, and Brahmanical esoteric philosophy may now differ in form as
the Kabala does. But they were identical in hoary antiquity.
***
There is another esoteric reason besides this one for it. A Vaivasvata is the
seventh Manu, because this our Round, although the Fourth, is in the
preseptenary Manvantara, and the Round itself is in its seventh stage of
materiality or physicality. The close of its middle racial point occurred
during the Fourth Root Race, when man and all nature reached their lowest state
of gross matter. From that time, i.e., from the end of the three and a half
races, humanity and nature entered on the ascending arc of their racial cycle.
****
The interval that precedes each Yuga is called a Sandhya, composed of as many
hundreds of years as there are thousands in the yuga; and that which follows
the latter is named Sandhyamsa, and is of similar duration, we are told in
Vishnu Purana. "The interval between the Sandhya and the Sandhyamsa is the
yuga denominated Krita, Treta, etc., etc. The (four) Krita, Treta, Dwapara, and
Kali constitute a great age, or aggregate of four ages: a 1000 such aggregates
are a Day of Brahma; and 14 Manus reign within that term." Now had we to
accept this literally then there would be only one Manu for every 4,320,000,000
of years. As we are taught that it took 300,000,000 of years for the two lower
kingdoms to evolve, and that our humanity is just 18 and some odd millions old
-- where were the other Manus spoken of, unless the allegory means what the
esoteric doctrine teaches us about the 14 being each multiplied by 49.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 309 THE BLINDS OF EXOTERICISM.
appearance
of two Manus or Dhyan Chohans; and hence a minor Manvantara is the duration of
the seven races on any particular planet, and a major manvantara is the period
of one human round along the Planetary chain. Moreover, that, as it is said
that each of the seven Manus creates 7 x 7 Manus, and that there are 49
root-races on the seven planets during each Round, then every root-race has its
Manu. The present seventh Manu is called 'Vaivasvata' and stands in the
exoteric texts for that Manu who represents in India the Babylonian Xisuthrus
and the Jewish Noah. But in the esoteric books we are told that Manu
Vaivasvata, the progenitor of our Fifth race -- who saved it from the flood
that nearly exterminated the Fourth (Atlantis) -- is not the seventh Manu,
mentioned in the nomenclature of the Root, or primitive-Manus, but one of the
49 Manus emanated from this Root-Manu.
"For
clearer comprehension we here give the names of the 14 Manus in their
respective order and relation to each Round:--
1st
Round
1st
(Root) Manu on Planet A -- Swayambhuva.
1st
(Seed) Manu on Planet G -- Swarochi (or) Swarotisha.
2nd
Round
2nd
(R) M. on Planet A -- Uttama.
2nd
(S) M. " G -- Thamasa.
3rd
Round
3rd
(R) M. " A -- Raivata.
3rd
(S) M. " G -- Chackchuska.
4th
Round
4th
(R) M. " A -- Vaivasvata (our progenitor)
4th
(S) M. " G -- Savarna
5th
Round
5th
(R) M. " A -- Daksha Savarna.
5th
(S) M. " G -- Brahma Savarna.
6th
Round
6th
(R) M. " A -- Dharma Savarna.
6th
(S) M. " G -- Rudra Savarna.
7th
Round
7th
(R) M. " A -- Rouchya.
7th
(S) M. " G -- Bhoutya.
"Vaivasvata,
thus, though seventh in the order given, is the primitive Root-Manu of our
fourth Human Wave (the reader must always remember that Manu is not a man but
collective humanity), while our Vaivasvata was but one of the seven Minor
Manus, who are made to preside over the seven races of this our planet. Each of
these has to become the witness of one of the periodical and ever-recurring
cataclysms (by fire and water) that close the cycle of every Root-race. And it
is this Vaivasvata -- the Hindu ideal embodiment, called respectively
Xisuthrus, Deukalion, Noah and by other names -- who is the allegorical man who
rescued our race, when nearly the whole population of one hemisphere perished
by water, while the other hemisphere was awakening from its temporary
obscuration."*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The words "creation," "dissolution," etc., do not render
correctly the right meaning of either Manvantara or Pralaya. The Vishnu Purana
enumerates several: The dissolution of all things is of four kinds, Parasara is
made to say:-- Naimittika (occasional), when Brahma slumbers (his night, when,
"At the end of this day occurs a re-coalescence of the Universe, called
Brahma's contingent re-coalescence," because Brahma is this universe
itself); "Prakritika (elemental), when the return of this universe to its
original nature is partial and physical; Atyantika (absolute), identification
of the embodied with the incorporeal Supreme spirit -- Mahatmic state, whether
temporary or until the following Maha Kalpa: also absolute obscuration -- as of
a whole [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 310 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Thus
it is shown that there is no real discrepancy in speaking of the Vaivasvata
Manvantara (Manu-antara, lit. "between two Manus") 18,000,000 odd
years ago, when physical, or the truly human man first appeared in his Fourth
Round on this earth; and of the other Vaivasvatas, e.g., the Manu of the Great
Cosmic or sidereal Flood (a mystery), or again the Manu Vaivasvata of the
submerged Atlantis, when the racial Vaivasvata saved the elect of Humanity, the
Fifth Race, from utter destruction. As the several (and quite different) events
are purposely blended in the Vishnu and other Puranas in one narrative, there
may yet be a great deal of perplexity left in the profane reader's mind.
Therefore, as constant elucidation is needed, we must be forgiven unavoidable
repetitions. The blinds which conceal the real mysteries of Esoteric philosophy
are great and puzzling, and even now the last word cannot be given. The veil,
however, may be a little more removed and some explanations, hitherto denied,
may now be offered to the earnest student.
As
somebody -- Colonel Vans Kennedy, if we do not mistake -- remarked, "the
first principle in Hindu religious philosophy is Unity in diversity." If all
those Manus and Rishis are called by one generic name, this is due to the fact
that they are one and all the manifested Energies of one and the same LOGOS,
the celestial, as well as the terrestrial messengers and permutations of that
Principle which is ever in a state of activity; conscious during the period of
Cosmic evolution, unconscious (from our point of view) during Cosmic rest, as
the Logos sleepeth in the bosom of THAT which "sleepeth not," nor is
it ever awake -- for it is SAT or Be-ness, not a Being. It is from IT that
issues the great unseen Logos, who evolves all the other logoi, the primeval
MANU who gives being to the other Manus, who emanate the universe and all in it
collectively, and who represent in their aggregate the manifested Logos.* Hence
we learn in the "Commentaries" that while no Dhyan Chohan, not even
the highest, can realise completely "the condition of the preceding Cosmic
evolution," "the Manus retain a knowledge of their experiences of all
the Cosmic evolutions throughout Eternity." This is very plain: the first
Manu is called Swayambhuva,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] planetary chain, etc.; and Nitya (perpetual)
Mahapralaya for the Universe, death -- for man, nitya is the extinction of
life, like the extinction of a lamp," also "in sleep at night."
Nitya Sarga is "constant or perpetual creation," as Nitya pralaya is
"constant or perpetual destruction of all that is born." "That
which ensues after a minor dissolution is called ephemeral creation. . . . This
is Samyama" (production, existence, and dissolution) (Vishnu Purana, Book
I., ch. vii.) The subject is so difficult that we are obliged to repeat our
statements.
*
But see the superb definitions of Parabrahmam and the Logos in Mr. Subba Row's
Lectures on the Bhagavat Gita in the early numbers of the Theosophist of 1887,
Feb., March, April, and May.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 311 THE FOUR EARLIER RACES.
"the
Self-manifested," the Son of the unmanifested FATHER. The Manus are the
creators of the creators of our First Race -- the Spirit of mankind -- which
does not prevent the seven Manus from having been the first
"pre-Adamic" men on Earth.
Manu
declares himself created by Viraj,* or Vaiswanara, (the Spirit of Humanity),**
which means that his Monad emanates from the never resting Principle in the
beginning of every new Cosmic activity: that Logos or UNIVERSAL MONAD
(collective Elohim) that radiates from within himself all those Cosmic Monads
that become the centres of activity -- progenitors of the numberless Solar
systems as well as of the yet undifferentiated human monads of planetary chains
as well as of every being thereon. Each Cosmic Monad is
"Swayambhuva," the SELF-BORN, which becomes the Centre of Force, from
within which emerges a planetary chain (of which chains there are seven in our
system), and whose radiations become again so many Manus Swayambhuva (a generic
name, mysterious and meaning far more than appears), each of these becoming, as
a Host, the Creator of his own Humanity. (See "The Manus and the
Manvantaras Explained by a Western Mystic and Mathematician.")
As
to the question of the four distinct races of mankind that preceded our Fifth
Race, there is nothing mystical in it, except the ethereal bodies of the first
races; and it is a matter of legendary, nevertheless, very correct history.
That legend is universal. And if the Western savant pleases to see in it only a
myth, it does not make the slightest difference. The Mexicans had, and still
have, the tradition of the fourfold destruction of the world by fire and water,
just as the Egyptians had, and the Hindus have, to this day.
Trying
to account for the community of legends in the remote antiquity -- held by
Chinese, Chaldean, Egyptians, Indians and Greeks -- and for the absence of any
certain vestige of civilization more ancient than 5,000 years, the author of
"Mythical Monsters," remarks, that "we must not be surprised if
we do not immediately discover the vestiges of the people of ten, fifteen, or
twenty thousand years ago. With an ephemeral architecture (as in China), the
sites of vast cities may have become entirely lost to recollection in a few
thousands of years from natural decay . . . and how much more . . . if . . .
minor cataclysms have intervened, such as local inundations, earthquakes,
deposition of volcanic ashes, the spread of sandy deserts, destruction of life
by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See preceding foot-note.
**
See Manu I., 32, 33. Vaiswanara is, in another sense, the living magnetic fire
that pervades the manifested solar system. It is the most objective (to us the
reverse) and ever present aspect of the ONE LIFE, for it is the Vital
Principle. (See Theosophist, July, 1883, p. 249). It is also a name of Agni.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 312 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
deadly
pestilence, by miasma, or by the outpour of sulphurous fumes."
("Mythical Monsters," by Ch. Gould, p. 134.)
And
how many of such cataclysms have changed the whole surface of the earth may be
inferred from this Stanza:
"During
the first seven crores of the Kalpa (70,000,000 years) the Earth and its two
Kingdoms (mineral and vegetable), one already having achieved its seventh
circle, the other, hardly nascent, are luminous and semi-ethereal, cold,
lifeless, and translucid. In the eleventh crore* the mother (Earth) grows
opaque, and in the FOURTEENTH** the throes of adolescence take place. These
convulsions of nature (geological changes) last till her twentieth crore of
years, uninterruptedly, after which they become periodical, and at long
intervals."
The
last change took place nearly twelve crores of years ago (120,000,000). But the
Earth with everything on her face had become cool, hard and settled ages
earlier. (Commentary, xxii.)
Thus,
if we are to believe esoteric teaching, there have been no more universal
geological disturbances and changes for the last 120 millions of years, and the
Earth was, even before that time, ready to receive her human stock. The
appearance of the latter, however, in its full physical development, as already
stated, took place only about eighteen millions of years ago, after the first
great failure of nature to create beings alone, without the help of the divine
"Fashioners," had been followed by the successive evolution of the
first three races (See above Stanzas III. et seq.). The actual duration of the
first two and a-half Races is withheld from all but the higher Initiates. The
History of the Races begins at the separation of the Sexes, when the preceding
egg-bearing androgynous race perished rapidly, and the subsequent sub-races of
the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This -- in the period of Secondary creation, so called. Of the Primary, when
Earth is in possession of the three Elemental Kingdoms, we cannot speak for
several reasons, one of which is, that, unless one is a great seer, or
naturally intuitional, he will be unable to realise that which can never be
expressed in any existing terms.
**
Hippocrates said that number seven "By its occult virtues tended to the
accomplishment of all things, to be the dispenser of life and fountain of all
its changes." The life of man he divided into seven ages (Shakespeare),
for "As the moon changes her phases every seven days, this number
influences all sublunary beings," and even the Earth, as we know. With the
child, it is the teeth that appear in the seventh month and he sheds them at
seven years; at twice seven puberty begins, at three times seven all our mental
and vital powers are developed, at four times seven he is in his full strength,
at five times seven his passions are most developed, etc., etc. Thus for the
Earth. It is now in its middle age, yet very little wiser for it. The
Tetragrammaton, the four-lettered sacred name of the Deity, can be resolved on
Earth only by becoming Septenary through the manifest triangle proceeding from
the concealed Tetraktis. Therefore, the number seven has to be adopted on this
plane. As written in the Kabala "The greater Holy Assembly" v.
1161:-- "For assuredly there is no stability in those six, save (what they
derive) from the seventh. For all things depend from the SEVENTH."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 313 THE ESOTERIC MEANING OF "FISH."
Third
Root-Race appeared as an entirely new race physiologically. It is this
"destruction" which is called allegorically the great
"Vaivasvata Manu Deluge," when the account shows Vaivasvata Manu (or
"Humanity") remaining alone on Earth in the Ark of Salvation towed by
Vishnu in the shape of a monstrous fish, and the Seven Rishis "with
him." The allegory is very plain:--
In
the Symbolism of every nation, the "Deluge" stands for Chaotic
unsettled matter -- Chaos itself: and the Water for the feminine principle --
the "Great Deep." As the Greek Lexicon of Parkhurst gives it --
"Arche (ark) answers to the Hebrew rasit, or Wisdom . . . . and (at the
same time) to the emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Arca, in
which the germ of nature (and of mankind) floats or broods on the great Abyss
of the waters, during the interval which takes place after every mundane (or
racial) cycle." Ark is also the mystic name of the divine spirit of life
which broods over chaos. Now Vishnu is the divine Spirit, as an abstract
principle, and also as the Preserver and Generator, or Giver of life -- the
third person of the Trimurti (composed of Brahma, the Creator, Siva, the
Destroyer, and Vishnu, the Preserver). Vishnu is shown in the allegory as
guiding, under the form of a fish, the Ark of Vaivasvata Manu clean across the
waters of the Flood. There is no use in expatiating upon the esoteric meaning
of the word fish. (See Payne Knight, Inman, Gerald Massey, etc.) Its
theological meanings is phallic, but the metaphysical, divine. Jesus is called the
"Fish," and so were Vishnu and Bacchus: [[Ies]], the
"Saviour" of mankind, being but the monogram of the god Bacchus
called [[Ichthus]], the fish.* As to the Seven Rishis in the Ark, they
symbolised the seven principles, which became complete in man only after he had
separated, and become a human, and no longer a divine creature. (See for
further details, "The Seventh Manu.")
Nor
have we many details about the submersion of the continent inhabited by the
Second Root Race. But the history of the Third, "Lemuria," is given,
as is that of Atlantis, the others being only alluded to. Lemuria is said to
have perished about 700,000 years before the commencement of what is now called
the Tertiary age (the Eocene),** and it is during this Deluge also -- an actual
geological deluge this time -- that Vaivasvata Manu is again shown as saving
mankind (allegorically it is mankind, or a portion of it, the Fourth Race,
which is saved); so also he saves the Fifth Race during the destruction of the
last Atlanteans, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says St. Augustin of Jesus, "For he is a fish that lives in the midst of
waters." Christians called themselves little fishes -- pisciculi -- in
their sacred mysteries. "So many fishes bred in the water, and saved by
one great fish," says Tertullian of the Christians and Christ and the
Church.
**
"Esoteric Buddhism," p. 55.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 314 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
remnants
that perished 850,000 years ago,* after which there was no great submersion
until the day of Plato's Atlantis, or Poseidonis, known to the Egyptians only
because it happened in such relatively recent times.
It
is the submersion of the great Atlantis which is the most interesting. It is of
this cataclysm that the old records (See the "Book of Enoch") say
that "the ends of the Earth got loose;" and upon which the legends
and allegories of Vaivasvata, Xisuthrus, Noah, Deukalion and all the tutti quanti
of the Elect saved, have been built. Tradition, taking into no account the
difference between sidereal and geological phenomena, calls both indifferently
"deluges." Yet there is a great difference. The cataclysm which
destroyed the huge continent of which Australia is the largest relic, was due
to a series of subterranean convulsions and the breaking asunder of the ocean
floors. That which put an end to its successor -- the fourth continent -- was
brought on by successive disturbances in the axial rotation. It began during
the earliest tertiary periods, and, continuing for long ages, carried away
successively the last vestige of Atlantis, with the exception, perhaps, of
Ceylon and a small portion of what is now Africa. It changed the face of the
globe, and no memory of its flourishing continents and isles, of its
civilizations and sciences, remained in the annals of history, save in the
Sacred records of the East.
Hence,
Modern Science denies Atlantis and its existence. It even denies any violent
shiftings of the Earth's axis, and would attribute the reason for the change of
climates to other causes. But this question is still an open one. If Dr. Croll
will have it that all such alterations can be accounted for by the effects of
nutation and the precession of the equinoxes, there are other men of Science,
such as Sir H. James (Athenaeum, Aug. 25, 1860), and Sir John Lubbock (ibid),
who feel more inclined to accept the idea that they are due to a change in the
position of the axis of rotation. Against this the majority of the astronomers
are again arrayed. But then, what have they not denied before now, and what
have they not denounced -- only to accept it later on whenever the hypothesis
became undeniable fact?
How
far our figures agree, or rather disagree with modern Science will be seen
further in the Addenda to this Book, where the geology and anthropology of our
modern day are carefully compared with the same in Archaic Science. At any
rate, the period assigned in the Secret Doctrine for the sinking of Atlantis,
does not seem to disagree
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This event, the destruction of the famous island of Ruta and the smaller one
Daitya, which occurred 850,000 years ago in the later Pliocene times, must not
be confounded with the submersion of the main continent of Atlantis during the
Miocene period. Geologists cannot place the Miocene only so short a way back as
850,000 years; whatever they do, it is several million years ago that the main
Atlantis perished.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 315 THE INNER MAN IN THE ZOHAR.
very
much with the calculations of Modern Science, which calls Atlantis
"Lemuria," however, whenever it accepts such a submerged continent.
With regard to the pre-human period, all that can be said, at present, is, that
even up to the appearance of the "Mindless" First Race, the Earth was
not without its inhabitants. More may be said: that which Science --
recognizing only physical man -- has a right to regard as the prehuman period,
may be conceded to have extended from the First Race down to the first half of
the Atlantean race, since it is only then that man became the "complete
organic being he is now." And this would make Adamic man no older than a
few million of years.*
The
author of the Qabbalah remarks truly that "Man to-day, as an individual,
is only a concatenation of the being-hood of precedent human life," or
lives, rather. "According to the Qabbalah, the soul sparks contained in
Adam (Rishoun), went into three principal classes corresponding to his three
sons, viz.: Hesed, Habel, Ge-boor-ah, Qai-yin and Ra'hmin Seth. These three
were divided into 70 species, called: the principal roots of the human
race." (p. 422.)
"Said
Rabbi Jehudah: 'How many garments (of the incorporeal man) are these which are
crowned' (from the day man was 'created')? Said R. El'eazar: 'The mountains of
the world (the great men of the generation) are in discussion upon it, but
there are three: one to clothe in that garment the Rua'h spirit, which is in
the garden (of Eden) on earth: one which is more precious than all, in which
the Neshamah is clothed in that Bundle of Life, between the angels of the Kings
. . . : and one outside garment, which exists and does not exist, is seen and
not seen. In that garment, the Nephesh is clothed, and she goes and flies in
it, to and fro in the world." (Zohar I., 119b. col. 475; Qabbalah, 412.)
This
relates to the races (their "garments," or degree of materiality) and
to the three principles of man in their three vehicles.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mr. Huxley divides those races into the quintuple group of Australioids, Negroids,
Mongoloids, Xanthochroics and Melanochroics -- all issuing from imaginary
Anthropoids. And yet, while protesting against those who say "that the
structural differences between man and apes are small and insignificant,"
and adding that "every bone of the gorilla bears a mark by which it can be
distinguished from a corresponding human bone," and that "in the
present state of creation, at least, no intermediary being fills the gap which
separates the man from the troglodyte" -- the great anatomist goes on
speaking of the Simian characteristics in Man! (See de Quatrefages' "The
Human Species," p. 113.)
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 316 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
STANZA
XI.
THE
CIVILIZATION AND DESTRUCTION OF THE FOURTH AND FIFTH RACES.
-------
§§
(43) The Lemuro-Atlanteans build cities and spread civilization. The incipient
stage of anthropomorphism. (44) Their statues, witnesses to the size of the
Lemuro-Atlanteans. (45) Lemuria destroyed by fire, Atlantis by water. The
Flood. (46) The destruction of the fourth race and of the last antediluvian
monster-animals.
---------------------
43.
THEY (the Lemurians) BUILT HUGE CITIES. OF RARE EARTHS AND METALS THEY BUILT.
OUT OF THE FIRES (lava) VOMITED. OUT OF THE WHITE STONE OF THE MOUNTAINS
(marble) AND THE BLACK STONE (of the subterranean fires) THEY CUT THEIR OWN
IMAGES, IN THEIR SIZE AND LIKENESS, AND WORSHIPPED THEM (a).
(a)
As the History of the first two human races -- the last of the Lemurians and
the first of the future Atlanteans -- proceeds, we have at this point to blend
the two, and speak of them for a time collectively.
Here
reference is also made to the divine Dynasties, such as were claimed by the
Egyptians, Chaldeans, Greeks, etc., to have preceded their human kings; they
are still believed in by the modern Hindus, and are enumerated in their sacred
books. But of these we shall treat in their proper place. What remains to be
shown is, that our modern geologists are now being driven into admitting the
evident existence of submerged continents. But to confess their presence is not
to accept that there were men on them during the early geological periods;* --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is the reason why, perhaps, even Easter Island with its wondrous gigantic
statues -- a speaking witness to a submerged continent with a civilized mankind
on it -- is hardly mentioned anywhere in the modern Encyclopaedias. Its mention
is carefully avoided except in some books of Travels; modem science has an
undeniable predilection for forcing upon the cultured public hypotheses, built
on personal hobbies, as well-established evidence, for offering it guesses
instead of Knowledge, and calling them "scientific conclusions." Its
specialists will evolve a thousand and one contradictory speculations rather
than confess an awkward self-evident fact -- pre-eminent among such specialists
being Haeckel and his English admirers and co-thinkers. Yet "they are
authorities" -- we are sternly reminded. What of that? The Pope of Rome is
also an AUTHORITY and an infallible one -- for his followers; whereas the
remarkable fallibility of Scientific speculations is being proven periodically
with every change of the moon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 317 PRESENTMENTS OF TRUTHS.
ay,
men and civilized nations, not Palaeolithic savages only; who, under the guidance
of their divine Rulers, built large cities, cultivated arts and sciences, and
knew astronomy, architecture and mathematics to perfection. This primeval
civilization did not, as one may think, immediately follow their physiological
transformation. Between the final evolution and the first city built, many
hundred thousands of years had passed. Yet, we find the Lemurians in their
sixth sub-race building their first rock-cities out of stone and lava.* One of
such great cities of primitive structure was built entirely of lava, some
thirty miles west from where Easter Island now stretches its narrow piece of
sterile ground, and was entirely destroyed by a series of volcanic eruptions.
The oldest remains of Cyclopean buildings were all the handiwork of the
Lemurians of the last sub-races; and an occultist shows, therefore, no wonder
on learning that the stone relics found on the small piece of land called
Easter Island by Captain Cook, are "very much like the walls of the Temple
of Pachacamac or the Ruins of Tia-Huanuco in Peru," ("The Countries
of the World," by Robert Brown, Vol. 4, p. 43); and that they are in the
CYCLOPEAN STYLE. The first large cities, however, appeared on that region of
the continent which is now known as the island of Madagascar. There were
civilized people and savages in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Our best modern novelists, who are neither Theosophists nor Spiritualists,
begin to have, nevertheless, very psychological and suggestively Occult dreams:
witness Mr. Louis Stephenson and his Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, than which no
grander psychological essay on Occult lines exists. Has the rising novelist,
Mr. Rider Haggard, also had a prophetic or rather a retrospective clairvoyant
dream before he wrote "SHE"? His imperial Kor, the great city of the
dead, whose surviving living men sailed northwards after the plague had killed
almost a whole nation, seems to step out in its general outlines from the
imperishable pages of the old archaic records. Ayesha suggests "that those
men who sailed north may have been the fathers of the first Egyptians";
and then seems to attempt a synopsis of certain letters of a MASTER quoted in
"Esoteric Buddhism." For, she says, "Time after time have
nations, ay, and rich and strong nations, learned in the arts, been, and passed
away, and been forgotten, so that no memory of them remains. This (the nation
of Kor) is but one of several; for time eats up the work of man unless, indeed,
he digs in caves like the people of Kor, and then mayhap the sea swallows them,
or the earthquake shakes them in. . . . . Yet were not these people utterly
destroyed, as I think. Some few remained in the other cities, for their cities
were many. But the barbarians . . . came down upon them, and took their women
to wife, and the race of the Amahagger that is now is a bastard brood of the
mighty sons of Kor, and behold it dwelleth in the tombs with its fathers'
bones. . ." (pp. 180, 181.)
Here
the clever novelist seems to repeat the history of all the now degraded and
down-fallen races of humanity. The Geologists and Anthropologists would place
at the head of humanity as descendants of Homo primigenius, the ape-man, of
which "NO FOSSIL REMAINS ARE AS YET KNOWN TO US," but (which) "were
PROBABLY akin to the gorilla and orang of the present day" (Haeckel). In
answer to whose "probably," occultists point to another and a greater
probability -- the one given in our text. (See above.)
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[[Vol.
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those
days as there are now. Evolution achieved its work of perfection with the
former, and Karma -- its work of destruction on the latter. The Australians and
their like are the descendants of those, who, instead of vivifying the spark
dropped into them by the "Flames," extinguished it by long
generations of bestiality.* The Aryan nations could trace their descent through
the Atlanteans from the more spiritual races of the Lemurians, in whom the "Sons
of Wisdom" had personally incarnated.**
It
is with the advent of the divine Dynasties that the first civilizations were
started. And while, in some regions of the Earth, a portion of mankind
preferred leading a nomadic and patriarchal life, and in others savage man was
hardly learning to build a fire and to protect himself against the Elements,
his brothers -- more favoured than he by their Karma, and helped by the divine
intelligence which informed them -- built cities, and cultivated arts and
sciences. Nevertheless, and civilization notwithstand-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Stanza II, ante. This would account for the great difference and variation
between the intellectual capacities of races, nations, and individual men.
While incarnating, and in other cases only informing the human vehicles evolved
by the first brainless (manasless) race, the incarnating Powers and Principles
had to make their choice between, and take into account, the past Karmas of the
Monads, between which and their bodies they had to become the connecting link.
Besides which, as correctly stated in "Esoteric Buddhism" (p. 30),
"the fifth principle, or human (intellectual) soul, in the majority of
mankind is not even yet fully developed."
**
It is said by Krishna, the Logos incarnate, in the Bhagavat-gita, "The
seven great Rishis, the four preceding Manus, partaking of my nature, were born
from my mind: from them sprang (emanated or was born) the human race and the
world," (Chap. X. Verse 6.)
Here,
by the seven great Rishis, the seven great rupa hierarchies or classes of Dhyan
Chohans, are meant. Let us bear in mind that the Saptarshi (the seven Rishis)
are the regents of the seven stars of the Great Bear, therefore, of the same
nature as the angels of the planets, or the seven great Planetary Spirits. They
were all reborn, all men on earth in various Kalpas and races. Moreover,
"the four preceding Manus" are the four classes of the originally
arupa gods -- the Kumaras, the Rudras, the Asuras, etc.: who are also said to
have incarnated. They are not the Prajapatis, as the first are, but their
informing principles -- some of which have incarnated in men, while others have
made other men simply the vehicles of their reflections. As Krishna truly says
--the same words being repeated later by another vehicle of the LOGOS --
"I am the same to all beings. . . . those who worship me (the 6th
principle or the intellectual divine Soul, Buddhi, made conscious by its union
with the higher faculties of Manas) are in me, and I am in them." (Ibid,
29.) The Logos, being no personality but the universal principle, is
represented by all the divine Powers born of its mind -- the pure Flames, or,
as they are called in Occultism, the "Intellectual Breaths" -- those
angels who are said to have made themselves independent, i.e., passed from the
passive and quiescent, into the active state of Self-Consciousness. When this
is recognised, the true meaning of Krishna becomes comprehensible. But see Mr.
Subba Row's excellent lecture on the Bhagavatgita, ("Theosophist,"
April 1887, p. 444.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 319 DEGENERATION OF MANKIND.
ing,
while their pastoral brethren enjoyed wondrous powers as their birthright,
they, the builders, could now obtain theirs only gradually; even these being
generally used for power over physical nature and selfish and unholy purposes.
Civilization has ever developed the physical and the intellectual at the cost
of the psychic and spiritual. The command and the guidance over his own psychic
nature, which foolish men now associate with the supernatural, were with early
Humanity innate and congenital, and came to man as naturally as walking and
thinking. "There is no such thing as magic" philosophises
"SHE," the author forgetting that "magic" in her early day
still meant the great SCIENCE of WIDOM, and that Ayesha could not possibly know
anything of the modern perversion of thought -- "though there is such a
thing as knowledge of the Secrets of Nature." (p. 152). But they have
become "Secrets" only in our race, and were public property with the
Third.
Gradually,
mankind went down in stature, for, even before the real advent of the Fourth or
Atlantean race, the majority of mankind had fallen into iniquity and sin, save
the hierarchy of the "Elect," the followers and disciples of the
"Sons of Will and Yoga" -- called later the "Sons of the Fire
Mist."
Then
came the Atlanteans; the giants whose physical beauty and strength reached their
climax, in accordance with evolutionary law, toward the middle period of their
fourth sub-race. But, as said in the Commentary:--
The
last survivors of the fair child of the White Island (the primitive
Sveta-dwipa) had perished ages before. Their (Lemuria's) elect, had taken
shelter on the sacred Island (now the "fabled" Shamballah, in the
Gobi Desert), while some of their accursed races, separating from the main
stock, now lived in the jungles and underground ("cave-men"), when
the golden yellow race (the Fourth) became in its turn "black with
sin." From pole to pole the Earth had changed her face for the third time,
and was no longer inhabited by the Sons of Sveta-dwipa, the blessed, and
Adbhitanya, east and west, the first, the one and the pure, had become
corrupted. . . . The demi-gods of the Third had made room for the semi-demons
of the Fourth Race. Sveta-dwipa, whose northern parts of the Toyambudhi the
seven Kumaras (Sanaka, Sananda, Sanatana, Sanatkumara, Jata, Vodhu, and
Panchasikha) had visited, agreeably with exoteric tradition (See the Uttara
Khanda of the Padma Purana; Asiat. Researches also, Vol. XI., pp. 99, 100); the
White Island had veiled her face. Her children now lived on the Black land,
wherein, later on, Daityas from the seventh Dwipa (Pushkara) and Rakshasas from
the seventh
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 320 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
climate
replaced the Saddhus and the ascetics of the Third age, who "had descended
to them from other and higher regions." . . . .
It
is evident that, taken in their dead letter, the Puranas read as an absurd
tissue of fairy tales and no better. But if one reads chapters I., II. and III.
from Book II. (Vol. II.) of Vishnu Purana and accepts verbatim its geography,
geodesy, and ethnology, in the matter of Priyavrata's seven sons, among whom
the father divides the seven Dwipas (Continental Islands); and then proceeds to
study how the eldest son, the King of Jambu-dwipa, Agnidhra, apportioned Jambu-dwipa
among his nine sons; and then how Nabhi his son, who had a hundred sons and
apportioned all these in his turn -- then the reader is likely to throw the
book away and pronounce it a farrago of nonsense. But the esoteric student will
understand that, in the days when the Puranas were written, the true meaning
was clear only to the Initiated Brahmins, who wrote those works allegorically
and would not give the whole truth to the masses. And he will explain to the
Orientalists who, beginning with Colonel Wilford and ending with Professor
Weber, made and still are making such a mess of it, that the first three
chapters (See Wilson's trans. of Vishnu Purana Book II et seq.) purposely
confuse the following subjects and events:--
I.
The series of Kalpas or Ages (also of Races) are never taken into account;
e.g., events which have happened in one being allowed to stand along with those
which took place in another. The chronological order is entirely ignored. This
is shown by several of the Sanskrit commentators, who explain the
incompatibility of events and calculations in saying -- "Whenever any
contradictions in different Puranas are observed, they are ascribed . . . to
differences of Kalpas and the like" (Vishnu and Bhagavata Puranas).
II.
The several meanings of the words "Manvantara" and "Kalpa"
or age, are withheld, and the general one only given.
III.
In the genealogy and geography of the Kings and their Varshas (countries) and
Dwipas, they are all allowed to be regarded as terrestrial regions.
Now,
the truth is that, without entering into too minute details, it is easy and
permissible to show that:--
(a)
The Seven Dwipas apportioned to Priyavrata's septenary progeny refer to several
localities: first of all to our planetary chain. Jambu-dwipa alone representing
our globe, the six others are the (to us) invisible companion globes of this
earth. This is shown by the very nature of the allegorical and symbolic
descriptions. Jambu (dwipa) "is in the centre of all these (the so-called
insular continents) and is surrounded" by a sea of salt water (lavana),
whereas Plaksha, Salmalia,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 321 THE HINDU SYMBOLIZATION.
Kusa,
Krauncha, Saka and Pushkara, are "surrounded severally -- by great seas of
sugar-cane juice, of wine, of clarified butter, of curds, of milk," etc.,
etc., and such like metaphorical names. (Chap. II, Book II) This is shown
furthermore by --
(b)
Bhaskara Acharya, who uses expressions from the Secret Doctrine and its books,
in his description of the sidereal position of all these dwipas:-- "the
sea of milk and the sea of curds" etc., meaning the Milky Way, and the
various congeries of nebulae; the more so, since he names "the country to
the south of the equator Bhur-loka, that to the north Bhuva-loka, Swar, Mahar,
Jana, Tapo and Satya lokas"; and says: "Those lokas are gradually
attained by increasing religious merits," i.e., they are various
paradises. (See Bibliotheca Indica. Trans. of the Goladhyaya of the Siddhanta-siromani
III., 21-44).
(c)
That this geographical division of seven allegorical continents, islands,
mountains, seas and countries, does not belong only to our Round nor even to our
races (the name of Bharata Varsha (India) notwithstanding), is explained in the
texts themselves by the narrator of Vishnu Purana. For he closes the first
chapter by saying: "Bharata (the son of Nabhi, who gave his name to
Bharata-Varsha or India) consigned the Kingdom to his son Sumati . . . . and
abandoned his life at Salagrama. He was afterwards born again as a religious
Brahman, in a distinguished family of ascetics . . . . under these princes
(Bharata's descendants) Bharata Varsha was divided into nine portions, and
their descendants held successively possession of the country for seventy-one
periods of the aggregate of the four ages," or the reign of a Manu,
representing a Mahayuga of 4,320,000 years.
But
having said so much, Parasara suddenly explains that "this was the
creation of Swayambhuva Manu, by which the earth was peopled when he presided
over the first Manvantara, in the Kalpa of Varaha," i.e., the boar
incarnation, or Avatar. Now every Brahmin knows that it is only with Vaivasvata
Manu that our Humanity began on this Earth (or Round). And if the Western
reader turns to the sub-section on "The Primeval Manus of Humanity,"
he will see that Vaivasvata is the seventh of the fourteen Manus who preside
over our planetary chain during its life cycle: i.e., that representing or
standing in every Round for two Manus of the same name (a Root and a Seed
Manu), he is the Root Manu of the Fourth Round, hence the seventh. Wilson finds
in this only "an incongruity" (see his Vishnu Purana, vol. II., p. 108,
footnote), and speculates that "the patriarchial genealogies are older
than the chronological system of Manvantaras and Kalpas," and thus
"have been rather clumsily distributed amongst the different
periods." It is nothing of the kind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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But
as Orientalists know nothing of the secret teaching, they will take everything
literally, and then turn round and abuse the writers of that which they do not
comprehend!
These
genealogies embrace a period of three and a half Rounds; they speak of
pre-human periods, and explain the descent into generation of every Manu -- the
first manifested sparks of the ONE Unity -- and show, furthermore, each of
these human sparks dividing into, and multiplying by, first, the Pitars, the
human ancestors, then by human Races. No being can become God, or Deva, unless
he passes through the human cycles. Therefore the Sloka says, "Happy are
those who are born, even from the (latent) condition of gods, as men, in
Bharata-varsha; as that is the way to . . . final liberation." In
Jambu-dwipa, Bharata is considered the best of its divisions, because IT IS THE
LAND OF WORKS. In it alone "it is that the succession of four Yugas (ages),
the Krita, the Treta, the Dwapara, and Kali take place"; when, therefore,
Parasara, asked by Maitreya "to give him the descriptions of the
Earth," returns again to the enumeration of the same Dwipas with the same
seas, etc., as those he had described in the Swayambhuva Manvantara -- it is
simply a blind, yet, to him who reads between the lines, the Four great Races
and the Fifth are there, ay, with their sub-divisions, islands, and continents,
some of which were called by the names of celestial lokas, and by those of
other globes. Hence the confusion.
All
these are called by the Orientalists "mythical" and
"fabulous" islands and lands.* Very true, some are not of this earth,
but they still exist. The "White Island" and Atala, at all events,
are no myths, since the latter was the name contemptuously applied by the
earliest pioneers of the Fifth Race to the land of Sin -- Atlantis, in general,
not to Plato's island alone; and since the former was (a) the Sveta-dwipa of
theogony, and (b) Saka-dwipa, or Atlantis (its earliest portions) in its
beginnings. This was when it yet had its "seven holy rivers that washed
away all sin," and its "seven districts, wherein there was no
dereliction of virtue, no contention, no deviation from virtue," as it was
then inhabited by the caste of the Magas -- that caste which even the Brahmins
acknowledged as not inferior to their own -- and which was
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In a lecture, Professor Pengelly, F.R.S., quoting Professor Oliver, makes him
say "that the present Atlantic islands' Flora affords no substantial
evidence of a former direct communication with the mainland of the New
World," but himself adds that, at the same time, "at some period of
the Tertiary epoch, N. E. Asia was united to N. W. America, perhaps by the line
where the Aleutian chain of islands now extends." Thus Occult Science
alone can reconcile the contradictions and hesitations of modern Science.
Moreover, surely the argument for the existence of Atlantis does not rest on
Botany alone.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 323 THE MAGIS IN THE DAYS OF KRISHNA.
the
nursery of the first Zaratushta. The Brahmins are shown consulting with
Gauramukha, on Narada's advice, who told them to invite the Magas as priests of
the Sun in the temple built by Samba (the reputed) son of Krishna, who in
reality had none. In this the Puranas are historical --allegory notwithstanding
-- and Occultism is stating facts.
The
whole story is told in Bhavishya Purana. It is stated that, having been cured
by Surya (the Sun) of leprosy, Samba, having built a temple dedicated to the
Sun, was looking for pious Brahmins to perform the appointed rites in it, and
receive donations made to the God. But Narada (this virgin ascetic whom one
finds in every age in the Puranas) advised him not to do so, as Manu forbade
the Brahmins to receive emoluments for the performance of religious rites. He
therefore referred Samba to Gauramukha (white face), the Purohita or family
priest of Hgrasena, King of Mathura, who would tell him whom he could best
employ. The priest directed Samba to invite the Magas, the worshippers of
Surya, to discharge the duty. Ignorant of the place they lived in, it is Surya,
the Sun himself, who directs Samba to Sakadwipa beyond the salt water. Then
Samba performs the journey, using Garuda (Vishnu's and Krishna's vehicle, the
great Bird) who lands him among the Magas, etc.
Now
Krishna, who lived 5,000 years ago, and Narada, who is found reborn in every
cycle (or race), besides Garuda -- the symbol esoterically of the great cycle
-- show the allegory; yet the Magas are the Magi of Chaldea, and their class
and worship were born on the earlier Atlantis, in Saka-dwipa, the Sinless. All
the Orientalists are agreed that the Magas of Saka-dwipa are the forefathers of
the fire-worshipping Parsis. Our quarrel with them rests, as usual, on their
dwarfing hundreds of thousands to a few centuries this time: they carry the
event -- Narada and Samba notwithstanding -- to the days of the flight of the
Parsis to Gujerat, which is simply absurd, as that was in the VIIIth cent. of
our era. Though the Magas in the Bhavishya Purana are credited with still
living in Saka-dwipa in the day of Krishna's Son, yet the last of it -- Plato's
"Atlantis" -- had perished 6000 years before. They were Mag
"late of" Saka-Dwipa, and lived in those days in Chaldea. This is an
intentional confusion, again.
The
earliest pioneers of the Fourth Race were not Atlanteans, nor yet the human
Asuras and the Rakshasas which they became later. In those days large portions
of the future continent of Atlantis were yet part and parcel of the Ocean
floors. "Lemuria," as we have called the continent of the Third Race,
was then a gigantic land.* It covered
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As shown in the Introduction, it stands to reason that neither the name of
Lemuria nor even Atlantis are the real archaic names of the lost continents, but
have been adopted by us for the sake of clearness. Atlantis was the name given
to those [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 324 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
whole area of space from the foot of the Himalayas, which separated it from the
inland sea rolling its waves over what is now Tibet, Mongolia, and the great
desert of Schamo (Gobi); from Chittagong, westward to Hardwar, and eastward to
Assam. From thence, it stretched South across what is known to us as Southern
India, Ceylon, and Sumatra; then embracing on its way, as we go South,
Madagascar on its right hand and Australia and Tasmania on its left, it ran
down to within a few degrees of the Antarctic Circle; when, from Australia, an
inland region on the Mother Continent in those ages, it extended far into the
Pacific Ocean, not only beyond Rapa-nui (Teapy, or Easter Island) which now
lies in latitude 26 S., and longitude 110 W. (See Addenda to this Book II., Section,
"Proofs of the Submerged Continents.") This statement seems
corroborated by Science, -- even if only partially; as, when discussing
continental trends, and showing the infra-Arctic masses trending generally with
the Meridian, several ancient continents are generally mentioned, though
inferentially. Among such the "Mascarene continent," which included
Madagascar, stretching north and south, is spoken of, and the existence of
another ancient continent running "from Spitzbergen to the Straits of
Dover, while most of the other parts of Europe were sea bottom," is
taught.* The latter corroborates, then, the Occult teaching which shows the
(now) polar regions as the earliest of the seven cradles of Humanity, and as
the tomb of the bulk of the mankind of that region during the Third Race, when
the gigantic continent of Lemuria began separating into smaller continents.
This is due, according to the explanation in the Commentary, to a decrease of
velocity in the earth's rotation:--
"When
the Wheel runs at the usual rate, its extremities (the poles) agree with its
middle circle (equator), when it runs slower and tilts in every direction,
there is a great disturbance on the face of the Earth. The waters flow toward
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] portions of the submerged Fourth-Race continent
which were "beyond the pillars of Hercules," and which happened to
keep above water after the general cataclysm. The last remnant of these --
Plato's Atlantis, or the "Poseidon" (another substitute or rather a
translation of the real name) -- was the last of it some 11,000 years ago. Most
of the correct names of the countries and islands of both continents are given
in the Puranas; but to mention them specially, as found in other more ancient
works, such as the Surya Siddhanta, would necessitate too lengthy explanations.
If, in earlier writings, the two seem to have been too faintly disconnected,
this must be due to careless reading and want of reflection. If ages hence,
Europeans are referred to as Aryans, and a reader confuses them with the Hindus
and the latter with the Fourth Race, as they live (some of them) in ancient
Lanka -- the blame will not fall on the writer.
*
See Professor Dana's article, "American Journal of Science," III, v.
442-3; Prof. Winchell's "World Life"; and other geological works.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 325 ATLANTIS -- OCEAN FLOOR.
the
two ends, and new lands arise in the middle belt (equatorial lands), while
those at the ends are subject to pralayas by submersion . . . ."
And
again:--
.
. . "Thus the wheel (the Earth) is subject to, and regulated by, the
Spirit of the Moon, for the breath of its waters (tides). Toward the close of
the age (Kalpa) of a great (root) race, the regents of the moon (the Pitar
fathers, or Pitris) begin drawing harder, and thus flatten the wheel about its
belt, when it goes down in some places and swells in others, and the swelling running
toward the extremities (poles) new lands will arise and old ones be sucked
in."
We
have but to read astronomical and geological works, to see the meaning of the
above very clearly. Scientists (modern Specialists) have ascertained the
influence of the tides on the geological distribution of land and water on the
planets, and the shifting of the oceans with a corresponding subsidence and
rise of continents and new lands. Science knows, or thinks it knows, that this
occurs periodically.* Professor Todd believes he can trace the series of
oscillations backward to the periods of the earth's first incrustation. (See
"American Naturalist," XVIII., 15 et seq.); therefore it seems easy
for Science to verify the Esoteric statements. We propose to treat of this at
greater length in the Addenda. (Vide § § V. and VI.)
It
is asked by some Theosophists: "What will Atlantis be like when
raised?" they understanding from a few words in "Esoteric
Buddhism" that "old continents" that have been submerged will
reappear. Here, again, there is a slight misconception. Were the same identical
lands of Atlantis that were submerged to be raised again, then they would,
indeed, be barren for ages. Because the Atlantic sea-bottom is covered with
some 5,000 feet of chalk at present, and more is forming -- a new
"cretaceous formation" of strata, in fact -- is no reason why, when
the time for a new continent to appear arrives, a geological convulsion and
upraising of the sea bottom should not dispose of these 5,000 feet of chalk for
the formation of some mountains and 5,000 more come to the surface. The racial
cataclysms are not a Noah's deluge of forty days -- a kind of Bombay monsoon.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Speaking on periodical elevation and subsidence of the equatorial and polar
regions, and ensuing changes of climate, Mr. Winchell (professor of Geology at
Michigan) says -- "As the movements here contemplated are cyclical, the
same conditions would recur again and again; and accordingly the same fauna
might return again and again to the same region, with intervals of occupation
by another fauna. Progressive sedimentation would preserve the records of such
faunal alterations; and there would be presented the phenomena of 'colonies'
're-apparitions' and other faunal dislocations in the vertical and horizontal
distributions of fossil remains. These phenomena are well known to the student
of geology." ("Effects of Astronomical Changes.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 326 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
That
the periodical sinking and re-appearance of the mighty continents, now called
Atlantis and Lemuria by the modern writers, is no fiction, will be demonstrated
in the Section in which all the proofs of the same have been collated together.
The most archaic Sanskrit and Tamil works teem with references to both
Continents. The seven sacred Islands (Dwipas) are mentioned in the Surya
Siddhanta, the oldest astronomical work in the whole world, and in the works of
Asura Maya, the Atlantean astronomer whom Professor Weber has made out
re-incarnated in Ptolemy. Yet, it is a mistake to call these "sacred
islands" Atlantean -- as done by us; for, like everything else in the
Hindu Sacred Books, they are made to refer to several things. The heirloom left
by Priyavrata, the Son of Swayambhuva Manu, to his seven sons -- was not
Atlantis, even though one or two of these islands survived the subsidence of
their fellows, and offered shelter, ages later, to Atlanteans, whose continent
had been submerged in its turn. When originally mentioned by Parasara (Vishnu
Purana) the seven refer to an esoteric doctrine which is explained further on.
Of all the seven islands, Jambu-dwipa is the only one that is terrestrial, for
it is our globe. In the Puranas every reference to the North of Meru is
connected with that primeval Eldorado, now the North Polar region; which, when
the magnolia blossomed there where now we see an unexplored endless desert of
ice, was then a continent again. Science speaks of an ancient continent which
stretched from Spitzbergen down to the Straits of Dover. The Secret Doctrine
teaches that, in the earliest geological periods, these regions formed a
horse-shoe-like continent, whose one end, the Eastern, far more northward than
North Cornwall, included Greenland, and the other contained Behring Straits as
an inland piece of ground, and descended southward in its natural trend down to
the British Isles, which in those days must have been right under the lower
curve of the semi-circle. This continent was raised simultaneously with the
submersion of the equatorial portions of Lemuria. Ages later, some of the
Lemurian remains re-appeared again on the face of the Oceans. Therefore, though
it can be said without departing from truth that Atlantis is included in the
Seven great insular continents, since the Fourth Race Atlanteans got some of
the Lemurian relics, and, settling on the islands, included them among their
lands and continents, yet a difference should be made and an explanation given,
once that a fuller and more accurate account is attempted, as in the present
work. Easter Island was also taken possession of in this manner by some
Atlanteans; who, having escaped from the cataclysm which befell their own land,
settled on that remnant of Lemuria only to perish thereon, when destroyed in
one day by its volcanic fires and lava. This may be regarded as fiction by
certain geographers and geologists; to the Occul-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 327 ON FOOT ACROSS THE OCEANS.
tists
it is history. What does Science know to the contrary? "Until the
appearance of a map, published at Basle in 1522, wherein the name of America
appears for the first time, the latter was believed to be part of India . . . .
. Science also refuses to sanction the wild hypothesis that there was a time
when the Indian peninsula at one end of the line, and South America at the
other, were connected by a belt of islands and continents. The India of the
pre-historic ages . . . . was doubly connected with the two Americas. The lands
of the ancestors of those whom Ammianus Marcellinus calls the 'Brahmans of
Upper India' stretched from Kashmir far into the (now) deserts of Schamo. A
pedestrian from the north might then have reached -- hardly wetting his feet --
the Alaskan peninsula, through Manchooria, across the future Gulf of Tartary,
the Kurile and Aleutian islands; while another traveller, furnished with a
canoe, and starting from the South, could have walked over from Siam, crossed
the Polynesian Islands and trudged into any part of the continent of South
America." (But see "Five years of Theosophy," art.
"Leaflets from Esoteric History," pp. 338 and 340.) This was written
from the words of a MASTER -- a rather doubtful authority for the materialists
and the sceptics. But here we have one of their own flock, and a bird of the
same feather -- Ernest Haeckel, who, in his distribution of races, corroborates
the statement almost verbatim: . . . . "It would seem that the region on
the earth's surface where the evolution of these primitive men from the CLOSELY
RELATED CATARRHINE APES (! !) took place, must be sought either in Southern
Asia or Eastern Africa [which, by the bye, was not even in existence when the
Third Race flourished -- H.P.B.] or in Lemuria. Lemuria is an ancient continent
now sunk beneath the waters of the Indian Ocean, which, lying to the South of
the Asia of to-day, stretched on the one hand eastwards to upper India and
Sunda Island, on the other westward as far as Madagascar and Africa." (See
supra and compare "The Pedigree of Man," p. 80-81.)
In
the epoch we are treating of, the Continent of "Lemuria," had already
broken asunder in many places, and formed new separate continents. There was,
nevertheless, neither Africa nor the Americas, still less Europe in those days,
all these slumbering yet on the Ocean floors. Nor was there much of present
Asia; for the cis-Himalayan regions were covered with seas, and beyond this
stretched the "lotus leaves" of Sveta-dwipa, the countries now called
Greenland, Eastern and Western Siberia, etc., etc. The immense Continent, which
had once reigned supreme over the Indian, Atlantic, and Pacific Oceans, now consisted
of huge islands which were gradually disappearing one after the other, until
the final convulsion engulfed the last remains of it. Easter Isle, for
instance, belongs to the earliest civilisation of the Third
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Race.
Submerged with the rest, a volcanic and sudden uplifting of the Ocean floor,
raised the small relic of the Archaic ages untouched, with its volcano and
statues, during the Champlain epoch of northern polar submersion, as a standing
witness to the existence of Lemuria. It is said that some of the Australian
tribes are the last remnants of the last descendants of the Third Race.
In
this we are again corroborated to a degree by materialistic Science. Haeckel,
when speaking of Blumenbach's brown or Malay race and the Australians and
Papuans, remarks:-- "There is much likeness between these last and the
Aborigines of Polynesia, that Australian island-world, that seems to have been
once on a time a gigantic and continuous continent." ("Pedigree of
Man," p. 82. But see footnote supra and the Addenda.)
It
certainly was, since it stretched, during the Third Race, east and west, as far
as where the two Americas now lie, and since the present Australia is but a
portion of it, as are also a few surviving islands sown hither and thither on
the face of the Pacific and a large bit of California, which belonged to it.
Funnily enough, Haeckel, in his fantastic "Pedigree of Man," considers
"the Australians of to-day as the lineal descendants, almost unchanged (?
!), of that second branch of the primitive human race. . . that spread
northwards, at first chiefly in Asia, from the home of man's infancy, and seems
to have been the parent of all the other straight-haired races of men. . . .
The one, woolly-haired, migrated in part, westwards" . . . (i.e., to
Africa and northwards to New Guinea, which countries had then, as said, no
existence as yet) . . . "the other, straight-haired, was evolved farther
to the north in Asia . . . . and peopled Australia . . . " (p. 81).
"Behold," writes a MASTER, "the relics of that once great nation
(Lemuria of the Third Race) in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your
Australia" ("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 65). But they belong to the
last remnants of the Seventh Sub-race of the Third. Prof. Haeckel must also
have dreamt a dream and seen for once a true vision!
It
is to this period that we have to look for the first appearance of the
Ancestors of those, who are termed by us the most ancient peoples of the world
-- now called respectively the Aryan Hindus, the Egyptians, and the oldest
Persians, on the one hand, and the Chaldees and Phoenicians on the other. These
were governed by the DIVINE DYNASTIES, i.e., kings and rulers who had of mortal
man only his physical appearance as it was then, but who were Beings from
spheres higher and more celestial than our own sphere will be, long Manvantaras
hence. It is useless of course to attempt to force their existence on sceptics.
Their greatest pride consists in proving their patronymic denomination as
catarrhinides; which fact they try to demonstrate on the alleged
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[[Vol.
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authority
of the Coccyx appended to their os sacrum, that rudimentary tail which, if they
only had it long enough, they would wag in joy and for ever, in honour of its
eminent discoverer. These will remain as faithful to their ape-ancestors as Christians
will to tailless Adam. The Secret Doctrine, however, sets right on this point
theosophists and students of Occult Sciences.
If
we regard the Second portion of the Third Race as the first representatives of
the really human race with solid bones, then Haeckel's surmise that "the
evolution of the primitive men took place . . . . in either Southern Asia or .
. . . Lemuria" -- Africa, whether Eastern or Western being out of question
-- is correct enough, if not entirely so. To be accurate, however, in the same
way that the evolution of the First Race (from the bodies of the pitars) took
place on seven distinctly separated regions of the (then) only Earth at the
arctic pole -- so did the ultimate transformation of the Third occur: it began
in those northern regions, which have just been described a few pages back as
including Behring's Straits, and what there then was of dry land in Central
Asia, when the climate was semi-tropical even in the Arctic regions and most
adapted to the primitive wants of nascent physical man. That region, however,
has been more than once frigid and tropical in turn since the appearance of
man. The commentary tells us that the Third Race was only about the middle
point of its development when:--
"The
axle of the Wheel tilted. The Sun and Moon shone no longer over the heads of
that portion of the SWEAT BORN; people knew snow, ice, and frost, and men,
plants, and animals were dwarfed in their growth. Those that did not perish
REMAINED AS HALF-GROWN BABES* IN SIZE AND INTELLECT. This was the third pralaya
of the races.**
Which
means again, that our globe is subject to seven periodical entire changes which
go pari passu with the races. For the Secret Doctrine teaches that, during this
Round, there must be seven terrestrial pralayas, three occasioned by the change
in the inclination of the earth's axis. It is a law which acts at its appointed
time, and not at all blindly, as science may think, but in strict accordance
and harmony with Karmic law. In Occultism this inexorable law is referred to as
"the great ADJUSTER." Science confesses its ignorance of the cause
producing climatic vicissitudes and such changes in the axial direction, which
are always followed by these vicissitudes; nor does it seem so sure of the
axial changes. And being unable to account for them, it is prepared rather to
deny the axial phenomena altogether, than admit the intelligent Karmic hand and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Half-grown babes" in comparison with their giant Brethren on other
zones. So would we now.
**
Relates to Lemuria.
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[[Vol.
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law
which alone could reasonably explain such sudden changes and their results. It
has tried to account for them by various more or less fantastic speculations;
one of which would be the sudden, and as imaginary, collision of our earth with
a comet (De Boucheporn's hypothesis), as the cause of all the geological
revolutions. But we prefer holding to our esoteric explanation, since FOHAT is
as good as any comet, having, in addition, universal intelligence to guide him.
Thus,
since Vaivasvata Manu's Humanity appeared on this Earth, there have already
been four such axial disturbances; when the old continents -- save the first
one -- were sucked in by the oceans, other lands appeared, and huge mountain
chains arose where there had been none before. The face of the Globe was
completely changed each time; the survival of the fittest nations and races was
secured through timely help; and the unfit ones -- the failures -- were
disposed of by being swept off the earth. Such sorting and shifting does not
happen between sunset and sunrise, as one may think, but requires several
thousands of years before the new house is set in order.
The
Sub-races are subject to the same cleansing process, as also the
side-branchlets (the family-Races). Let one, well-acquainted with astronomy and
mathematics, throw a retrospective glance into the twilight and shadows of the
Past. Let him observe, take notes of what he knows of the history of peoples
and nations, and collate their respective rises and falls with what is known of
astronomical cycles -- especially with the Sidereal year, equal to 25,868 of our
solar years.* If the observer is gifted with the faintest intuition, then will
he find how the weal and woe of nations is intimately connected with the
beginning and close of this sidereal cycle. True, the non-occultist has the
disadvantage that he has no such far distant times to rely upon. He knows
nothing, through exact Science, of what took place nearly 10,000 years ago; yet
he may find consolation in the knowledge or -- if he so prefers -- speculation
on the fate of every one of the modern nations he knows of -- about 16,000
years hence.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There are other cycles, of course, cycles within cycles -- and this is just
that which creates such a difficulty in the calculations of racial events. The
circuit of the ecliptic is completed in 25,868 years. And, with regard to our
Earth, it is calculated that the equinoctial point falls back fifty minutes ten
seconds, annually. But there is another cycle within this one. It is said that
"as the apsis goes forward to meet it at the rate of eleven minutes
twenty-four seconds, annually," (see the article on Astronomy in
Encyclopaedia Britannica), "this would complete a revolution in one
hundred and fifteen thousand three hundred and two years (115,302). The
approximation of the equinox and the apsis is the sum of these motions,
sixty-one minutes thirty-four seconds, and hence the equinox returns to the
same position in relation to the apsis in 21,128 years." We have mentioned
this cycle in Isis Unveiled, Vol. I., in relation to other cycles. Each has a
marked influence on its contemporary race.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Our
meaning is very clear. Every sidereal year the tropics recede from the pole
four degrees in each revolution from the equinoctial points, as the equator
rounds through the Zodiacal constellations. Now, as every astronomer knows, at
present the tropic is only twenty-three degrees and a fraction less than half a
degree from the equator. Hence it has still 2 1/2 degrees to run before the end
of the Sidereal year; which gives humanity in general, and our civilized races
in particular, a reprieve of about 16,000 years.*
After
the Great Flood of the Third Race (the Lemurians) --
"Men
decreased considerably in stature, and the duration of their lives was
diminished. Having fallen down in godliness they mixed with animal races, and
intermarried among giants and Pigmies (the dwarfed races of the Poles) . . .
Many acquired DIVINE, more -- UNLAWFUL knowledge, and followed willingly the
LEFT PATH." (Commentary xxxiii.)
Thus
were the Atlanteans approaching destruction in their turn. How many geological
periods it took to accomplish this fourth destruction? Who can tell. . . . But
we are told that --
-------
(44.)
THEY (the Atlanteans) BUILT GREAT IMAGES, NINE YATIS HIGH (27 feet) -- THE SIZE
OF THEIR BODIES (a). LUNAR FIRES HAD DESTROYED THE LAND OF THEIR FATHERS (the Lemurians).
WATER THREATENED THE FOURTH (Race) (b).
(a)
It is well worth noticing that most of the gigantic statues discovered on
Easter Island, a portion of an undeniably submerged continent -- as also those
found on the outskirts of Gobi, a region which had been submerged for untold
ages -- are all between 20 and 30 feet high. The statues found by Cook on
Easter Island measured almost all twenty-seven feet in height, and eight feet
across the shoulders. (See § "Stones, Witnesses to Giants," at the
end of this Stanza.) The writer is well aware that the modern archaeologists
have decided now that "these statues are not very old," as declared
by one of the high officials of the British Museum, where some of them now are.
But this is one of those arbitrary decisions of modern science which does not
carry much weight.
We
are told that it is after the destruction of "Lemuria" by
subterranean fires that men went on steadily decreasing in stature -- a process
already commenced after their physical FALL -- and that finally, some millions
of years after, they reached between six and seven feet, and are now dwindling
down (as the older Asiatic races) to nearer five than
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See at the end of this Stanza "On the Duration of Ages and Cycles."
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[[Vol.
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six
feet. As Pickering shows, there is in the Malay race (a sub-race of the Fourth
Root Race) a singular diversity of stature; the members of the Polynesian
family (Tahitians, Samoans, and Tonga islanders) are of a higher stature than
the rest of mankind; but the Indian tribes and the inhabitants of the
Indo-Chinese countries are decidedly below the general average. This is easily
explained. The Polynesians belong to the very earliest of the surviving
sub-races, the others to the very last and transitory stock. As the Tasmanians
are now completely extinct, and the Australians rapidly dying out, so will the
other old races soon follow.
(b)
Now, how could those records have been preserved? we may be asked. Even the
knowledge of the Zodiac is denied to the Hindus by our kind and learned
Orientalists, who conclude that the Aryan Hindus knew nothing of it, before the
Greeks brought it into the country. This uncalled-for slander was so
sufficiently refuted by Bailly, and what is more, by the clear evidence of
facts, as not to need very much additional refutation. While the Egyptians have
on their Zodiacs (See Denon's "Voyage en Egypte" Vol. II.)
irrefutable proofs of records having embraced more than three-and-a-half
sidereal years -- or about 87,000 years -- the Hindu calculations cover nearly
thirty-three such years, or 850,000 years. The Egyptian priests assured
Herodotus that the Pole of the Earth and the Pole of the Ecliptic had formerly
coincided. But, as remarked by the author of the Sphinxiad, "These poor
benighted Hindoos have registered a knowledge of Astronomy for ten times 25,000
years since the (last local) Flood (in Asia), or Age of Horror," in the
latitude of India. And they possess recorded observations from the date of the
first Great Flood within the Aryan historical memory -- that which submerged
the last portions of Atlantis, 850,000 years ago. The floods which preceded
are, of course, more traditional than historical.
The
sinking and transformation of Lemuria beginning nearly at the Arctic Circle
(Norway), the Third Race ended its career in Lanka, or rather on that which became
Lanka with the Atlanteans. The small remnant now known as Ceylon is the
Northern highland of ancient Lanka, while the enormous island of that name was,
in the Lemurian period, the gigantic continent described a few pages back. As a
MASTER says (See "Esoteric Buddhism," p. 65):-- "Why should not
your geologists bear in mind that under the continents explored and fathomed by
them . . . . there may be hidden, deep in the fathomless, or rather unfathomed
ocean beds, other and far older continents whose strata have never been
geologically explored; and that they may some day upset entirely their present
theories? Why not admit that our present continents have, like Lemuria and
Atlantis,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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been
several times already submerged, and had the time to re-appear again and bear
their new groups of mankind and civilisations; and that at the first great
geological upheaval at the next cataclysm, in the series of periodical
cataclysms that occur from the beginning to the end of every Round, our already
autopsized continents will go down and the Lemurias and Atlantises come up
again?"
Not
the same identical continents, of course.
But
here an explanation is needed. No confusion need arise as regards the
postulation of a Northern "Lemuria." The prolongation of that great
continent into the North Atlantic Ocean is in no way subversive of the opinions
so widely held as to the site of the lost Atlantis, and one corroborates the
other. It must be noted that the Lemuria, which served as the cradle of the
Third Root-Race, not only embraced a vast area in the Pacific and Indian
Oceans, but extended in the shape of a horse-shoe past Madagascar, round
"South Africa" (then a mere fragment in process of formation),
through the Atlantic up to Norway. The great English fresh-water deposit called
the Wealden -- which every geologist regards as the mouth of a former great
river -- is the bed of the main stream which drained Northern Lemuria in the
Secondary Age. The former reality of this river is a fact of science -- will
its votaries acknowledge the necessity of accepting the Secondary-age Northern
Lemuria, which their data demand? Professor Berthold Seeman not only accepted
the reality of such a mighty continent, but regarded Australia and Europe as
formerly portions of one continent -- thus corroborating the whole
"horse-shoe" doctrine already enunciated. No more striking
confirmation of our position could be given, than the fact that the ELEVATED
RIDGE in the Atlantic basin, 9,000 feet in height, which runs for some two or
three thousand miles southwards from a point near the British Islands, first
slopes towards South America, then shifts almost at right angles to proceed in
a SOUTH-EASTERLY line toward the African coast, whence it runs on southward to
Tristan d'Acunha. This ridge is a remnant of an Atlantic continent, and, could
it be traced further, would establish the reality of a submarine horse-shoe
junction with a former continent in the Indian Ocean. (Cf. chart adapted from
the "Challenger" and "Dolphin" soundings in Mr. Donnelly's,
"Atlantis, the Antediluvian World," p. 47.)
The
Atlantic portion of Lemuria was the geological basis of what is generally known
as Atlantis. The latter, indeed, must be regarded rather as a development of
the Atlantic prolongation of Lemuria, than as an entirely new mass of land
upheaved to meet the special requirements of the Fourth Root-Race. Just as in
the case of Race-evolution, so in that of the shifting and re-shifting of
continental masses, no hard and fast line can be drawn where a new order ends
and another begins. Continuity in natural processes is never broken. Thus the
Fourth Race
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[[Vol.
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Atlanteans
were developed from a nucleus of Northern Lemurian Third Race Men, centred,
roughly speaking, toward a point of land in what is now the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
Their continent was formed by the coalescence of many islands and peninsulas
which were upheaved in the ordinary course of time and became ultimately the
true home of the great Race known as the Atlanteans. After this consummation
was once attained it follows, as stated on the highest "occult"
authority, that "Lemuria should no more be confounded with the Atlantis
Continent, than Europe with America." ("Esoteric Buddhism," p.
58.)
The
above, coming from quarters so discredited by orthodox Science, will, of
course, be regarded by it as a more or less happy fiction. Even the clever work
of Donnelly, already mentioned, is put aside, notwithstanding that its
statements are all confined within a frame of strictly scientific proofs. But
we write for the future. Discoveries in this direction will vindicate the
claims of the Asiatic philosophers, who maintain that Sciences -- Geology,
Ethnology, and History included --were pursued by the Antediluvian nations who
lived an untold number of ages ago. Future finds will justify the correctness
of the present observations of such acute minds as H. A. Taine and Renan. The
former shows that the civilizations of such archaic nations as the Egyptians,
Aryans of India, Chaldeans, Chinese, and Assyrians are the result of preceding
civilizations during "myriads of centuries";* and the latter points
to the fact that, "Egypt at the beginning appears mature, old, and
entirely without mythical and heroic ages, as if the country had never known
youth. Its civilization has no infancy, and its art no archaic period. The
civilization of the Old Monarchy did not begin with infancy. It was already
mature."** To this Professor R. Owen adds that, "Egypt is recorded to
have been a civilized and governed community before the time of Menes";
and Winchell ("Pre-Adamites," p. 120), that "at the epoch of
Menes the Egyptians were already a civilized and numerous people. Manetho tells
us that Athotis, the son of this first king Menes, built the palace of Memphis;
that he was a physician, and left anatomical books."
This
is quite natural if we have to believe the statements of Herodotus, who records
in Euterpe (cxlii.), that the written history of the Egyptian priests dated
from about 12,000 years before his time. But what are 12,000 or even 120,000
years compared with the millions of years elapsed since the Lemurian period?
The latter, however, has not been left without witnesses, its tremendous
antiquity, notwithstanding. The complete records of the growth, development,
social, and even political life of the Lemurians, have been preserved in the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"History of English Literature," p. 23.
**
Quoted in "Atlantis," etc., p. 132.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 335 HOW TO READ SYMBOLS.
secret
annals. Unfortunately, few are those who can read them; and those who could
would still be unable to understand the language, unless acquainted with all
the seven keys of its symbolism. For the comprehension of the Occult Doctrine
is based on that of the seven sciences; which sciences find their expression in
the seven different applications of the secret records to the exoteric texts.
Thus we have to deal with modes of thought on seven entirely different planes of
Ideality. Every text relates to, and has to be rendered from, one of the
following standpoints --
1.
The Realistic plane of thought;
2.
The Idealistic;
3.
The purely Divine or Spiritual.
The
other planes too far transcend the average consciousness, especially of the
materialistic mind, to admit of their being even symbolized in terms of
ordinary phraseology. There is no purely mythical element in any of the ancient
religious texts; but the mode of thought in which they were originally written
has to be found out and closely adhered to during the process of
interpretation. For, it is either symbolical (archaic mode of thought),
emblematical (a later though very ancient mode of thought), parabolical
(allegory), hieroglyphical, or again logo-grammical -- the most difficult
method of all, as every letter, as in the Chinese language, represents a whole
word. Thus, almost every proper name, whether in the Vedas, the "Book of
the Dead," or the Bible (to a degree), is composed of such logograms. No
one who is not initiated into the mystery of the occult religious logography
can presume to know what a name in any ancient fragment means, before he has
mastered the meaning of every letter that composes it. How is it to be expected
that the merely profane thinker, however great his erudition in orthodox
symbolism, so to say -- i.e., in that symbolism which can never get out of the
old grooves of Solar-myth and sexual-worship -- shall penetrate into the
arcana. behind the veil. One who deals with the husk or shell of the dead
letter, and devotes himself to the kaleidoscopic transformation of barren
word-symbols, can never expect to get beyond the vagaries of modern
mythologists.
Thus,
Vaivasvata, Xisuthrus, Deukalion, Noah, etc., etc. -- all the head-figures of
the world-deluges, universal and partial, astronomical or geological -- all
furnish in their very names the records of the causes and effects which led to
the event, if one can but read them fully. All such deluges are based on events
that took place in nature, and stand as historical records, therefore, whether
they were sidereal, geological, or even simply allegorical, of a moral event on
other and higher planes of being. This we believe has now been sufficiently
demonstrated during the long explanation necessitated by the allegorical
Stanzas.
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[[Vol.
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To
speak of a race nine yatis, or 27 feet high, in a work claiming a more
scientific character than "Jack the Giant-Killer," is a somewhat
unusual proceeding. "Where are your proofs?" the writer will be
asked. In History and tradition, is the answer. Traditions about a race of
giants in days of old are universal; they exist in oral and written lore. India
had her Danavas and Daityas; Ceylon had her Rakshasas; Greece, her Titans;
Egypt, her colossal Heroes; Chaldea, her Izdubars (Nimrod); and the Jews their
Emims of the land of Moab, with the famous giants, Anakim (Numbers xiii. 33).
Moses speaks of Og, a king who was nine cubits high (15 ft. 4 in.) and four
wide (Deut. iii. 11), and Goliath was "six cubits and a span in
height" (or 10 ft. 7 in.). The only difference found between the
"revealed Scripture" and the evidence furnished to us by Herodotus,
Diodorus Siculus, Homer, Pliny, Plutarch, Philostratus, etc., etc., is this:
While the pagans mention only the skeletons of giants, dead untold ages before,
relics that some of them had personally seen, the Bible interpreters
unblushingly demand that geology and archaeology should believe, that several
countries were inhabited by such giants in the day of Moses; giants before whom
the Jews were as grasshoppers, and who still existed in the days of Joshua and
David. Unfortunately their own chronology is in the way. Either the latter or
the giants have to be given up. (But see Part III., Addenda, the closing
chapter.)
Of
still standing witnesses to the submerged continents, and the colossal men that
inhabited them, there are still a few. Archaeology claims several such on this
globe, though beyond wondering "what these may be" -- it never made
any serious attempt to solve the mystery. Besides the Easter Island statues
mentioned already, to what epoch do the colossal statues, still erect and
intact near Bamian, belong? Archaeology assigns them to the first centuries of
Christianity (as usual), and errs in this as it does in many other
speculations. A few words of description will show the readers what are the
statues of both Easter Isle and Bamian. We will first examine what is known of
them to orthodox Science. In "The Countries of the World," by Robert
Brown, in Vol. IV., page 43, it is stated that --
"Teapi,
Rapa-nui, or Easter Island, is an isolated spot almost 2,000 miles from the
South American coast. . . . In length it is about twelve miles, in breadth four
. . . and there is an extinct crater 1,050 feet high in its centre. The island
abounds in craters, which have been extinct for so long that no tradition of
their activity remains. . . .
"
. . . But who made the great stone images (p. 44, etc.) which are now the chief
attraction of the island to visitors? No one knows" -- says the reviewer.
"It is more than likely that they were here when the present inhabitants
(a handful of Polynesian savages) arrived. . . . Their workmanship is
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[[Vol.
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of
a high order . . . . and it is believed that the race who formed them were the
frequenters of the natives of Peru and other portions of South America. . .
Even at the date of Cook's visit, some of the statues, measuring 27 feet in
height and eight across the shoulders were lying overthrown, while others still
standing appeared much larger. One of the latter was so lofty that the shade
was sufficient to shelter a party of thirty persons from the heat of the sun.
The platforms on which these colossal images stood averaged from thirty to
forty feet in length, twelve to sixteen broad. . . . all built of hewn stone in
the Cyclopean style, very much like the walls of the Temple of Pachacamac, or
the ruins of Tia-Huanuco in Peru" (vol. iii., pp. 310, 311).
"THERE
IS NO REASON TO BELIEVE THAT ANY OF THE STATUES HAVE BEEN BUILT UP, BIT BY BIT,
BY SCAFFOLDING ERECTED AROUND THEM" -- adds the journal very suggestively
-- without explaining how they could be built otherwise, unless made by giants
of the same size as the statues themselves. One of the best of these colossal
images is now in the British Museum. The images at Ronororaka -- the only ones
now found erect -- are four in number, three deeply sunk in the soil, and one
resting on the back of its head like the head of a man asleep. Their types,
though all are long-headed, are different; and they are evidently meant for portraits,
as the noses, the mouths and chins differ greatly in form, their head-dress,
moreover -- a kind of flat cap with a back piece attached to it to cover the
back portion of the head --showing that the originals were no savages of the
stone period. Verily the question may be asked -- "Who made them?" --
but it is not archaeology nor yet geology that is likely to answer, though the
latter recognizes in the Island a portion of a submerged continent.
But
who cut the Bamian, still more colossal, statues, the tallest and the most
gigantic in the whole world, for Bartholdi's "Statue of Liberty" (now
at New York) is a dwarf when compared with the largest of the five images.
Burnes, and several learned Jesuits who have visited the place, speak of a
mountain "all honeycombed with gigantic cells," with two immense
giants cut in the same rock. They are referred to as the modern Miaotse (vide
supra, quotation from Shoo-King) the last surviving witnesses of the Miaotse
who had "troubled the earth"; the Jesuits are right, and the
Archaeologists, who see Buddhas in the largest of these statues, are mistaken.
For all those numberless gigantic ruins discovered one after the other in our
day, all those immense avenues of colossal ruins that cross North America along
and beyond the Rocky Mountains, are the work of the Cyclopes, the true and
actual Giants of old. "Masses of enormous human bones" were found
"in America, near Misorte," a celebrated modern traveller tells us,
precisely on the spot which local tradition points out as the landing
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[[Vol.
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spot
of those giants who overran America when it had hardly arisen from the waters
(See "De La Vega," Vol. ix., ch. ix.).*
Central
Asian traditions say the same of the Bamian statues. What are they, and what is
the place where they have stood for countless ages, defying the cataclysms
around them, and even the hand of man, as in the instance of the hordes of
Timoor and the Vandal-warriors of Nadir-Shah? Bamian is a small, miserable,
half-ruined town in Central Asia, half-way between Cabul and Balkh, at the foot
of Kobhibaba, a huge mountain of the Paropamisian (or Hindu-Kush) chain, some
8,500 feet above the level of the sea. In days of old, Bamian was a portion of
the ancient city of Djooljool, ruined and destroyed to the last stone by
Tchengis-Khan in the XIIIth century. The whole valley is hemmed in by colossal
rocks, which are full of partially natural and partially artificial caves and
grottoes, once the dwellings of Buddhist monks who had established in them
their viharas. Such viharas are to be met with in profusion, to this day, in
the rock-cut temples of India and the valleys of Jellalabad. It is at the
entrance of some of these that five enormous statues, of what is regarded as
Buddha, have been discovered or rather rediscovered in our century, as the
famous Chinese traveller, Hiouen-Thsang, speaks of, and saw them, when he
visited Bamian in the VIIth century.
When
it is maintained that no larger statues exist on the whole globe, the fact is
easily proven on the evidence of all the travellers who have examined them and
taken their measurements. Thus, the largest is 173 feet high, or seventy feet
higher than the "Statue of Liberty" now at New York, as the latter is
only 105 feet or 34 metres high. The famous Colossus of Rhodes itself, between
whose limbs passed easily the largest vessels of those days, measured only 120 to
130 feet in height. The second statue, cut out in the rock like the first one,
is only 120 feet (15 feet taller than the said "Liberty").** The
third statue is only 60 feet high -- the two others still smaller, the last one
being only a little larger than the average tall man of our present race. The
first and largest of the Colossi represents a man draped in a kind of toga; M.
de Nadeylac thinks (See infra) that the general appearance of the figure, the
lines of the head, the drapery, and especially the large hanging ears, point
out undeniably that Buddha was meant to be represented. But the above proves
nothing. Notwithstanding the fact
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See also "Pneumatologie des Esprits" Vol. III., p. 55, de Mirville.
**
The first and second have, in common with Bartholdi's Statue, an entrance at
the foot, leading by a winding staircase cut in the rock up into the heads of
the statues. The eminent French archeologist and anthropologist, the Marquis de
Nadeylac, justly remarks in his work that there never was in ancient or in
modern times a sculptured human figure more colossal than the first of the two.
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[[Vol.
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that
most of the now existing figures of Buddha, represented in the posture of
Samadhi, have large drooping ears, this is a later innovation and an
afterthought. The primitive idea was due to esoteric allegory. The unnaturally
large ears symbolize the omniscience of wisdom, and were meant as a reminder of
the power of Him who knows and hears all, and whose benevolent love and
attention for all creatures nothing can escape. "The merciful Lord, our
Master, hears the cry of agony of the smallest of the small, beyond vale and
mountain, and hastens to its deliverance":--says a Stanza. Gautama Buddha
was an Aryan Hindu, and an approach to such ears is found only among the
Mongolian Burmese and Siamese, who, as in Cochin, distort them artificially.
The Buddhist monks, who turned the grottos of the Miaotse into Viharas and
cells, came into Central Asia about or in the first century of the Christian
era. Therefore Hiouen Thsang, speaking of the colossal statue, says that
"the shining of the gold ornamentation that overlaid the statue" in
his day "dazzled one's eyes," but of such gilding there remains not a
vestige in modern times. The very drapery, in contrast to the figure itself,
cut out in the standing rock, is made of plaster and modelled over the stone
image. Talbot, who has made the most careful examination, found that this
drapery belonged to a far later epoch. The statue itself has therefore to be
assigned to a far earlier period than Buddhism. Whom does it represent in such
case, it may be asked?
Once
more tradition, corroborated by written records, answers the query, and
explains the mystery. The Buddhist Arhats and Ascetics found the five statues,
and many more, now crumbled down to dust, and as the three were found by them
in colossal niches at the entrance of their future abode, they covered the
figures with plaster, and, over the old, modelled new statues made to represent
Lord Tathagata. The interior walls of the niches are covered to this day with
bright paintings of human figures, and the sacred image of Buddha is repeated
in every group. These frescoes and ornaments -- which remind one of the
Byzantine style of painting -- are all due to the piety of the monk-ascetics,
like some other minor figures and rock-cut ornamentations. But the five statues
belong to the handiwork of the Initiates of the Fourth Race, who sought refuge,
after the submersion of their continent, in the fastnesses and on the summits
of the Central Asian mountain chains. Moreover, the five statues are an imperishable
record of the esoteric teaching about the gradual evolution of the races.
The
largest is made to represent the First Race of mankind, its ethereal body being
commemorated in hard, everlasting stone, for the instruction of future
generations, as its remembrance would otherwise never have
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[[Vol.
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survived
the Atlantean Deluge. The second -- 120 feet high -- represents the sweat-born;
and the third -- measuring 60 feet -- immortalizes the race that fell, and
thereby inaugurated the first physical race, born of father and mother, the
last descendants of which are represented in the Statues found on Easter Isle;
but they were only from 20 to 25 feet in stature at the epoch when Lemuria was
submerged, after it had been nearly destroyed by volcanic fires. The Fourth
Race was still smaller, though gigantic in comparison with our present Fifth
Race, and the series culminated finally in the latter. (See the following
sub-section on "Cyclopean Ruins, and Colossal Stones as Witnesses to
Giants.")
These
are, then, the "Giants" of antiquity, the ante- and post-diluvian
Gibborim of the Bible. They lived and flourished one million rather than
between three and four thousand years ago. The Anakim of Joshua, whose hosts
were as "grasshoppers" in comparison with them, are thus a piece of
Israelite fancy, unless indeed the people of Israel claim for Joshua an
antiquity and origin in the Eocene, or at any rate in the Miocene age, and
change the millenniums of their chronology into millions of years.
In
everything that pertains to prehistoric times the reader ought to bear the wise
words of Montaigne in his mind. Saith the great French philosopher:--
"
. . . It is a sottish presumption to disdaine and condemne that for false,
which unto us seemeth to beare no show of likelihood or truth: which is an
ordinarie fault in those who persuade themselves to be of more sufficiencie
than the vulgar sort.
"
. . . But reason hath taught me, that so resolutely to condemne a thing for
false and impossible, is to assume unto himself the advantage to have the
bounds and limits of God's will, and the power of our common Mother Nature tied
to his sleeve, and that there is no greater folly in the world than to reduce
them to the measure of our capacitie and bounds of our sufficiencie.
"If
we term those things monsters or miracles to which our reason cannot attain,
how many doe such daily present themselves unto our sight? Let us consider
through what cloudes, and how blinde-folde we are led to the knowledge of most
things that passe our hands; verily we shall finde it is rather custome than
Science that receiveth, the strangenesse of them from us: and that those
things, were they newly presented unto us, wee should doubtless deeme them as
much or more unlikely and incredible than any other." (Essays, chap.
xxvi.)
A
fair-minded scholar should, before denying the possibility of our history and
records, search modern History, as well as the universal traditions scattered
throughout ancient and modern literature, for traces left by these marvellous
early races. Few among the unbelievers suspect the wealth of corroborative
evidence which is found scattered about and buried even in the British Museum
alone. The
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reader
is asked to throw one more glance at the subject-matter treated of in the
chapter which follows:--
-------
CYCLOPEAN
RUINS AND COLOSSAL STONES AS WITNESSES TO GIANTS.
In
his enormous works -- Memoires addressees a l'Academie des Sciences -- de
Mirville, carrying out the task of proving the reality of the devil and showing
his abode in every ancient and modern idol, has collected several hundred pages
of "historical evidence" that in the days of miracle -- Pagan and
Biblical -- the stones walked, spoke, delivered oracles, and even sung. That
finally, "Christ-stone," or Christ-Rock, "the spiritual
Rock" that followed "Israel" (I Corinth. x. 4) "became a
Jupiter lapis," swallowed by his father Saturn, "under the shape of a
stone."* We will not stop to discuss the evident misuse and
materialization of Biblical metaphors, simply for the sake of proving the
Satanism of idols, though a good deal might be said** on this subject. But
without claiming any such peripateticism and innate psychic faculties for our
stones, we may collect, in our turn, every available evidence on hand, to show
that (a) had there been no giants to move about such colossal rocks, there
could never have been a Stonehenge, a Carnac (Brittany) and other such
Cyclopean structures; and (b) were there no such thing as MAGIC, there could
never have been so many witnesses to oracular and speaking stones.
In
the Achaica (p. 81) we find Pausanias confessing that, in beginning his work,
he had regarded the Greeks as mighty stupid "for worshipping stones."
But, having reached Arcadia, he adds: "I have changed my way of
thinking." Therefore, without worshipping stones or stone idols and
statues, which is the same -- a crime Roman Catholics are unwise to reproach
Pagans with, as they do likewise -- one may be allowed to believe in what so
many great philosophers and holy men have believed in, without deserving to be
called an "idiot" by modern Pausaniases.
The
reader is referred to Volume VI. of the Academie des Inscriptions (Memoires, p.
518, et seq.) if he would study the various properties of flints and pebbles
from the standpoint of Magic and psychic powers. In a poem on Stones attributed
to Orpheus, those stones are divided into ophites and siderites,
"serpent-stones" and "star-stones." "The 'Ophite'
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pierres Animees et parlantes., p. 283. Theologie de la Pierre, 270.
**
Saturn is Kronos -- "Time." His swallowing Jupiter lapis may turn out
one day a prophecy. "Peter (Cephas, lapis), is the stone on which the
Church of Rome is built" we are assured. But Kronos is as sure "to
swallow it" one day, as he has swallowed Jupiter-lapis and still greater
characters.
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[[Vol.
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is
shaggy, hard, heavy, black, and has the gift of speech; when one prepares to
cast it away, it produces a sound similar to the cry of a child. It is by means
of this stone that Helanos foretold the ruin of Troy, his fatherland . . "
etc. (Falconnet.)
Sanchoniathon
and Philo Byblius, in referring to these betyles, call them "Animated
Stones." Photius repeats what Damascius, Asclepiades, Isidorus and the
physician Eusebius had asserted before him. The latter (Eusebius) never parted
with his ophites, which he carried in his bosom, and received oracles from
them, delivered in a small voice resembling a low whistling.* Arnobius (a holy
man who, "from a Pagan had become one of the lights of the Church,"
Christians tell their readers) confesses he could never meet on his passage with
one of such stones without putting it questions, "which is answered
occasionally in a clear and sharp small voice." Where is the difference
between the Christian and the Pagan ophites, we ask?
It
is also known that the famous stone at Westminster was called liafail --
"the speaking stone," -- which raised its voice only to name the king
that had to be chosen. Cambry (Monuments Celtiques) says he saw it when it
still bore the inscription:--**
"Ni
fallat fatum, Scoti quocumque locatum
Invenient
lapidem, regnasse tenentur ibidem."
Finally,
Suidas speaks of a certain Heraclius, who could distinguish at a glance the
inanimate stones from those which were endowed with motion; and Pliny mentions
stones which "ran away when a hand approached them." (See
Dictionnaire des Religions par l'abbe Bertrand; art. on words Heraclius and
Betyles.)
De
Mirville -- who seeks to justify the Bible -- inquires very pertinently, why
the monstrous stones of Stonehenge were called in days of old chior-gaur (from
Cor, "dance," whence chorea, and gaur, a GIANT), or the dance of
giants? And then he sends the reader to receive his reply from the Bishop of
St. Gildas. But the authors of the Voyage dans le Comte
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The same, of course, as the "small voice" heard by Elijah after the
earthquake at the mouth of the cave. (I Kings xix. 12.)
**
The rocking, or Logan, stones bear various names. The Celts had their
clacha-brath, the "Destiny or judgment-stone"; the divining-stone, or
"stone of the ordeal" and the oracle stone; the moving or animated
stone of the Phoenicians; the rumbling stone of the Irish. Brittany has its
"pierres branlantes" at Huelgoat. They are found in the Old and the
New Worlds: in the British Islands, France, Spain, Italy, Russia, Germany,
etc., as in North America. (See Hodson's "Letters from North
America," Vol. II., p. 440.) Pliny speaks of several in Asia (Hist. Nat.
Lib. I., c. 96), and Apollonius Rhodius expatiates on the rocking stones, and
says that they are "stones placed on the apex of a tumulus, and so
sensitive as to be movable by the mind" (Ackerman's Arth. Index, p. 34),
referring no doubt to the ancient priests who moved such stones by will-power
and from a distance.
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[[Vol.
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de
Cornouailles, sur les traces des giants, and of various learned works on the
ruins of Stonehenge,* Carnac and West Hoadley, give far better and more
reliable information upon this particular subject. In those regions -- true
forests of rocks -- immense monoliths are found, "some weighing over
500,000 kilograms" (Cambry). These "hinging stones" of Salisbury
Plain are believed to be the remains of a Druidical temple. But the Druids were
historical men and not Cyclopes, nor giants. Who then, if not giants, could
ever raise such masses (especially those at Carnac and West Hoadley), range
them in such symmetrical order that they should represent the planisphere, and
place them in such wonderful equipoise that they seem to hardly touch the
ground, are set in motion at the slightest touch of the finger, and would yet
resist the efforts of twenty men who should attempt to displace them.
We
say, that most of these stones are the relics of the last Atlanteans. We shall
be answered that all the geologists claim them to be of a natural origin. That,
a rock when "weathering," i.e., losing flake after flake of its
substance under influence of weather, assumes this form. That, the
"tors" in West England exhibit curious forms, also produced by this
cause. That, finally, as all scientists consider the "rocking stones to be
of purely natural origin, wind, rain, etc., causing disintegration of rocks in
layers" -- our statement will be justly denied, especially as " we
see this process of rock-modification in progress around us to-day." Let
us examine the case.
But
read what Geology has to say, and you will learn that often these gigantic
masses do not even belong to the countries wherein they are now fixed; that
their geological congeners often pertain to strata unknown in those regions and
to be found only far beyond the seas. Mr. William Tooke (French trans.,
Sepulture des Tartares. Arch. VII, p. 222), speculating upon the enormous
blocks of granite which are strewn over Southern Russia and Siberia, tells the
reader that there, where they now rest, there are neither rocks nor mountains;
and that they must have been brought over "from immense distances and with
prodigious efforts." Charton (Voyageurs Anciens et Modernes, Vol. I., p.
230) speaks of a specimen of such rock "from Ireland," which had been
submitted to the analysis of an eminent English geologist, who assigned to it a
foreign origin, "most probably African."
This
is a strange coincidence, as Irish tradition attributes the origin of her
circular stones to a Sorcerer who brought them from Africa. De Mirville sees in
that sorcerer "an accursed Hamite." We see in him a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See, among others, "History of Paganism in Caledonia," by Dr. Th. A.
Wise, F.R.A.S., etc.
**
Ham was no more a Titan or Giant than Shem and Japhet. They are either all
Arkite Titans, as Faber shows them, or myths.
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[[Vol.
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dark
Atlantean, or perhaps even some earlier Lemurian, who had survived till the
birth of the British Islands -- GIANTS in every and any case.*
"Men,"
says Cambry, naively, "have nothing to do with it . . . for never could
human power and industry undertake anything of this kind. Nature alone has
accomplished it all (!!) and Science will demonstrate it some day" (!!)
(p. 88). Nevertheless, it is a human, though gigantic power, which has
accomplished it, and no more "nature" alone than god or devil.
"Science,"
having undertaken to demonstrate that even the mind and Spirit of man are
simply the production of blind forces, is quite capable of accepting the task.
It may come out some fine morning, and seek to prove that nature alone has
marshalled the gigantic rocks of Stonehenge, traced their position with
mathematical precision, given them the form of the Dendera planisphere and of
the signs of the Zodiac, and brought stones weighing over one million of pounds
flying from Africa and Asia to England and Ireland!
It
is true that Cambry recanted later on. "I had believed for a long
time," he says, "that Nature alone could produce those wonders . . .
. but I recant . . . . chance is unable to create such marvellous combinations
. . . . and those who placed the said rocks in equipoise, are the same who have
raised the moving masses of the pond of Huelgoat, near Concarneau. . . .
." Dr. John Watson, quoted by the same author "Antiquites
Celtiques," p. 99, says, when speaking of the moving rocks, or
Rocking-Stones situated on the slope of Golcar (the "Enchanter"):
"The astonishing movement of those masses poised in equilibrium made the
Celts compare them to gods." . . . .
In
"Stonehenge" (Flinders Petrie) it is said that "Stonehenge is
built of the stone of the district, a red sandstone, or 'sarsen' stone, locally
called 'grey wethers.' But some of the stones, especially those which are said
to have been devoted to astronomical purposes, have been brought from a
distance, probably the North of Ireland."
To
close, the reflections of a man of Science, in an article upon the subject published
in 1850 in the Revue Archeologique (p. 473), are worthy of being quoted. Says
the paper, concerning the rocking stones:--
"Every
stone is a block whose weight would try the most powerful machines. There are,
in a word, scattered throughout the globe, masses, before which the word
materials seems to remain inexplicable, at the sight of which imagination is
confounded, and that had to be endowed with a name as colossal as the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Diodorus Siculus asserts that in the days of Isis, all men were of a vast
stature, who were denominated by the Hellenes Giants. [Gk chars] "[Oi d'en
Aiguptoi muthologousi kata ten Isidos helikian gegonenai tinas
polusomatous]."
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[[Vol.
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things
themselves. Besides which, these immense rocking stones, called sometimes
routers -- placed upright on one of their sides as on a point, their equipoise
being so perfect that the slightest touch is sufficient to set them in motion .
. . betray a most positive knowledge of statics. Reciprocal counter-motion,
surfaces, plane, convex and concave, in turn . . . all this allies them to
Cyclopean monuments, of which it can be said with good reason, repeating after
de La Vega that 'the demons seem to have worked on them more than men.' "*
For
once we agree with our friends and foes, the Roman Catholics, and ask whether
such prodigies of statics and equilibrium, applied to masses weighing millions
of pounds, can be the work of Palaeolithic savages, of cave-men, taller than
the average man in our century, yet ordinary mortals as we are? It is no use
for our purpose to refer to the various traditions attached to the
rocking-stones. Still, it may be as well to remind the English reader of
Giraldus Cambrensis, who speaks of such a stone on the Isle of Mona, which
returned to its place, every effort made to keep it elsewhere notwithstanding.
At the time of the conquest of Ireland by Henry II., a Count Hugo Cestrensis,
desiring to convince himself of the reality of the fact, tied the Mona stone to
a far bigger one and had them thrown into the sea. On the following morning it
was found in its accustomed place. . . The learned William of Salisbury
warrants the fact by testifying to its presence in the wall of a church where
he had seen it in 1554. . . And this reminds one of what Pliny said of the
stone left by the Argonauts at Cyzicum, which the Cyzicans had placed in the
Prytanea "whence it ran away several times, which forced them to lead
it" (Nat. Hist., XXXVI., p. 592) . . . Here we have immense stones stated
by all antiquity to be "living, moving, speaking and
self-perambulating." They were also capable, it seems, of making people
run away, since they have been called routers ("to put to flight," to
rout) and Des Mousseaux shows them all to be prophetic stones and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"It is difficult," writes Creuzer, "not to suspect in the
structures of Tiryns and Mycenae planetary forces supposed to be moved by
celestial powers, analogous to the famous Dactyles." (Pelasges et
Cyclopes). To this day Science is ignorant on the subject of the Cyclopes. They
are supposed to have built all the so-called "Cyclopean" works whose
erection necessitated several regiments of Giants, and -- they were only
seventy-seven in all (about one hundred, Creuzer thinks). They are called
"Builders," and Occultism calls them the INITIATORS, who, initiating
some Pelasgians, thus laid the foundation stone of true MASONRY. Herodotus
associates the Cyclops with Perseus "the son of an Assyrian demon"
(I. VI. p. 54). Raoul Rochette found that Palaemonius, the Cyclops, to whom a
sanctuary was raised, "was the Tyrian Hercules." Anyhow, he was the
builder of the sacred columns of Gadir, covered with mysterious characters to
which Apollonius of Tyana was the only one in his age to possess the key; and
with figures which may still be found on the walls of Ellora, the gigantic
ruins of the temple of Viswakarma, "the builder and artificer of the
Gods."
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[[Vol.
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called
mad stones (see his, "Dieu et les Dieux," p. 587). "The
rocking-stone is accepted in Science. Why did it rock, why was it made to do
so? One must be blind not to see that this motion was one more means of
divination, and that they were called for this very reason 'the stones of
truth.' " (de Mirville, "Fetichisme")*
This
is history, the Past of prehistoric times, warranting the same in later ages.
The Dracontia, sacred to the moon and the serpent, were the more ancient
"Rocks of Destiny" of older nations, whose motion, or rocking, was a
code perfectly clear to the initiated priests, who alone had the key to this
ancient reading. Vormius and Olaius Magnus show that it was according to the
orders of the oracle, "whose voice spoke through the immense rocks raised
by the colossal powers of ancient giants," that the kings of Scandinavia
were elected. "In India and Persia," says Pliny, "it is she (the
Persian Oitzoe) whom the magi had to consult for the election of their
sovereigns" (Nat. Hist., lxxxvii., chap. LIV.); and he describes (in chap.
XXXVIII., 1. ii.) a rock overshadowing Harpasa, in Asia, and placed in such a
manner that "a single finger
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Messrs. Richardson and Barth are said to have been amazed at finding in the Desert
of Sahara the same trilithic and raised stones they had seen in Asia,
Circassia, Etruria, and in all the North of Europe. Mr. Rivett-Carnac, B.C.S.,
of Allahabad, the distinguished Archaeologist, shows the same amazement in
finding the description given by Sir J. Simpson of the cuplike markings on
stones and rocks in England, Scotland, and other Western countries --
"offering an extraordinary resemblance" to "the marks on the
trap Boulders which encircle the Barrows near Nagpur" (the city of
Snakes). The eminent scholar saw in this "another and very extraordinary
addition to the mass of evidence. . . that a branch of the nomadic tribes, who
swept at an early date over Europe, penetrated into India also." We say
Lemuria, Atlantis and her giants, and the earliest races of the Fifth Root-Race
had all a hand in these betyles, lithoi, and "magic" stones in
general. The cup marks noticed by Sir J. Simpson, and the "holes scooped
out on the face" of rocks and monuments found by Mr. Rivett-Carnac
"of different sizes varying from six inches to an inch-and-a-half in
diameter, and in depth from one to one-and-a-half inch . . . . . . generally
arranged in perpendicular lines presenting many permutations in the number and
size and arrangement of the cups" -- are simply written RECORDS of the
oldest races. Whosoever examines with attention the drawings made of such marks
in the "Archaeological Notes on Ancient Sculpturing on Rocks in Kumaon,
India, etc.," will find in it the most primitive style of marking or
recording; something of the sort having been adopted by the American inventors
of the Morse code of telegraphic writing, which reminds us of the Ahgam
writing, a combination of Iong and short strokes, as Mr. Rivett-Carnac
describes it "cut on sandstone." Sweden, Norway, and Scandinavia are
full of such written records, the Runic characters having followed the
cup-marks and long and short strokes. In "Johannes Magnus' Infolio"
one sees the representation of the demi-god, the giant Starchaterus (Starkad, the
pupil of Kroszharsgrani, the Magician) who holds under each arm a huge stone
covered with Runic characters; and Starkad, according to Scandinavian legend,
went to Ireland and performed marvellous deeds in the North and South, East and
West. (See "Asgard and the Gods.")
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[[Vol.
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can
move it, while the weight of the whole body makes it resist." Why then
should not the rocking stones of Ireland, or those of Brinham, in Yorkshire,
have served for the same mode of divination or oracular communications? The
hugest of them are evidently the relics of the Atlanteans; the smaller ones,
such as Brinham Rocks, with some revolving stones on their summit, are copies
from the more ancient lithoi. Had not the bishops of the middle ages destroyed
all the plans of the Dracontia they could lay their hands on, Science would
know more of these.* As it is, we know that they were universally used during
long prehistoric ages, and all for the same purposes of prophecy and MAGIC. E.
Biot, a member of the Institute of France, published in his Antiquites de
France, Vol. ix., an article showing the Chatam peramba (the Field of Death, or
ancient burial ground in Malabar), to be identical with the old tombs at Carnac
-- "a prominence and a central tomb." . . . "Bones are found in
them (the tombs)," he says, "and Mr. Hillwell tells us that some of
these are enormous, the natives (of Malabar) calling the tombs the dwellings of
Rakshasas (giants)." Several stone circles, "considered the work of
the Panch Pandava (five Pandus), as all such monuments are in India, so
numerous in that country," when opened by the direction of Rajah
Vasariddi, "were found to contain human bones of a very large size."
(T. A. Wise, in "History of Paganism in Caledonia," p. 36).
Again,
de Mirville is right in his generalization, if not in his conclusions. As the
long cherished theory that the Dracontia are mostly witnesses to "great
natural geological commotions" (Charlton), and "are the work of
Nature" (Cambry) is now exploded, his remarks are very just. "Before
the impossibility of such a theory is asserted, we advise Science to reflect .
. . . and, above all, no longer to class Titans and Giants among primitive
legends: for their works are there, under our eyes, and those rocking stones
will oscillate on their basis to the end of the world to help them to see
clearer and realise once for all, that one is not altogether a candidate for
Charenton for believing in wonders certified to by the whole of Antiquity"
("Fetichisme," p. 288).
It
is just what we can never repeat too often, though the voices of both
Occultists and Roman Catholics are raised in the desert. Nevertheless, no one
can fail to see that Science is as inconsistent, to say the least, in its
modern speculations, as was ancient and mediaeval theology in its
interpretations of the so-called Revelation. Science would have men descend
from the pithecoid ape -- a transformation requiring millions of years -- and yet
fears to make mankind older than 100,000 years! Science teaches the gradual
transformation of species,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Charton, the Author of "Voyageurs anciens et modernes," quoted by de
Mirville.
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[[Vol.
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natural
selection and evolution from the lowest form to the highest; from mollusc to
fish, from reptile to bird and mammalian. Yet it refuses to man, who
physiologically is only a higher mammal and animal, such transformation of his
external form. But if the monstrous iguanodon of the Wealden may have been the
ancestor of the diminutive iguana of to-day, why could not the monstrous man of
the Secret Doctrine have become the modern man -- the link between Animal and
Angel? Is there anything more unscientific in this "theory," than in
that of refusing to man any spiritual immortal Ego, making of him an automaton,
and ranking him, at the same time, as a distinct genus in the system of Nature?
Occult Sciences may be less scientific than the present exact Sciences, they
are withal more logical and consistent in their teachings. Physical forces, and
natural affinities of atoms may be sufficient as factors to transform a plant
into an animal; but it requires more than a mere interplay between certain
material aggregates and their environment, to call to life a fully conscious
man; even though he were no more indeed than a ramification between two "poor
cousins" of the Quadrumanous order. Occult Sciences admit with Haeckel
that (objective) life on our globe "is a logical postulate of Scientific
natural history," but add that the rejection of a like Spiritual
involution, from within without, of invisible subjective Spirit-life -- eternal
and a Principle in Nature -- is more illogical, if possible, than to say that
the Universe and all in it has been gradually built by blind forces inherent in
matter, without any external help.
Suppose
an Occultist were to claim that the first grand organ of a cathedral had come
originally into being in the following manner. First, there was a progressive
and gradual elaboration in Space of an organizable material, which resulted in
the production of a state of matter named organic PROTEIN. Then, under the
influence of incident forces, those states having been thrown into a phase of
unstable equilibrium, they slowly and majestically evolved into and resulted in
new combinations of carved and polished wood, of brass pins and staples, of
leather and ivory, wind-pipes and bellows. After which, having adapted all its
parts into one harmonious and symmetrical machine, the organ suddenly pealed
forth Mozart's Requiem. This was followed by a Sonata of Beethoven, etc., ad
infinitum; its keys playing of themselves and the wind blowing into the pipes
by its own inherent force and fancy. . . . . What would Science say to such a
theory? Yet, it is precisely in such wise that the materialistic savants tell
us that the Universe was formed, with its millions of beings, and man, its
spiritual crown.
Whatever
may have been the real inner thought of Mr. Herbert Spencer, when writing on
the subject of the gradual transformation of
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[[Vol.
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species,
what he says in it applies to our doctrine. "Construed in terms of
evolution, every kind of being is conceived as a product of modifications
wrought by insensible gradations on a pre-existing kind of being."
("Essays on Physiology," Subj. p. 144.) Then why, in this case,
should not historical man be the product of a modification on a pre-existent
and pre-historical kind of man, even supposing for argument's sake that there
is nothing within him to last longer than, or live independently of, his
physical structure? But this is not so! For, when we are told that
"organic matters are produced in the laboratory by what we may literally
call artificial evolution" (Appendix to "Principles of Biology,"
p. 482), we answer the distinguished English philosopher, that Alchemists and
great adepts have done as much, and, indeed, far more, before the chemists ever
attempted to "build out of dissociated elements complex
combinations." The Homunculi of Paracelsus are a fact in Alchemy, and will
become one in Chemistry very likely, and then Mrs. Shelley's Frankenstein will
have to be regarded as a prophecy. But no chemist, or Alchemist either, will
ever endow such a "Frankenstein's Monster" with more than animal
instinct, unless indeed he does that which the "Progenitors" are
credited with, namely, if he leaves his own physical body, and incarnates in
the "empty form." But even this would be an artificial, not a natural
man, for our "Progenitors" had, in the course of eternal evolution,
to become gods before they became men.
The
above digression, if one, is an attempt at justification before the few
thinking men of the coming century who may read this. But this accounts also for
the reason why the best and most spiritual men of our present day can no longer
be satisfied with either Science or theology; and why they prefer any such
"psychic craze" to the dogmatic assertions of both, neither of the
two having anything better to offer than blind faith in their respective
infallibility. Universal tradition is indeed the far safer guide in life. And
universal tradition shows primitive man living for ages together with his
Creators and first instructors -- the Elohim -- in the World's "Garden of
Eden," or "Delight." We shall treat of the Divine Instructors in
Stanza XII.
-------
45.
THE FIRST GREAT WATERS CAME. THEY SWALLOWED THE SEVEN GREAT ISLANDS (a).
-------
46.
ALL HOLY SAVED, THE UNHOLY DESTROYED. WITH THEM MOST OF THE HUGE ANIMALS
PRODUCED FROM THE SWEAT OF THE EARTH (b).
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[[Vol.
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(a)
As this subject -- the fourth great deluge on our globe in this Round -- is
fully treated in the chapters that follow the last Stanza, to say anything more
at present would be mere repetition. The seven great islands (Dwipas) belonged
to the continent of Atlantis. The secret teachings show that the
"Deluge" overtook the Fourth, giant Race, not on account of their
depravity, or because they had become "black with sin," but simply
because such is the fate of every continent, which -- like everything else
under our Sun -- is born, lives, becomes decrepit, and dies. This was when the
Fifth Race was in its infancy.
(b)
Thus the giants perished -- the magicians and the sorcerers, adds the fancy of
popular tradition, but "all holy saved," and alone the "unholy
were destroyed." This was due, however, as much to the prevision of the
"holy" ones, who had not lost the use of their "third eye,"
as to Karma and natural law. Speaking of the subsequent race (our Fifth
Humanity), the commentary says:--
"Alone
the handful of those Elect, whose divine instructors had gone to inhabit that
Sacred Island -- 'from whence the last Saviour will come' -- now kept mankind
from becoming one-half the exterminator of the other [as mankind does now --
H.P.B.]. It (mankind) became divided. Two-thirds of it were ruled by Dynasties
of lower, material Spirits of the earth, who took possession of the easily
accessible bodies; one-third remained faithful, and joined with the nascent
Fifth Race -- the divine Incarnates. When the Poles moved (for the fourth time)
this did not affect those who were protected, and who had separated from the
Fourth Race. Like the Lemurians -- alone the ungodly Atlanteans perished, and
'were seen no more . . . . ."
-------
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[[Vol.
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STANZA
XII.
THE
FIFTH RACE AND ITS DIVINE INSTRUCTORS.
-------
§§
(47) The remnants of the first two races disappear for ever. Groups of the
various Atlantean races saved from the Deluge along with the Forefathers of the
Fifth. (48) The origins of our present Race, the Fifth. The first divine
Dynasties. (49) The earliest glimmerings in History, now pinned to the
allegorical chronology of the Bible, and "universal" History
slavishly following it. -- The nature of the first instructors and civilizers
of mankind.
---------------------
47.
FEW (men) REMAINED. SOME YELLOW, SOME BROWN AND BLACK, AND SOME RED, REMAINED.
THE MOON-COLOURED (of the primitive Divine Stock) WERE GONE FOR EVER (a) . . .
.
48.
THE FIFTH RACE PRODUCED FROM THE HOLY STOCK (remained). IT WAS RULED BY HER
FIRST DIVINE KINGS.
49.
THE "SERPENTS" WHO RE-DESCENDED; WHO MADE PEACE WITH THE FIFTH
(Race), WHO TAUGHT AND INSTRUCTED IT (b) . . . .
(a)
This verse (47) relates to the Fifth Race. History does not begin with it, but
living and ever-recurring tradition does. History -- or what is called history
-- does not go further back than the fantastic origins of our fifth sub-race, a
"few thousands" of years. It is the sub-divisions of this first sub-race
of the Fifth Root-Race which are referred to in the sentence, "Some
yellow, some brown and black, and some red, remained." The "moon
coloured" (i.e., the First and the Second Races) were gone for ever -- ay,
without leaving any traces whatever; and that, so far back as the third
"Deluge" of the Third Lemurian race, that "Great Dragon,"
whose tail sweeps whole nations out of existence in the twinkling of an eye.
And this is the true meaning of the Verse in the COMMENTARY which says:
"The
GREAT DRAGON has respect but for the 'SERPENTS' of WISDOM, the Serpents whose
holes are now under the triangular stones," i.e., "the Pyramids, at
the four corners of the world."
(b)
This tells us clearly that which is mentioned more than once elsewhere in the
Commentaries; namely, that the Adepts or "Wise" men of the three
Races (the Third, Fourth and the Fifth) dwelt in subterranean habitats,
generally under some kind of pyramidal structure, if not
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[[Vol.
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actually
under a pyramid. For such "pyramids" existed in the four corners of
the world and were never the monopoly of the land of the Pharaohs, though until
found scattered all over the two Americas, under and over ground, beneath and
amidst virgin forests, as in plain and vale, they were supposed to be the
exclusive property of Egypt. If the true geometrically correct pyramids are no
longer found in European regions, many of the supposed early neolithic caves,
of the colossal triangular, pyramidal and conical menhirs in the Morbihan, and
Brittany generally; many of the Danish tumuli and even of the "giant
tombs" of Sardinia with their inseparable companions, the nuraghi, are so
many more or less clumsy copies of the pyramids. Most of these are the works of
the first settlers on the newly-born continent and isles of Europe, the --
"some yellow, some brown and black, and some red" -- races that
remained after the submersion of the last Atlantean continents and islands
(850,000 years ago), with the exception of Plato's Atlantean island, and before
the arrival of the great Aryan races; while others were built by the earliest
immigrants from the East. Those who can hardly accept the antiquity of the
human race so far back as the 57,000 years assigned by Dr. Dowler to the
skeleton found by him at New Orleans on the banks of the Mississippi, will, of
course, reject these facts. But they may find themselves mistaken some day. It
is the foolish self-glorification of the Arcadians who styled themselves
[[proselenoi]] -- older than the moon -- and of the people of Attica, who
claimed that they had existed before the sun appeared in heaven, that we may
disparage, not their undeniable antiquity. Nor can we laugh at the universal
belief that we had giant ancestors. The fact that the bones of the mammoth and
mastodon, and, in one case, those of a gigantic salamander, have been mistaken
for human bones, does not make away with the difficulty that, of all the
mammalians, man is the only one whom science will not allow to have dwarfed
down, like all other animal frames, from the giant homo diluvii to the creature
between 5 and 6 feet that he is now.
But
the "Serpents of Wisdom" have preserved their records well, and the
history of the human evolution is traced in heaven as it is traced on
underground walls. Humanity and the stars are bound together indissolubly,
because of the intelligences that rule the latter.
Modern
symbologists may scoff at this and call it "fancy," but "it is
unquestionable that the Deluge has (ever) been associated in the legends of
some Eastern peoples not only with the Pyramids, but also with the
constellations," writes Mr. Staniland Wake ("The Great
Pyramid"). The "Old Dragon" is identical with the "great
Flood," says Mr. Proctor (in "Knowledge," Vol. I., p. 243):
"We know that in the past the constellation of the Dragon was at the pole,
or boss, of the celestial sphere. In stellar temples . . . the Dragon would be
the
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[[Vol.
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uppermost
or ruling constellation . . . it is singular how closely the constellations . .
. correspond in sequence and in range of right ascension with the events
recorded respecting the (Biblical) Flood."
The
reasons for this singularity have been made clear in this work. But it shows
only that there were several Deluges mixed up in the memories and traditions of
the sub-races of the Fifth Race. The first great "Flood" was astronomical
and cosmical, while several others were terrestrial. Yet, this did not prevent
our very learned friend Mr. Gerald Massey -- an Initiate truly in the mysteries
of the British Museum, still only a Self-initiate -- from declaring and
insisting that the Atlantean submersion and Deluge were only the
anthropomorphized fancies of ignorant people; and that Atlantis was no better
than an astronomical allegory. Nevertheless, the great Zodiacal allegory is
based upon historical events, and one can hardly interfere with the other; and
it stands also to reason that every student of Occultism knows what that
astronomical and zodiacal allegory means. Smith shows in the Nimrod Epic of the
Assyrian tablets the real meaning of it. Its "twelve cantos" refer to
the "annual course of the Sun through the twelve months of the year. Each
tablet answers to a special month, and contains a distinct reference to the
animal forms in the signs of the Zodiac"; the eleventh canto being
"consecrated to Rimmon, the God of storms and of rain, and harmonizes with
the eleventh sign of the Zodiac -- Aquarius, or the Waterman" (Nineteenth
Century, 1882, p. 236). But even this is preceded in the old records by the
pre-astronomical Cosmic FLOOD, which became allegorized and symbolized in the
above Zodiacal or Noah's Flood. But this has nothing to do with Atlantis. The
Pyramids are closely connected with the ideas of both the Great Dragon (the
constellation), the "Dragons of Wisdom," or the great Initiates of
the Third and Fourth Races, and the Floods of the Nile, regarded as a divine
reminder of the great Atlantic Flood. The astronomical records of Universal
History, however, are said to have had their beginnings with the Third Sub-race
of the Fourth Root-race or the Atlanteans. When was it? Occult data show that
even since the time of the regular establishment of the Zodiacal calculations
in Egypt, the poles have been thrice inverted.
We
will presently return once more to this statement. Such symbols as are
represented by the Signs of the Zodiac -- a fact which offers a handle to
materialists upon which to hang their one-sided theories and opinions -- have
too profound a signification, and their bearing upon our Humanity is too
important to suffer dismissal in a few words. Meanwhile, we have to consider
the meaning of that other statement which mentions (verse 48) the first divine
Kings, who are said to have "redescended," guided and instructed our
Fifth Race after the last deluge!
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[[Vol.
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We
shall consider this last claim historically in the sections that follow, but
must end with a few more details on the subject of "Serpents."
The
rough commentaries on the Archaic Stanzas have to end here. Further elucidation
requires proofs obtained from ancient, mediaeval, and modern works that have
treated of these subjects. All such evidence has now to be gathered in,
collated and brought together in better order, so as to compel the attention of
the reader to this wealth of historical proofs. And as the manifold meaning of
the weird symbol -- so often referred to and suggestive of the "tempter of
man" in the orthodox light of the church -- can never be too strongly
insisted upon, it seems more advisable to exhaust the subject by every
available proof at this juncture, even at the risk of repetition. The Titans
and Kabirs have been invariably made out by our theologians and some pious
symbologists as indissolubly connected with the grotesque personage called
devil, and every proof to the contrary has been hitherto as invariably rejected
and ignored; therefore, the occultist must neglect nothing which may tend to
defeat this conspiracy of slander. It is proposed to divide the subjects
involved in these three last verses into several groups, and examine them in
this final chapter as carefully and as fully as space permits. A few more
details may thus be added to the general evidences of antiquity, on the most
disputed tenets of Occultism and the Esoteric Doctrine -- the bulk of which
will be found in Part II. on Symbology.
-------
SERPENTS
AND DRAGONS UNDER DIFFERENT SYMBOLISMS.
The
name of the Dragon in Chaldea was not written phonetically, but was represented
by two monograms, probably meaning, according to the Orientalists, "the
scaly one." "This description," very pertinently remarks G.
Smith, "of course might apply either to a fabulous dragon, a serpent, or a
fish," and we may add: "It applies in one case to Makara, the tenth
Zodiacal sign, meaning in Sanskrit a non-descript amphibious animal, generally
called Crocodile, and really signifying something else. (Vide Part II.,
"The Mysteries of the Hebdomad.") This, then, is a virtual admission
that the Assyriologists, at all events, know nothing certain as to the status
of the "Dragon" in ancient Chaldea, whence the Hebrews got their
symbolism, only to be afterwards robbed of it by the Christians, who made of
the "Scaly one" a living entity and a maleficent power.
A
specimen of Dragons, "winged and scaled," may be seen in the British
Museum. Representing the events of the Fall according to the same authority,
there are also two figures sitting on each side of a tree, and holding out
their hands to the "apple," while at the back of the "Tree"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
the Dragon-Serpent. Esoterically, the two figures are two "Chaldees"
ready for initiation, the Serpent symbolising the "Initiator"; while the
jealous gods, who curse the three, are the exoteric profane clergy. Not much of
the literal "Biblical event" there, as any occultist can see.
"The
Great Dragon has respect but for the Serpents of Wisdom," says the Stanza;
thus proving the correctness of our explanation of the two figures and the
"Serpent."
"The
Serpents who redescended . . . . who taught and instructed" the Fifth
Race. What sane man is capable of believing in our day that real serpents are
hereby meant? Hence the rough guess, now become almost an axiom with the men of
science, that those who wrote in antiquity upon various sacred Dragons and
Serpents either were superstitious and credulous people, or were bent upon
deceiving those more ignorant than themselves. Yet, from Homer downwards, the
term implied something hidden from the profane.
"Terrible
are the gods when they manifest themselves" -- those gods whom men call
Dragons. And AElianus, treating in his "De Natura Animalium" of these
Ophidean symbols, makes certain remarks which show that he understood well the
nature of this most ancient of symbols. Thus he most pertinently explains with
regard to the above Homeric verse -- "For the Dragon, while sacred and to
be worshipped, has within himself something still more of the divine nature of
which it is better (for others?) to remain in ignorance" (Book xi., ch.
17).
This
"Dragon" having a septenary meaning, the highest and the lowest may
be given. The former is identical with the "Self-born," the Logos
(the Hindu Aja). He was the second person of the Trinity, the SON, with the
Christian Gnostics called the Naasenians, or Serpent-Worshippers. His symbol
was the constellation of the Dragon.* Its seven "stars" are the seven
stars held in the hand of the "Alpha and Omega" in Revelation. In its
most terrestrial meaning, the term "Dragon" was applied to the Wise
men.
This
portion of the religious symbolism of antiquity is very abstruse and
mysterious, and may remain incomprehensible to the profane. In our modern day
it so jars on the Christian ear that it can hardly escape, all civilization
notwithstanding, being regarded as a direct denunciation of the most cherished
Christian dogmas, the subject of which required, to do it justice, the pen and
genius of Milton, whose poetical fiction has now taken root in the Church as a
revealed dogma.
Did
the allegory of the Dragon and his supposed conqueror in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As shown by H. Lizeray in the "Trinite Chretienne Devoilee" -- placed
between the immutable Father (the Pole, a fixed Point) and mutable matter, the
Dragon transmits to the latter the influences received by him from the Pole,
whence his name -- the Verbum.
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[[Vol.
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Heaven
originate with St. John, and in his Revelation? Emphatically we answer -- No.
His "Dragon" is Neptune, the symbol of Atlantean magic.
To
demonstrate the negation the reader is asked to examine the symbolism of the
Serpent or the Dragon under its several aspects.
-------
THE
SIDEREAL AND COSMIC GLYPHS.
Every
astronomer -- besides Occultists and Astrologers -- knows that, figuratively,
the astral light, the milky way, and also the path of the Sun to the tropics of
Cancer and Capricorn, as well as the circles of the Sidereal or Tropical year,
were always called "Serpents" in the allegorical and mystic
phraseology of the adepts.
This,
cosmically, as well as metaphorically. Poseidon is a "Dragon":
"Chozzar, called by the profane Neptune" (Peratae Gnostics); the
"Good and Perfect Serpent," the Messiah of the Naaseni, whose symbol
in Heaven is Draco.
But
one ought to discriminate between the characters of this symbol. For instance:
Zoroastrian Esotericism is identical with that of the Secret Doctrine; and
when, as an example, we read in the Vendidad complaints uttered against the
"Serpent," whose bites have transformed the beautiful, eternal spring
of Airyana-Vaego, changing it into winter, generating disease and death, at the
same time as mental and psychic consumption, every occultist knows that the
Serpent alluded to is the north pole, as also the pole of the heavens.* The
latter produces the seasons according to the angle at which it penetrates the
centre of the earth. The two axes were no more parallel; hence the eternal
spring of Airyana Vaego by the good river Daitya had disappeared, and "the
Aryan Magi had to emigrate to Sagdiani" -- say the exoteric accounts. But
the esoteric teaching states that the pole had passed through the equator, and
that the "land of bliss" of the Fourth Race, its inheritance from the
Third, had now become the region of desolation and woe. This alone ought to be
an incontrovertible proof of the great antiquity of the Zoroastrian Scriptures.
The Neo-Aryans of the post-diluvian age could, of course, hardly recognise the
mountains, on the summits of which their forefathers had met before the Flood,
and conversed with the pure "Yazathas" (celestial Spirits of the
Elements), whose life and food they had once shared. As shown by Eckstein
(Revue Archeologique, 8th year, 1885), "the Vendidad seems to point out a
great change in the atmosphere of central Asia; strong volcanic eruptions and
the collapse of a whole range of mountains in the neighbourhood of the
Kara-Korum chain."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Symbolized by the Egyptians under the form of a Serpent with a hawk's head.
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[[Vol.
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The
Egyptians, according to Eusebius, who for once (and for a wonder) wrote the
truth, symbolised Kosmos by a large fiery circle, representing a serpent with a
hawk's head lying across its diameter. "Here we have the pole of the earth
within the plane of the ecliptic, attended with all the fiery consequences that
must arise from such a state of the heavens: when the whole Zodiac in 25,000
(odd) years, must have reddened with the solar blaze, and each sign must have
been vertical to the polar region." (See Mackey's "Sphinxiad.")
Meru
-- the abode of the gods -- was placed, as before explained, in the North Pole,
while Patala, the nether region, was supposed to lie in the South. As each
symbol in esoteric philosophy has seven keys, geographically, Meru and Patala
have one significance and represent localities; while astronomically, they have
another, and mean "the two poles," which meanings ended by their
being often rendered in exoteric sectarianism -- the "Mountain" and
the "Pit," or Heaven and Hell. If we hold at present only to the
astronomical and geographical significance, it may be found that the ancients
knew the topography and nature of the Arctic and Antarctic regions better than
any of our modern astronomers; they had reasons, and good ones for naming one
the "Mountain" and the other the "Pit." As the author just
quoted half explains, Helion and Acheron meant nearly the same: "Heli-on is
the Sun in the highest" (Helios, Heli-on, the "most high");
"and Acheron is 32 deg. above the pole, and 32 below it, the allegorical
river being thus supposed to touch the northern horizon in the latitude of 32
degrees. The vast concave, that is for ever hidden from our sight and which
surrounded the southern pole, being therefore called the PIT, while observing,
toward the Northern pole that a certain circuit in the heavens always appeared
above the horizon -- they called it the Mountain. As Meru is the high abode of
the Gods, these were said to ascend and descend periodically; by which
(astronomically) the Zodiacal gods were meant, the passing of the original
North Pole of the Earth to the South Pole of the heaven." "In that
age," adds the author of that curious work, the "Sphinxiad" and
of "Urania's Key to the Revelations" -- "at noon, the ecliptic
would be parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac would descend from
the North Pole to the north horizon; crossing the eight coils of the Serpent (eight
sidereal years, or over 200,000 solar years), which would seem like an
imaginary ladder with eight staves reaching from the earth up to the pole,
i.e., the throne of Jove. Up this ladder, then, the Gods, i.e., the signs of
the Zodiac, ascended and descended. (Jacob's ladder and the angels) . . . . It
is more than 400,000 years since the Zodiac formed the sides of this
ladder." . . . .
This
is an ingenious explanation, even if it is not altogether free from occult
heresy. Yet it is nearer the truth than many of a more scientific
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[[Vol.
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and
especially theological character. As just said, the Christian trinity was
purely astronomical from its beginning, which made Rutilius say -- of those who
euhemerized it -- "Judaea gens, radix stultorum."
But
the profane, and especially the Christian fanatics, ever in search of
scientific corroboration for their dead-letter texts, will persist in seeing in
the celestial pole the true Serpent of Genesis, Satan, the Enemy of mankind,
instead of what it is -- a cosmic metaphor. When the gods are said to forsake
the earth, it does not only mean the gods, protectors and instructors, but also
the minor gods -- the regents of the Zodiacal signs. Yet, the former, as actual
and existing Entities which gave birth to, nursed, and instructed mankind in
its early youth, appear in every Scripture, in that of the Zoroastrians as much
as in the Hindu Gospels. Ormazd, or Ahura-Mazda, the "Lord of
Wisdom," is the synthesis of the Amshaspends (or Amesha-Spenta --
"Immortal Benefactors"),* the "Word," however, or the Logos
and its six highest aspects in Mazdyanism. These "Immortal Benefactors"
are described in Zamyad yasht as the "Amesha-Spentas, the shining, having
efficacious eyes, great, helpful . . . . imperishable and pure which are all
seven of like mind, like speech, all seven doing alike . . . . which are the
creators and destroyers of the creatures of Ahura-Mazda, their creators and
overseers, their protectors and rulers . . . ."
These
few lines alone indicate the dual and even the triple character of the
Amshaspends, our Dhyan-Chohans or the "Serpents of Wisdom." They are
identical with, and yet separate from Ormazd (Ahura-Mazda). They are also the
Angels of the Stars of the Christians -- the Stary-azatas of the Zoroastrians
-- or again the seven planets (including the sun) of every religion.** The
epithet -- "the shining having efficacious eyes" -- proves it. This
on the physical and sidereal planes. On the spiritual, they are the divine
powers of Ahura-Mazda; but on the astral or psychic plane again, they are the
"Builders," the "watchers," the Pitar (fathers), and the
first Preceptors of mankind.
When
mortals shall have become sufficiently spiritualised, there will be no more
need of forcing them into a correct comprehension of ancient Wisdom. Men will
know then, that there never yet was a great World-reformer, whose name has
passed into our generation, who (a) was not a direct emanation of the LOGOS
(under whatever name known to us), i.e., an essential incarnation of one of
"the seven," of the "divine Spirit who is sevenfold"; and
(b) who had not appeared before, during the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Also translated as "blissful Immortals" by Dr. W. Geiger; but the
first is more correct.
**
These "seven" became the eight, the Ogdoad, of the later materialized
religions, the seventh, or the highest principle, being no longer the pervading
Spirit, the Synthesis, but becoming an anthropomorphic number, or additional
unit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 359 GOD AND NATURE ANTHROPOMORPHIZED.
past
Cycles. They will recognise, then, the cause which produces in history and
chronology certain riddles of the ages; the reason why, for instance, it is
impossible for them to assign any reliable date to Zoroaster, who is found
multiplied by twelve and fourteen in the Dabistan; why the Rishis and Manus are
so mixed up in their numbers and individualities; why Krishna and Buddha speak
of themselves as re-incarnations, i.e., Krishna is identified with the Rishi
Narayana, and Gautama gives a series of his previous births; and why the
former, especially, being "the very supreme Brahma," is yet called
Amsamsavatara -- "a part of a part" only of the Supreme on Earth.
Finally, why Osiris is a great God, and at the same time a "prince on
Earth," who reappears in Thoth-Hermes, and why Jesus (in Hebrew, Joshua)
of Nazareth is recognised, cabalistically, in Joshua, the Son of Nun, as well
as in other personages. The esoteric doctrine explains it by saying that each
of these (as many others) had first appeared on earth as one of the seven
powers of the LOGOS, individualized as a God or "Angel" (messenger);
then, mixed with matter, they had re-appeared in turn as great sages and
instructors who "taught the Fifth Race," after having instructed the
two preceding races, had ruled during the Divine Dynasties, and had finally
sacrificed themselves, to be reborn under various circumstances for the good of
mankind, and for its salvation at certain critical periods; until in their last
incarnations they had become truly only "the parts of a part" on
earth, though de facto the One Supreme in Nature.
This
is the metaphysics of Theogony. And, as every "Power" among the SEVEN
has (once individualized) in his charge one of the elements of creation, and
rules over it,* hence the many meanings in every symbol, which, unless
interpreted according to the esoteric methods, generally lead to an
inextricable confusion.
Does
the Western Kabalist -- generally an opponent of the Eastern Occultist --
require a proof? Let him open Eliphas Levi's Histoire de la Magic," p. 53,
and carefully examine his "Grand Symbole Kabalistique" of the Zohar.
He will find, on the engraving given, a white man standing erect and a black
woman upside down, i.e., standing on her head, her legs passing under the
extended arms of the male figure, and protruding behind his shoulders, while
their hands join at an angle on each side. Eliphas Levi makes of it, God and
Nature; or God, "light," mirrored inversely in "Nature and
Matter," darkness. Kabalistically and symbolically he is right; but only
so far as emblematical cosmogony goes. Nor has he invented the symbol any more
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These elements are:-- The cosmic, the terrene, the mineral, the vegetable, the
animal, the aqueous, and finally the human -- in their physical, spiritual, and
psychic aspects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 360 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
than
the Kabalists have: the two figures in white and black stone have existed in
the temples of Egypt from time immemorial -- agreeably to tradition; and
historically -- ever since the day of King Cambyses, who personally saw them.
Therefore the symbol must have been in existence since nearly 2,500 years ago.
This, at the very least, for that Persian sovereign, who was a son of Cyrus the
Great, succeeded his father in the year 529 B.C. These figures were the two
Kabiri personifying the opposite poles. Herodotus (Thalia, No. 77) tells
posterity that when Cambyses entered the temple of the Kabirim, he went into an
inextinguishable fit of laughter, on perceiving what he thought a man erect and
a woman standing on the top of her head before him. These were the poles, however,
whose symbol was intended to commemorate "the passing of the original
North Pole of the Earth to the South Pole of the Heaven," as perceived by
Mackey.* But they represented also the poles inverted, in consequence of the
great inclination of the axis, bringing each time as a result the displacement
of the Oceans, the submersion of the polar lands, and the consequent upheaval
of new continents in the equatorial regions, and vice versa. These Kabirim were
the "Deluge" gods.
This
may help us to get at the key of the seemingly hopeless confusion among the
numbers of names and titles given to one and the same gods, and classes of
gods. Faber showed already, at the beginning of this century, the identity of
the Corybantes, Curetes, Dioscuri, Anactes, Dii Magni, Idei Dactyli, Lares,
Penates, Manes,** Titans, and Aletae with the KABIRI. And we have shown that
the latter were the same as the Manus, the Rishis and our Dhyan Chohans, who
incarnated in the Elect of the Third and Fourth Races. Thus, while in Theogony
the Kabiri-Titans were seven great gods: cosmically and astronomically the
Titans were called Atlantes, because, perhaps, as Faber says, they were
connected
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Who adds that the Egyptians had various ways of representing the angles of the
Poles. Also in Perry's View of the Levant there is "a figure representing
the South Pole of the Earth in the constellation of the Harp," in which
the poles appear like two straight rods, surmounted with hawks' wings, but they
were also often represented as serpents with heads of hawks, one at each end.
**
Faber and Bishop Cumberland would make them all the later pagan
personifications, as the former writer has it, of "the Noetic Ark, and no
other than the Patriarch (Noah) and his family" (!) See his
"Kabiri," Vol. I., 136; because, we are told, "after the Deluge
in commemoration of the event, the pious Noachidae had established a religious
festival, which was, later on, corrupted by their impious descendants; demons
or hero-gods; and at length unblushing obscenity usurped the name and garb of
religion" (Vol. I., p. 10.). Now this is indeed putting an extinguisher
upon the human reasoning powers, not only of antiquity, but even of our present
generations. Reverse the statement, and explain after the words "Noah and
his family" that what is meant by that patriarch and family is simply the
Jewish version of a Samothracian mystery, of Saturn, or Kronos-Sadic and his
Sons, and then we may say Amen.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 361 WHO WERE ENOCH AND THE OTHERS?
(a)
with At-al-as "the divine Sun," and (b) with tit "the
deluge." But this, if true, is only the exoteric version. Esoterically, the
meaning of their symbols depends on the appellation, or title, used. The seven
mysterious, awe-inspiring great gods -- the Dioscuri,* the deities surrounded
with the darkness of occult nature -- become the Idei (or Idaeic finger) with
the adept-healer by metals. The true etymology of the name lares (now
signifying "ghosts") must be sought in the Etruscan word
"lars," "conductor," "leader." Sanchoniathon
translates the word Aletae as fire worshippers, and Tabor believes it derived
from Al-Orit, "the god of fire." Both are right, as in both cases it
is a reference to the Sun (the highest God), toward whom the planetary gods
"gravitate" (astronomically and allegorically) and whom they worship.
As Lares, they are truly the Solar Deities, though Faber's etymology, who says
that "lar" is a contraction of "El-Ar," the solar deity, is
not very correct. They are the "lares," the conductors and leaders of
men. As Aletae, they were the seven planets -- astronomically; and as Lares, the
regents of the same, our protectors and rulers -- mystically. For purposes of
exoteric or phallic worship, as also cosmically, they were the Kabiri, their
attributes being recognised in these two capacities by the name of the temples
to which they respectively belonged, and those of their priests. They all
belonged, however, to the Septenary creative and informing groups of Dhyan
Chohans. The Sabeans, who worshipped the "regents of the Seven
planets" as the Hindus do their Rishis, held Seth and his son Hermes
(Enoch or Enos) as the highest among the planetary gods. Seth and Enos were
borrowed from the Sabeans and then disfigured by the Jews (exoterically); but
the truth can still be traced about them even in Genesis.** Seth is the
"progenitor" of those early men of the Third Race in whom the
"Planetary" angels had incarnated -- a Dhyan Chohan himself, who
belonged to the informing gods; and Enos (Hanoch or Enoch) or Hermes, was said
to be his son -- because it was a generic name for all the early Seers
("Enoichion"). Thence the worship. The Arabic writer Soyuti says that
the earliest records mention Seth, or Set, as the founder of Sabeanism; and
therefore that the pyramids which embody the planetary system were regarded as
the place of sepulchre of both Seth and Idris (Hermes or Enoch), (See Vyse,
"Operations," Vol. II., p. 358); that thither Sabeans proceeded
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Who became later on, with the Greeks, limited only to Castor and Pollux. But in
the days of Lemuria, the Dioscuri, the "Egg-born," were the Seven
Dhyan Chohans (Agnishwatta-Kumara) who incarnated in the Seven Elect of the
Third Race.
**
Clement of Alexandria recognized the astronomical significance of chapter xxv.
et seq. of Exodus. According to the Mosaic doctrine, he says that the seven
planets help in the generation of terrestrial things. The two cherubs standing
on the two sides of the sacred tetragrammaton represent the Ursa Major and Ursa
Minor.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 362 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
on
pilgrimage, and chanted prayers seven times a day, turning to the North (the
Mount Meru, Kaph, Olympus, etc., etc.) (See Palgrave, Vol. II., p. 264). Abd
Allatif says curious things about the Sabeans and their books. So does Eddin
Ahmed Ben Yahya, who wrote 200 years later. While the latter maintains
"that each pyramid was consecrated to a star" (a star regent rather),
Abd Allatif assures us "that he had read in Sabean books that one pyramid
was the tomb of Agathodaemon and the other of Hermes" (Vyse, Vol. II., p.
342). "Agathodaemon was none other than Seth, and, according to some
writers, Hermes was his son," adds Mr. Staniland Wake in "The Great
Pyramid," p. 57.
Thus,
while in Samothrace and the oldest Egyptian temples they were the great Cosmic
Gods (the seven and the forty-nine Sacred Fires), in the Grecian fanes their
rites became mostly phallic, therefore to the profane, obscene. In the latter
case they were 3 and 4, or 7 -- the male and female principles -- (the crux
ansata); this division showing why some classical writers held that they were
only three, while others named four. And these were -- the Kabiri -- Axieros
(in his female aspect, Demeter); Axio-Kersa (Persephone)*; Axiokersos (Pluto or
Hades); and Kadmos or Kadmilos (Hermes -- not the ithyphallic Hermes mentioned
by Herodotus (II. 51) but "he of the sacred legend," explained only
during the Samothracian mysteries). This identification, due, according to the
Scholiast Apollon (Rh. I. 217), to an indiscretion of Mnaseas, is none at all,
as names alone do not reveal much. There were still others again who
maintained, being as right in their way, that there were only two Kabiri. These
were, esoterically, the two Dioscuri, Castor and Pollux, and exoterically,
Jupiter and Bacchus. The two personified the terrestrial poles, geodesically;
the terrestrial, and the pole of the heavens -- astronomically, as also the
physical and the spiritual man. The story of Semele and Jupiter and the birth
of Bacchus, the Bimater, with all the circumstances attending it, needs only to
be read esoterically to understand the allegory. The parts played in the event
by the fire, water, earth, etc., in the many versions, will show how "the
father of the gods"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is a curious idea -- yet one not very far from the truth, perhaps -- that
speculation of Mackey, the self-made Adept of Norwich, found in his
"Mythological Astronomy." He says that the Kabiri named Axieros and
Axiokersa derived their names (a) from Kab or Cab, a measure, and from Urim,
the heavens: the Kabirim being thus "a measure of the heavens"; and
(b) that their distinctive names, implying the principle of generation,
referred to the sexes. For, "the word sex was formerly understood by aix;
which has now settled . . . . into sex." And he refers to
"Encyclopaedia Londinus" at the word "aspiration." Now if
we give the aspirated sound to Axieros, it would be Saxieros; and the other
pole would be Saxiokersa. The two poles would thus become the generators of the
other powers of nature -- they would be the parents: therefore the most
powerful gods.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 363 THE POLES, THE "HEAVENLY MEASURE."
and
the "merry God of the wine" were also made to personify the two
terrestrial Poles. The telluric, metalline, magnetic, electric and the fiery
elements are all so many allusions and references to the cosmic and astronomic
character of the diluvian tragedy. In astronomy, the poles are indeed the
"heavenly measure" (vide note supra); and so are the Kabiri Dioscuri,
as will be shown, and the Kabiri-Titans, to whom Diodorus ascribes the
invention of fire* and the art of manufacturing iron. Moreover, Pausanias shows
that the original Kabiric deity was Prometheus. (I. ix. p. 751.)
But
the fact that, astronomically, the Titans-Kabirim were also the generators and
regulators of the seasons, and cosmically the great Volcanic Energies, the gods
presiding over all the metals and terrestrial works, does not prevent them from
being, in their original divine characters, the beneficent Entities who,
symbolized in Prometheus, brought light to the world, and endowed humanity with
intellect and reason. They are pre-eminently in every theogony -- especially in
the Hindu -- the sacred divine fires, 3, 7, or 49, according as the allegory
demands it. Their very names prove it, as they are the Agni-putra (Sons of the
Fire) in India, and the genii of the fire under numerous names in Greece and
elsewhere. Welcker, Maury, and now Decharme, show the name Kabeiron meaning
"the powerful through fire," from the Greek word [[kaio]] "to
burn." The Semitic Kabirim, "the powerful, the mighty, and the
great," answering to the Greek [[megaloi dunatoi]], are later epithets.
They were universally worshipped, and their origin is lost in the night of
time. Yet whether propitiated in Phrygia, Phoenicia, the Troad, Thrace, Egypt,
Lemnos or Sicily, their cult was always connected with fire; their temples ever
built in the most volcanic localities, and in exoteric worship they belonged to
Chthonian divinities. Therefore Christianity has made of them infernal gods.
They
are truly "the great, beneficent and powerful Gods," as Cassius
Hermone calls them (See Macrob. Sat. I., iii., c. 4, p. 376). At Thebes, Kore
and Demeter, the Kabirim, had a sanctuary (Pausan. IX. 22; 5), and at Memphis,
the Kabiri had a temple so sacred, that none, excepting the priests, were
suffered to enter their holy precincts (Herodotus I. ii., c. 37). But we must
not lose sight, at the same time, of the fact that the title of Kabiri was a
generic one; that the Kabiri (the mighty gods as well as mortals), were of both
sexes, as also terrestrial, celestial and kosmic. That, while in their later
capacity of the Rulers of sidereal and terrestrial powers, a purely geological
phenomenon (as it is now
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The word "guebra" comes from Kabiri, gabiri, and means Persian
ancient fire-worshippers, or Parsis. Kabiri became gabiri and then remained as
an appellation of the Zoroastrians in Persia. (See Hyde's "De Religio
Persarum," cap. 29.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 364 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
regarded)
was symbolized in the persons of those rulers, they were also, in the beginning
of times, the rulers of mankind. When incarnated as Kings of the "divine
Dynasties," they gave the first impulse to civilizations, and directed the
mind with which they had endued men to the invention and perfection of all the
arts and sciences. Thus the Kabiri are said to have appeared as the benefactors
of men, and as such they lived for ages in the memory of nations. To them --
the Kabiri or Titans -- is ascribed the invention of letters (the Devanagari,
or the alphabet and language of the gods), of laws and legislature; of
architecture, as of the various modes of magic, so-called; and of the medical
use of plants. Hermes, Orpheus, Cadmus, Asclepius, all those demi-gods and
heroes, to whom is ascribed the revelation of sciences to men, and in whom
Bryant, Faber, Bishop Cumberland, and so many other Christian writers -- too
zealous for plain truth --would force posterity to see only pagan copies of one
and sole prototype, named Noah -- are all generic names.
It
is the Kabiri who are credited with having revealed, by producing corn or
wheat, the great boon of agriculture. What Isis-Osiris, the once living
Kabiria, has done in Egypt, that Ceres is said to have done in Sicily; they all
belong to one class.
That
the Serpents were ever the emblems of wisdom and prudence is again shown by the
caduceus of Mercury, one with Thot, the god of wisdom, with Hermes, and so on.
The two serpents, entwined around the rod, are phallic symbols of Jupiter and
other gods who transformed themselves into snakes for purposes of seducing
goddesses -- but only in the unclean fancies of profane symbologists. The
serpent has ever been the symbol of the adept, and of his powers of immortality
and divine knowledge. Mercury in his psychopompic character, conducting and
guiding with the caduceus the souls of the dead to Hades and even raising the
dead to life with it, is simply a very transparent allegory. It shows the dual
power of the Secret Wisdom: the black and the white magic. It shows this
personified Wisdom guiding the Soul after death, and its power to call to life
that which is dead -- a very deep metaphor if one thinks over its meaning.
Every people of antiquity reverenced this symbol, with the exception of
Christians, who chose to forget the brazen Serpent of Moses, and even the
implied acknowledgment of the great wisdom and prudence of the Serpent by Jesus
himself, "Be ye wise as serpents and harmless as doves." The Chinese,
one of the oldest nations of our Fifth Race, made of it the emblem of their
Emperors, who are thus the degenerate successors of the "Serpents" or
Initiates, who ruled the early races of the Fifth Humanity. The Emperor's
throne is the "Dragon's Seat," and his dresses of State are
embroidered with the likeness of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 365 THE VARIOUS NOAHS.
Dragon.
The aphorisms in the oldest books of China, moreover, say plainly that the
"Dragon" is a human, albeit divine, Being. Speaking of the
"Yellow Dragon," the chief of the others, the Twan-ying-t'u, says:
"His wisdom and virtue are unfathomable . . . he does not go in company
and does not live in herds (he is an ascetic). He wanders in the wilds beyond
the heavens. He goes and comes, fulfilling the decree (Karma); at the proper
seasons if there is perfection he comes forth, if not he remains
(invisible).". . . And Kon-fu-tyu is made to say by Lu-lan, "The
Dragon feeds in the pure water of Wisdom and sports in the clear waters of
Life."
-------
OUR
DIVINE INSTRUCTORS.
Now
Atlantis and the Phlegyan isle are not the only record that is left of the
deluge. China has also her tradition and the story of an island or continent,
which it calls Ma-li-ga-si-ma, and which Kaempfer and Faber spell
"Maurigosima," for some mysterious phonetic reasons of their own.
Kaempfer, in his "Japan" (Appendix, p. 13), gives the tradition: The
island, owing to the iniquity of its giants, sinks to the bottom of the ocean,
and Peiru-un, the king, the Chinese Noah, escapes alone with his family owing
to a warning of the gods through two idols. It is that pious prince and his
descendants who have peopled China. The Chinese traditions speak of the divine
dynasties of Kings as much as those of any other nations.
At
the same time there is not an old fragment but shows belief in a multiform and
even multigeneric evolution -- spiritual, psychic, intellectual and physical --
of human beings, just as given in the present work. A few of these claims have
now to be considered.
Our
races -- they all show -- have sprung from divine races, by whatever name they
are called. Whether we deal with the Indian Rishis or Pitris; with the Chinese
Chim-nang and Tchan-gy -- their "divine man" and demi-gods; with the
Akkadian Dingir and Mul-lil -- the creative god and the "Gods of the
ghost-world"; with the Egyptian Isis-Osiris and Thot; with the Hebrew Elohim,
or again with Manco Capac and his Peruvian progeny -- the story varies nowhere.
Every nation has Amshaspends* (six exoterically), ten and seven Chaldean
Anedots,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Amshaspends are six -- if Ormazd, their chief and Logos, is excluded. But
in the secret doctrine he is the seventh and highest, just as Phtah is the
seventh Kabir among the Kabiri.
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[[Vol.
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ten
and seven Sephiroth, etc., etc. One and all have been derived from the
primitive Dhyan-Chohans of the Esoteric doctrine, or the "Builders"
of the Stanzas (Book I.). From Manu, Thot-Hermes, Oannes-Dagon, and
Edris-Enoch, down to Plato and Panadores, all tell us of seven divine
Dynasties, of seven Lemurian, and seven Atlantean divisions of the Earth; of
the seven primitive and dual gods who descend from their celestial abode* and
reign on Earth, teaching mankind Astronomy, Architecture, and all the other
sciences that have come down to us. These Beings appear first as
"gods" and Creators; then they merge in nascent man, to finally
emerge as "divine-Kings and Rulers." But this fact has been gradually
forgotten. As Bosuage shows, the Egyptians themselves confessed that science
flourished in their country only since Isis-Osiris, whom they continue to adore
as gods, "though they had become Princes in human form." And he adds
of Osiris-Isis (the divine androgyne:-- "It is said that this Prince
(Isis-Osiris) built cities in Egypt, stopped the overflowing of the Nile;
invented agriculture, the use of the vine, music, astronomy, and
geometry."
When
Abul-Feda says in his "Historia Anteislamitica" (Fleisher, p. 16)
that the Sabean language was established by Seth and Edris (Enoch) -- he means
by "Sabean language" astronomy. In the "Melelwa Nohil" (MS.
47 in Nic. Cat.) Hermes is called the disciple of Agathodaemon. And in another
account (See Col. Vyse's 2nd Vol. of the "Pyramids of Ghizeh," p.
364, MS. 785, Uri's Cat.) Agathodaemon is mentioned as a "King of
Egypt." Celepas Geraldinus gives curious traditions about Henoch. He calls
him the "divine giant." In the "Book of the various names of the
Nile," the same author (the historian Ahmed-Ben-Yusouf Eltiphas) tells us
of the belief among the Semitic Arabs that Seth (become later the Egyptian
Typhon, Set), had been one of the seven angels (or Patriarchs in the Bible):
then he became a mortal and Adam's son, after which he communicated the gift of
prophecy and astronomical science to Jared, who passed it to his son Henoch.
But Henoch (Idris) "the author of thirty books, was Sabaean by
origin" (i.e., belonging to the Saba, "a Host"); "having
established the rites and ceremonies of primitive worship, he went to the East,
where he constructed 140 cities, of which Edessa was the least important, then
returned to Egypt where he became its King." Thus, he is identified with
Hermes. But there were five Hermes -- or rather one, who appeared -- as some
Manus and Rishis did -- in several different characters. In the Burham-i-Kati
he is mentioned as "Hormig," a name of the planet Mercury or Budha;
and Wednes-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Purana it is identified with Vishnu's or Brahma's Sveta Dwipa of Mount
Meru.
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[[Vol.
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day
was sacred both to Hermes and Thot. The Hermes of Oriental tradition,
worshipped at Phineata and said to have fled after the death of Argus into
Egypt, civilized it under the name of Thoth. But under whichever of these
characters, he is always credited with having transferred all the sciences from
latent to active potency, i.e., with having been the first to teach magic to
Egypt and to Greece, before the days of Magna Graecia, and when the Greeks were
not even Hellenes.
Not
only Herodotus -- the "father of History" -- tells us of the
marvellous dynasties of gods that preceded the reign of mortals, followed by
the dynasties of demi-gods, Heroes, and finally men, but the whole series of
classics support him; Diodorus, Eratosthenes, Plato, Manetho, etc., etc.,
repeat the same, and never vary the order given.
"It
is, indeed," as Creuzer shows:--
"From
the spheres of the stars wherein dwell the gods of light that wisdom descends
to the inferior spheres." "In the system of the ancient priests
(Hierophants and Adepts) all things without exception, gods, the genii, manes
(souls), the whole world, are conjointly developed in Space and duration. The
pyramid may be considered as the symbol of this magnificent hierarchy of
Spirits. . . . "*
There
were more efforts made by the modern historians (French Academicians, like
Renan, chiefly) to suppress truth by ignoring the ancient annals of divine
Kings, than is strictly consistent with honesty. But M. Renan could never be
more unwilling than was Eratosthenes 260 years B.C. to accept the unpalatable
fact; and yet the latter found himself obliged to recognise its truth. For
this, the great astronomer is treated with great contempt by his colleagues
2,000 years later. Manetho became with them "a superstitious priest born
and bred in the atmosphere of other lying priests of Heliopolis" (Freret).
"All those historians and priests," justly remarks the demonologist,
de Mirville, "so veracious when repeating stories of human kings and men,
suddenly become extremely suspicious no sooner do they go back to their
gods." . . . But there is the synchronistic table of Abydos, which, thanks
to the genius of Champollion, has now vindicated the good faith of the priests
of Egypt (Manetho's above all), and that of Ptolemy. In the Turin papyrus, the
most remarkable of all, in the words of the Egyptologist, de Rouge:--
".
. . Champollion, struck with amazement, found that he had under his own eyes
the whole truth. . . . It was the remains of a list of dynasties embracing the
furthest mythoic times, or the REIGN OF THE GODS AND HEROES. . . . At the very
outset of this curious
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ch. iv. of "Egypt," p. 441.
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[[Vol.
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papyrus
we have to arrive at the conviction that so far back already as the period of
Ramses, those mythic and heroical traditions were just as Manetho had
transmitted them to us; we see figuring in them, as Kings of Egypt, the gods
Seb, Osiris, Horus, Thoth-Hermes, and the goddess Ma, a long period of
centuries being assigned to the reign of each of these." (Ann. de
Philologie Chretienne, Vol. XXXII., p. 442).
The
synchronistic tables of Manetho, besides the fact that they were disfigured by
Eusebius for dishonest purposes, had never gone beyond Manetho. The chronology
of the divine Kings and Dynasties, like that of the age of humanity, has ever
been in the hands of the priests, and was kept secret from the profane
multitudes.
Africa,
as a continent, it is said, appeared before Europe did; nevertheless it
appeared later than Lemuria and even the earliest Atlantis. That the whole
region of what is now Egypt and the deserts was once upon a time covered with
the sea, was known firstly through Herodotus, Strabo, Pliny, and all the
Greeks; and, secondly, through geology. Abyssinia was once upon a time an
island; and the Delta was the first country occupied by the pioneer emigrants
who came with their gods from the North-east.
When
was it? History is silent upon the subject. Fortunately we have the Dendera
Zodiac, the planisphere on the ceiling of one of the oldest Egyptian temples,
which records the fact. This Zodiac, with its mysterious three Virgos between
the Lion and Libra, has found its OEdipus, who understood the riddle of these
signs, and justified the truthfulness of those priests who told Herodotus
that:-- (a) The poles of the Earth and the Ecliptic had formerly coincided; and
(b) That even since their first Zodiacal records were commenced, the Poles have
been three times within the plane of the Ecliptic, as the Initiates taught.
Bailly
had not sufficient words at his command to express his surprise at the sameness
of all such traditions about the divine races. "What are finally," he
exclaims, "all those reigns of Indian Devas and Persian Peris? . . . . Or,
those reigns and dynasties of the Chinese legends; those Tien-hoang or the
Kings of Heaven, quite distinct from the Ti-hoang, the Kings on Earth, and the
Gin-hoang the King's men, a distinction which is in perfect accord with that
other one made by the Greeks and the Egyptians, in enumerating their dynasties
of Gods, of demi-gods, and of mortals."*
"Now,"
says Panadoras, "it is before that time (Menes), that the reign of the
seven gods who rule the world took place. It was during that period that those
benefactors of humanity descended on Earth and taught
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 369 WHAT THE PRIESTS TOLD HERODOTUS.
men
to calculate the course of the sun and moon by the twelve signs of the
Ecliptic."
Nearly
five hundred years before the actual era, Herodotus was shown by the priests of
Egypt the statues of their human Kings and Pontiffs-piromis (the archi-prophets
or Maha-Chohans of the temples), born one from the other (without the
intervention of woman) who had reigned before Menes, their first human King.
These statues, he says, were enormous colossi in wood, three hundred and
forty-five in number, each of which had his name, his history and his annals.
And they assured Herodotus* (unless the most truthful of historians, the
"Father of History," is now accused of fibbing, just in this instance)
that no historian could ever understand or write an account of these superhuman
Kings, unless he had studied and learned the history of the three dynasties
that preceded the human -- namely, the DYNASTIES OF THE GODS, that of
demi-gods, and of the Heroes, or giants. These "three dynasties" are
the three Races.**
Translated
into the language of the Esoteric doctrine, these three dynasties would also be
those of the Devas, of Kimpurushas, and of Danavas and Daityas -- otherwise
gods, celestial spirits, and giants or Titans. "Happy are those who are
born, even from the condition of gods, as men, in Bharata-Varsha!" exclaim
the incarnated gods themselves, during the Third Root-Race. Bharata is India,
but in this case it symbolized the chosen land in those days, and was
considered the best of the divisions of Jambu-dwipa, as it was the land of
active (spiritual) works par excellence; the land of initiation and of divine
knowledge.
Can
one fail to recognise in Creuzer great powers of intuition, when, being almost
unacquainted with the Aryan Hindu philosophies, little known in his day, he
wrote:--
"We
modern Europeans feel surprised when hearing talk of the Spirits of the Sun,
Moon, etc. But we repeat again, the natural good sense and the upright
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See also Memoires a l'Academie, etc., of de Mirville, Vol. III., for a mass of
evidence.
**
In Vishnu-Purana, Book II., chap. 3, 4, et seq., may be found many
corroborations of the same, if one reads carefully. The reigns of gods, lower
gods, and men are all enumerated in the descriptions of the seven Islands,
seven seas, seven mountains, etc., etc., ruled by Kings. Each king is said
invariably to have seven sons, an allusion to the seven sub-races. One instance
will do. The King of Kusa dwipa had seven sons (follow names) . . . "after
whom the seven portions (Varsha) of the island were called. There reside
mankind along with Daityas and Danavas, as well as with spirits of Heaven
(Gandharvas, Yakshas, Kimpurushas, etc.) and gods." (Chapter iv.) There is
but one exception in the case of King Priyavrata, the son of the first Manu,
Swayambhuva -- who had ten sons. But of these, three -- Medha, Agnibahu, and
Putra -- became ascetics, and refused their portions. Thus Priyavrata divided
the earth again into seven continents.
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[[Vol.
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judgment
of the ancient peoples, quite foreign to our entirely material ideas upon
celestial mechanics and physical sciences . . . could not see in the stars and
planets only that which we see: namely, simple masses of light, or opaque
bodies moving in circuits in sidereal space, merely according to the laws of
attraction or repulsion; but they saw in them living bodies, animated by
spirits as they saw the same in every kingdom of nature. . . . This doctrine of
spirits, so consistent and conformable to nature, from which it was derived,
formed a grand and unique conception, wherein the physical, the moral, and the
political aspects were all blended together . . . " ("Egypte,"
pp. 450 to 455.)
It
is such a conception only that can lead man to form a correct conclusion about
his origin and the genesis of everything in the universe -- of Heaven and
Earth, between which he is a living link. Without such a psychological link,
and the feeling of its presence, no science can ever progress, and the realm of
knowledge must be limited to the analysis of physical matter only.
Occultists
believe in "spirits," because they feel (and some see) themselves
surrounded on every side by them.* Materialists do not. They live on this
earth, just as, in the world of insects and even of fishes, some creatures live
surrounded by myriads of their own genus, without seeing, or so much as sensing
them.**
Plato
is the first sage among the classics who speaks at length of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As a general rule, now that the very nature of the inner man has become as
blind as his physical nature, man is situated on this globe as the Amphioxus is
in the Ocean. Surrounded by shoals and millions of various other fishes and
creatures that see it, the Amphioxus species --having neither brain nor any of
the senses possessed by the other classes -- sees them not. Who knows whether,
on the Darwinian theory, these "Branchiostoma" are not the direct
ancestors of our Materialists.
**
The Occultists have been accused of worshipping gods or devils. We deny this.
Among the numberless hosts of spirits -- men that were, and those who will be
men -- there are those immeasurably superior to the human race, higher and
holier than the highest Saint on Earth, and wiser than any mortal without
exception. And there are those again who are no better than we are, as some are
far worse and inferior to the lowest savage. It is the latter classes that
command the readiest communication with our earth, who perceive and sense us,
as the clairvoyants perceive and sense them. The close proximity of our
respective abodes and planes of perception are in favour of such
inter-communication unfortunately, as they are ever ready to interfere with our
affairs for weal or woe. If we are asked how it is that none but sensitive
hysterical natures, neuro- and psycho-pathic persons see and occasionally talk
with "Spirits," we answer the question by several other queries. We
ask: "Do you know the nature of hallucination, and can you define its
psychic process? How can you tell that all such visions are due merely to
physical hallucinations? What makes you feel so sure that mental and nervous
diseases, while drawing a veil over our normal senses (so-called) do not reveal
at the same time vistas unknown to the healthy man, by throwing open doors usually
closed against your scientific perceptions (?): or that a psycho-spiritual
faculty does not forthwith replace the loss, or the temporary atrophy, of a
purely physical sense? It is disease, or the exuberance of nervous fluid which
produces mediumship and visions --hallucinations, as you call them. But what
does Science know even of mediumship?" Truly were the [[Footnote continued
on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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divine
Dynasties, and locates them on a vast continent which he calls Atlantis. Bailly
was not the first nor last to believe the same, and he had been preceded and
anticipated in this theory by Father Kircher. This learned Jesuit writes in
"OEdipus AEgyptiacus" (Vol. I., p. 70):--
"I
confess, for a long time I had regarded all this (dynasties and the Atlantis)
as pure fables (meras nugas) to the day when, better instructed in Oriental
languages, I judged that all those legends must be, after all, only the
development of a great truth. . . . ."
As
de Rougemont shows, Theopompus, in his Meropis, made the priests of Phrygia and
Asia Minor speak exactly as the priests of Sais did when they revealed to Solon
the history and fate of Atlantis. According to Theopompus, it was a unique
continent of an indefinite size, and containing two countries inhabited by two
races -- a fighting, warrior race, and a pious, meditative race,* which
Theopompus symbolizes by two cities.** The pious "city" was
continually visited by the gods; the belligerent "city" was inhabited
by various beings invulnerable to iron, liable to be mortally wounded only by
stone and wood."*** De Rougemont treats this as a pure fiction of
Theopompus ("Peuple Primitif," vol. iii. 157) and even sees a fraud
(supercherie) in the assertion of the Saitic priests. This was denounced by the
"Demonologists" as illogical. In the words of De Mirville:-- "A
supercherie which was based on a belief, the product of faith of the whole
antiquity; a supposition which yet gave its name to a whole mountain chain (the
Atlas); which specified with the greatest precision a topographical region (by
placing some of its lands at a small distance from Cadiz and the strait of
Calpetus), which prophesied, 2,000 years before Columbus, the great
trans-oceanic land situated beyond that Atlantis and which "is
reached" it said -- "by the islands not of the blessed, but of the
good spirits [[eudaimonia]] (our 'Iles Fortunees') -- such a supposition can
never be an universal chimera." (A word on "Atlantis," p. 29.)
It
is certain that, whether "chimera" or reality, the priests of the
whole world had it from one and the same source: the universal tradition
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] modern Charcots to pay attention to the delirium
of their patients from a more psychic standpoint, Science, and physiology
especially, might be more benefited than they are now, and truth have a wider
field of fact in its knowledge.
*
These were the early Aryans and the bulk of the Fourth Root Races -- the former
pious and meditative (yoga-contemplation), the latter -- a fighting race of
sorcerers, who were rapidly degenerating owing to their uncontrolled passions.
**
The Northern and Southern Divisions of Lemuria-Atlantis. The Hyperborean and
the Equatorial lands of the two continents. (See Sections about Lemuria and
Atlantis in History.)
***
This is Occult and refers to the property of iron which, attracted by magnetic
elements, is repelled by others, which are made, by an occult process, as
impervious to it as water to a blow.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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about
the third great continent which perished some 850,000 years ago.* A continent
inhabited by two distinct races; distinct physically and especially morally;
both deeply versed in primeval wisdom and the secrets of nature; mutually
antagonistic in their struggle, during the course and progress of their double
evolution. Whence even the Chinese teachings upon the subject, if it is but a
fiction? Have they not recorded the existence once upon a time of a holy island
beyond the sun (Tcheou), and beyond which were situated the lands of the
immortal men? (See de Rougemont, ibid.) Do they not still believe that the
remnants of those immortal men -- who survived when the holy island had become
black with sin and perished -- have found refuge in the great desert of Gobi,
where they still reside invisible to all, and defended from approach by hosts
of Spirits?
"If
one has to lend ear to traditions," writes the very unbelieving Boulanger,
("Regne des Dieux," Introduction) . . . "the latter place before
the reign of Kings, that of the Heroes and demi-gods; and still earlier and
beyond they place the marvellous reign of the gods and all the fables of the
golden age. . . . One feels surprised that annals so interesting should have
been rejected by almost all our historians. And yet the ideas communicated by
them were once universally admitted and revered by all the peoples; not a few
revere them still, making them the basis of their daily life. Such
considerations seem to necessitate a less hurried judgment. . . . The ancients,
from whom we hold these traditions, which we accept no longer because we do not
understand them now, must have had motives for believing in them furnished by
their greater proximity to the first ages, and which the distance that
separates us from them refuses to us . . . . Plato in his fourth book of Laws,
says that, long before the construction of the first cities, Saturn had
established on earth a certain form of government under which man was very
happy. As it is the golden age he refers to, or to that reign of gods so celebrated
in ancient fables . . . . let us see the ideas he had of that happy age, and
what was the occasion he had to introduce this fable into a treatise on
politics. According to Plato, in order to obtain clear and precise ideas on
royalty, its origin and power, one has to turn back to the first principles of
history and tradition. Great changes, he says, have occurred in days of old, in
heaven and on earth, and the present state of things is one of the results
(Karma). Our traditions tell us of many marvels, of changes that have taken
place in the course of the Sun, of Saturn's reign, and of a thousand other
matters that remained scattered about in human memory; but one never hears
anything of the EVIL which has
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The first continent, or island, if so preferred, "the cap of the North
Pole," has never perished; nor will it to the end of the Seven Races.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 373 WHEAT BROUGHT DOWN BY THE GODS.
produced
those revolutions, nor of the evil which directly followed them. Yet . . . .
that Evil is the principle one has to talk about, to be able to treat of
royalty and the origin of power. . . ."
That
evil, Plato seems to see in the sameness or consubstantiality of the natures of
the rulers and the ruled, for he says that long before man built his cities, in
the golden age, there was naught but happiness on earth, for there were no
needs. Why? Because Saturn, knowing that man could not rule man, without
injustice filling forthwith the universe through his whims and vanity, would
not allow any mortal to obtain power over his fellow creatures. To do this the
god used the same means we use ourselves with regard to our flocks. We do not
place a bullock or a ram over our bullocks and rams, but give them a leader, a
shepherd, i.e., a being of a species quite different from their own and of a
superior nature. It is just what Saturn did. He loved mankind and placed to
rule over it no mortal King or prince but -- "Spirits and genii
[[daimones]] of a divine nature more excellent than that of man."
It
was god, the Logos (the synthesis of the Host) who thus presiding over the
genii, became the first shepherd and leader of men.* When the world had ceased
to be so governed and the gods retired, "ferocious beasts devoured a
portion of mankind." "Left to their own resources and industry,
inventors then appeared among them successively and discovered fire, wheat,
wine; and public gratitude deified them . . . ."("De Legibus" 1,
iv.; in Crit. and in Politic).
And
mankind was right, as fire by friction was the first mystery of nature, the
first and chief property of matter that was revealed to man.
"Fruits
and grain, unknown to Earth to that day, were brought by the 'Lords of Wisdom'
for the benefit of those they ruled -- from other lokas (spheres). . . "
say the Commentaries. Now: "The earliest inventions (?) of mankind are the
most wonderful that the race has ever made. . . The first use of fire, and the
discovery of the methods by which it can be kindled; the domestication of
animals; and, above all, the processes by which the various cereals were first
developed out of some wild grasses (?) -- these are all discoveries with which,
in ingenuity and in importance, no subsequent discoveries may compare. They are
all unknown to history -- all lost in the light of an EFFULGENT DAWN."
("Unity of Nature," Argyll.)
This
will be doubted and denied in our proud generation. But if it is asserted that
there are no grains and fruits unknown to earth, then we may remind the reader
that wheat has never been found in the wild state: it is not a product of the
earth. All the other cereals have been traced to their primogenital forms in
various species of wild grasses, but wheat has
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Secret Doctrine explains and expounds that which Plato says, for it teaches
that those "inventors" were gods and demi-gods (Devas and Rishis) who
had become -- some deliberately, some forced to by Karma -- incarnated in man.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 374 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
hitherto
defied the efforts of botanists to trace it to its origin. And let us bear in
mind, in this connection, how sacred was that cereal with the Egyptian priests;
wheat being placed even with their mummies, and found thousands of years later
in their coffins. Remember:-- "The servants of Horus glean the wheat in
the field of Aanroo. . . . wheat seven cubits high." ("Book of the
Dead," chap. xcix., 33; and clvi., 4.)* The reader is referred to Stanza
VII., Verse 3, Book I., wherein this verse is explained in another of its meanings,
and also to the "Book of the Dead," chap. cix., v. 4 and 5.
"I
am the Queen of these regions," says the Egyptian Isis; "I was the
first to reveal to mortals the mysteries of wheat and corn. . . . I am she who rises
in the constellation of the dog . . . (Dog-star) . . . . Rejoice, O Egypt! thou
who wert my nurse." (Book I., chap. XIV.**
Sirius
was called the dog-star. It was the star of Mercury or Budha, called the great
instructor of mankind, before other Buddhas.
The
book of the Chinese Y-King, attributes the discovery of agriculture to
"the instruction given to men by celestial genii."
"Woe,
woe to the men who know nought, observe nought, nor will they see. . . . They
are all blind*** since they remain ignorant how much the world is full of
various and invisible creatures which crowd even in the most sacred
places" (Zohar, Part I., col. 177.)
The
"Sons of God" have existed and do exist. From the Hindu Brahmaputras
and Manasaputras (Sons of Brahma and Mind-born sons) down to the B'ne-aleim of
the Jewish Bible, the faith of the centuries and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is a direct reference to the esoteric division of man's principles
symbolised by the divine wheat. The legend which inscribes the third Registrar
of the papyrus (Chap. cx. of the "Book of the Dead") states:
"This is the region of the Manes (disembodied men) seven cubits high -- to
wit: those just translated and supposed to be still sevenfold with all their
principles, even the body represented astrally in the Kama-loka or Hades,
before their separation . . . . . " and, there is wheat three cubits high
for mummies in a state of perfection" (i.e., those already separated,
whose three higher principles are in Devachan "who are permitted to glean
it." This region (Devachan) is called "the land of the re-birth of
gods," and shown to be inhabited by Scheo, Tefnant, and Seb. The
"region for the manes seven cubits high," (for the yet imperfect
mummies), and the region for those "in a state of perfection" who
"glean wheat three cubits high," is as clear as possible. The
Egyptians had the same esoteric philosophy which is now taught by the
cis-Himalayan adepts, who, when buried, have corn and wheat placed over them.
**
There are Egyptologists who have tried to identify Osiris with Menes, which is
quite erroneous. Bunsen assigns to Menes an antiquity of 5867 years B.C., and
is denounced for it by Christians. But "Isis-Osiris" reigned in Egypt
before the Dendera Zodiac was painted on the ceiling of that temple, and that
is over 75,000 years ago!
***
In the text, "corked up" or "screwed up."
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[[Vol.
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universal
tradition force reason to yield to such evidence. Of what value is independent
criticism so called, or "internal evidence" (based usually on the
respective hobbies of the critics), in the face of the universal testimony,
which never varied throughout the historical cycles? Read esoterically the
sixth chapter of Genesis, which repeats the statements of the Secret Doctrine,
only changing slightly its form, and drawing a different conclusion which
clashes even with the Zohar. "There were giants in the earth in those
days; and also after that when 'the Sons of God' (b'ne-aleim) "came in
unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became
mighty men which were of old, men of renown" (or giants).*
What
does this sentence "and also after that" signify unless it means when
explained: "There were giants in the earth BEFORE, i.e., before the
sinless sons of the Third Race; and also after that when other sons of God,
lower in nature, inaugurated sexual connection on earth (as Daksha did, when he
saw that his Manasaputras would not people the earth)"? And then comes a
long break in this chapter vi. of Genesis, between verses 4 and 5. For surely,
it was not in or through the wickedness of the "mighty men" . . . .
men of renown, among whom is placed Nimrod the "mighty hunter before the
Lord," that "god saw that the wickedness of man was great," nor
in the builders of Babel, for this was after the Deluge; but in the progeny of
the giants who produced monstra quaedam de genere giganteo, monsters from
whence sprang the lower races of men, now represented on earth by a few
miserable dying-out tribes and the huge anthropoid apes.
And
if we are taken to task by theologians, whether Protestant or Roman Catholic,
we have only to refer them to their own literal texts. The above quoted verse
was ever a dilemma, not alone for the men of science and Biblical scholars, but
also for priests. For, as the Rev. Father Peronne puts it:-- "Either they
(the B'ne-aleim) were good angels, and in such case how could they fall? Or
they were bad (angels) and in this case could not be called b'ne-aleim, the
"sons of God." (Praelectiones theol. ch. ii.) This Biblical riddle --
"the real sense of which no author has ever understood," as candidly
confessed by Fourmont** -- can only be explained by the Occult doctrine,
through the Zohar to the Western, and the Book of Dzyan to the Eastern. What
the former says we have seen; what the Zohar tells us is this: B'ne-aleim was a
name common to the Malachim (the good Messengers) and to the Ischin ("the
lower angels") (Rabbi Parcha).
We
may add for the benefit of the demonologists that their Satan,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Genesis vi., v. 4.
**
Reflections critiques sur l'origine des anciens peuples.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 376 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"the
adversary," is included in Job among the sons of God or b'ne-aleim who
visit their father." (Chapter i.) But of this later on.
Now
the Zohar says that the Ischin, the beautiful B'ne-aleim, were not guilty, but
mixed themselves with mortal men because they were sent on earth to do so.
(Book of Ruth and Schadash; fol. 63, col. 3; Amsterdam edition). Elsewhere the
same volume shows these b'ne-aleim belonging to the tenth sub-division of the
"Thrones" (Zohar, part iii., col. 113. But see also 1st vol. 184). It
also explains that the Ischin, "men-spirits," viri spirituales, now
that men can see them no longer, help magicians to produce, through their
science, homunculi which are not small men but "men smaller (in the sense
of inferiority) than men." Both show themselves under the form that the
Ischin had then, i.e., gaseous and ethereal. Their chief is Azazel.
But
Azazel, whom the Church dogma will associate with Satan, is nothing of the
kind. Azazel is a mystery, as explained elsewhere, and it is so expressed in
Maimonides, "In More Nevochim" (chapter xxvi., p. 8). "There is
an impenetrable mystery in the narrative concerning Azazel." And so there
is, as Lanci, a librarian to the Vatican and one who ought to know, says -- we
have quoted him before -- that "this venerable divine name (nome divino e
venerabile) has become through the pen of Biblical scholars, a devil, a
wilderness, a mountain, and a he-goat" (Sagra Scrittura). Therefore it
seems foolish to derive the name as Spencer does, from Ajal (separated) and El
(god), hence "one separated from God," the DEVIL. In the Zohar,
Azazel is rather the Sacrificial victim than the "formal adversary of
Jehovah," as Spencer would have it (II., pp. 14, 29).
The
amount of malicious fancy and fiction bestowed on that "Host" by
various fanatical writers is quite extraordinary. Azazel and his
"host" are simply the Hebrew "Prometheus," and ought to be
viewed from the same standpoint. The Zohar shows the Ischin chained on the
mountain in the desert, allegorically; thus simply alluding to those
"spirits" as being chained to the earth during the cycle of incarnation.
Azazel (or Azaziel) is one of the chiefs of the "transgressing"
angels in Enoch, who descending upon Ardis, the top of Mount Armon, bound
themselves by swearing loyalty to each other. It is said that Azaziel taught
men to make swords, knives, shields, to fabricate mirrors (?) to make one see
what is behind him (viz., "magic mirrors"). Amazarak taught all the
sorcerers and dividers of roots; Amers taught the solution of magic; Barkayal,
astrology; Akibeel, the meaning of portents and signs; Tamial, astronomy; and
Asaradel taught the motion of the moon. "These seven were the first
instructors of the Fourth man" (i.e., of the Fourth Race). But why should
allegory be always understood as meaning all that its dead-letter expresses?
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[[Vol.
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It
is the symbolical representation of the great struggle between divine wisdom,
nous, and its earthly reflection, Psuche, or between Spirit and Soul, in Heaven
and on Earth. In Heaven --because the divine MONAD had voluntarily exiled
itself therefrom, to descend, for incarnating purposes, to a lower plane and
thus transform the animal of clay into an immortal god. For, as Eliphas Levi
tells us, "the angels aspire to become men; for the perfect man, the
man-god, is above even angels." On Earth -- because no sooner had Spirit
descended than it was strangled in the coils of matter.
Strange
to say, the Occult teaching reverses the characters; it is the anthropomorphous
archangel with the Christians, and the man-like God with the Hindus, which
represent matter in this case; and the Dragon, or Serpent, Spirit. Occult
symbolism furnishes the key to the mystery; theological symbolics conceal it
still more. For the former explains many a saying in the Bible and even in the
New Testament which have hitherto remained incomprehensible; while the latter,
owing to its dogma of Satan and his rebellion, has belittled the character and
nature of its would-be infinite, absolutely perfect god, and created the
greatest evil and curse on earth -- belief in a personal Devil. This mystery is
opened with the key to its metaphysical symbolism now restored; while that of
theological interpretation shows the gods and the archangels standing as
symbols for the dead letter or dogmatic religions, and as arrayed against the
pure truths of Spirit, naked and unadorned with fancy.
Many
were the hints thrown out in this direction in "Isis Unveiled," and a
still greater number of references to this mystery may be found scattered
throughout these volumes. To make the point clear once for all: that which the
clergy of every dogmatic religion -- pre-eminently the Christian -- points out
as Satan, the enemy of God, is in reality, the highest divine Spirit -- (occult
Wisdom on Earth) -- in its naturally antagonistic character to every worldly,
evanescent illusion, dogmatic or ecclesiastical religions included. Thus, the
Latin Church, intolerant, bigoted and cruel to all who do not choose to be its
slaves; the Church which calls itself the bride of Christ, and the trustee at
the same time of Peter, to whom the rebuke of the Master "get thee behind
me Satan" was justly addressed; and again the Protestant Church which,
while calling itself Christian, paradoxically replaces the New Dispensation by
the old "Law of Moses" which Christ openly repudiated: both these
Churches are fighting against divine Truth, when repudiating and slandering the
Dragon of esoteric (because divine) Wisdom. Whenever anathematizing the Gnostic
Solar Chnouphis -- the Agathodaemon -- Christos, or the theosophical Serpent of
Eternity, or even the Serpent of Genesis -- they
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[[Vol.
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are
moved by the same Spirit of dark fanaticism that moved the Pharisees to curse
Jesus by saying to him "Say we not well thou hast a devil?"
Read
the account about Indra (Vayu) in the Rig-Veda, the occult volume par excellence
of Aryanism, and then compare it with the same in the Puranas -- the exoteric
version thereof, and the purposely garbled account of the true Wisdom religion.
In the Rig Veda Indra is the highest and greatest of the Gods, and his
Soma-drinking is allegorical of his highly spiritual nature. In the Puranas
Indra becomes a profligate, and a regular drunkard on the Soma juice, in the
terrestrial way. He is the conqueror of all the "enemies of the gods"
-- the Daityas, Nagas (Serpents), Asuras, all the Serpent-gods, and of Vritri,
the Cosmic Serpent. Indra is the St. Michael of the Hindu Pantheon -- the chief
of the militant Host. Turning to the Bible, we find Satan, one of the
"Sons of God" (Job. i. 6), becoming in exoteric interpretation the
Devil, and the Dragon in its infernal, evil sense. But in the Kabala
("Book of Numbers") Samael, who is Satan, is shown to be identical
with St. Michael, the slayer of the Dragon. How is this? For it is said that
Tselem (the image) reflects alike Michael and Samael who are one. Both proceed,
it is taught, from Ruach (Spirit), Neschamah (Soul) and Nephesch (life). In the
"Chaldean Book of Numbers" Samael is the concealed (occult) Wisdom,
and Michael the higher terrestrial Wisdom, both emanating from the same source
but diverging after their issue from the mundane soul, which on Earth is Mahat
(intellectual understanding, or Manas (the seat of Intellect). They diverge,
because one (Michael) is influenced by Neschamah, while the other (Samael)
remains uninfluenced. This tenet was perverted by the dogmatic spirit of the
Church; which, loathing independent Spirit, uninfluenced by the external form
(hence by dogma), forthwith made of Samael-Satan (the most wise and spiritual
spirit of all) -- the adversary of its anthropomorphic God and sensual physical
man, the DEVIL!
--------
THE
ORIGIN OF THE SATANIC MYTH.
Let
us then fathom this creation of the Patristic fancy still deeper, and find its
prototype with the Pagans. The origin of the new Satanic myth is easy to trace.
The tradition of the Dragon and the Sun is echoed in every part of the world,
both in its civilized and semi-savage regions. It took rise in the whisperings
about secret initiations among the profane, and was established universally
through the once universal heliolatrous religion. There was a time when the
four parts of the world were covered with the temples sacred to the Sun and the
Dragon;
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[[Vol.
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but
the cult is now preserved mostly in China and the Buddhist countries, "Bel
and the Dragon being uniformly coupled together, and the priest of the Ophite
religion as uniformly assuming the name of his God"
("Archaeology," Vol. xxv., p. 220, London). In the religions of the
past, it is in Egypt we have to seek for its Western origin. The Ophites
adopted their rites from Hermes Trismegistus, and heliolatrous worship crossed
over with its Sun-gods into the land of the Pharaohs from India. In the gods of
Stonehenge we recognise the divinities of Delphi and Babylon, and in those of
the latter the devas of the Vedic nations. Bel and the Dragon, Apollo and
Python, Krishna and Kaliya, Osiris and Typhon are all one under many names --
the latest of which are Michael and the Red Dragon, and St. George and his
Dragon. As Michael is "one as God," or his "Double," for
terrestrial purposes, and is one of the Elohim, the fighting angel, he is thus
simply a permutation of Jehovah. Whatever the Cosmic or astronomical event that
first gave rise to the allegory of the "War of Heaven," its earthly
origin has to be sought in the temples of Initiation and archaic crypts. The
following are the proofs:--
We
find (a) the priests assuming the name of the gods they served; (b) the
"Dragons" held throughout all antiquity as the symbols of Immortality
and Wisdom, of secret Knowledge and of Eternity; and (c) the hierophants of
Egypt, of Babylon, and India, styling themselves generally the "Sons of
the Dragon" and "Serpents"; thus the teachings of the Secret
Doctrine are thereby corroborated.
There
were numerous catacombs in Egypt and Chaldea, some of them of a very vast
extent. The most renowned of them were the subterranean crypts of Thebes and
Memphis. The former, beginning on the western side of the Nile, extended
towards the Lybian desert, and were known as the Serpent's catacombs, or
passages. It was there that were performed the sacred mysteries of the kuklos
anagkes, the "Unavoidable Cycle," more generally known as "the
circle of necessity"; the inexorable doom imposed upon every soul after
the bodily death, and when it has been judged in the Amenthian region.
In
de Bourbourg's book, Votan, the Mexican demi-god, in narrating his expedition,
describes a subterranean passage which ran underground, and terminated at the
root of the heavens, adding that this passage was a snake's hole, "un
agujero de colubra"; and that he was admitted to it because he was himself
"a son of the snakes," or a serpent. ("Die Phoinizier,"
70.)
This
is, indeed, very suggestive; for his description of the snake's hole is that of
the ancient Egyptian crypt, as above mentioned. The hierophants, moreover, of
Egypt, as of Babylon, generally styled them-
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[[Vol.
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selves
the "Sons of the Serpent-god," or "Sons of the Dragon,"
during the mysteries.
"The
Assyrian priest bore always the name of his god," says Movers. The Druids
of the Celto-Britannic regions also called themselves snakes. "I am a
Serpent, I am a Druid," they exclaimed. The Egyptian Karnak is twin
brother to the Carnac of Bretagne, the latter Carnac meaning the serpent's
mount. The Dracontia once covered the surface of the globe, and these temples
were sacred to the Dragon, only because it was the symbol of the sun, which, in
its turn, was the symbol of the highest god -- the Phoenician Elon or Elion,
whom Abraham recognised as El Elion.* Besides the surname of serpents, they
were called the "builders," the "architects"; for the
immense grandeur of their temples and monuments was such that even now the
pulverised remains of them "frighten the mathematical calculations of our
modern engineers," says Taliesin.**
De
Bourbourg hints that the chiefs of the name of Votan, the Quetzo-Cohuatl, or
Serpent deity of the Mexicans, are the descendants of Ham and Canaan. "I
am Hivim," they say. "Being a Hivim, I am of the great race of the
Dragon (snake). I am a snake myself, for I am a Hivim."
("Cartas," 51; "Isis Unveiled," Vol. I., 553, et seq.)
Furthermore,
the "War in Heaven" is shown, in one of its significations, to have
meant and referred to those terrible struggles in store for the candidate for
adeptship, between himself and his (by magic) personified human passions, when
the inner enlightened man had to either slay them or fail. In the former case
he became the "Dragon-Slayer," as having happily overcome all the
temptations; and a "Son of the Serpent" and a Serpent himself, having
cast off his old skin and being born in a new body, becoming a Son of Wisdom
and Immortality in Eternity. (See Part II. on the Satanic Myth.)
Seth,
the reputed forefather of Israel, is only a Jewish travesty of Hermes, the God
of Wisdom, called also Thoth, Tat, Seth, Set, and Satan. He is also Typhon --
the same as Apophis, the Dragon slain by Horus; for Typhon was also called Set.
He is simply the dark side of Osiris, his brother, as Angra Mainyu is the black
shadow of Ahura-mazda. Terrestrially, all these allegories were connected with
the trials of adeptship and initiation. Astronomically, they referred to the
Solar and Lunar eclipses, the mythical explanations of which we find to this
day in India and Ceylon, where any one can study the allegorical narratives and
traditions which have remained unchanged for many thousands of years.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Sanchoniathon in "Eusebius," Pr. Ev. 36; Genesis xiv.
**
"Society of Antiquaries of London," vol. xxv. p. 220.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 381 THE THEFT OF RAHU.
Rahu,
mythologically is a Daitya -- a giant, a Demi-god, the lower part of whose body
ended in a Dragon or Serpent's tail. During the churning of the Ocean, when the
gods produced amrita -- the water of Immortality -- he stole some of it, and
drinking, became immortal. The Sun and Moon, who had detected him in his theft,
denounced him to Vishnu, who placed him in the stellar spheres, the upper
portion of his body representing the Dragon's head and the lower (Ketu) the
Dragon's tail; the two being the ascending and descending nodes. Since then,
Rahu wreaks his vengeance on the Sun and Moon by occasionally swallowing them. But
this fable had another mystic meaning, since Rahu, the Dragon's head, played a
prominent part in the mysteries of the Sun's (Vikarttana's) initiation, when
the candidate and the Dragon had a supreme fight.
The
caves of the Rishis, the abodes of Tiresias and the Greek seers, were modelled
on those of the Nagas -- the Hindu King-Snakes, who dwelled in cavities of the
rocks under the ground. From Sesha, the thousand-headed Serpent, on which
Vishnu rests, down to Python, the dragon serpent oracle, all point to the
secret meaning of the myth. In India we find the fact mentioned in the earliest
Puranas. The children of Surasa are the "mighty Dragons." The Vayu
Purana replacing "Surasa" (of Vishnu Purana) by Danayas or Danavas --
the descendants of Danu by the sage Kasyapa -- and those Danavas being the
giants (or Titans) who warred against the gods, they are thus shown identical
with the "Dragons" and "Serpents" of Wisdom.
By
simply comparing the Sun-gods of every country, one may find their allegories
agreeing perfectly with one another; and the more the allegorical symbol is
occult the more its corresponding symbol in other systems agrees with it. Thus,
if from three systems widely differing from each other in appearance -- the old
Aryan, the ancient Greek, and the modern Christian schemes -- we select several
Sun-gods and dragons at random, these will be found copied from each other.
Let
us take Agni the fire-god, Indra the firmament, and Karttikeya from the Hindus;
the Greek Apollo; and Mikael, the "Angel of the Sun," the first of
the AEons, called by the Gnostics "the saviour" -- and proceed in
order.
(1)
Agni -- the fire-god -- is called in the Rig-Veda Vaiswanara. Now Vaisvanara is
a Danava -- a giant-demon,* whose daughters Puloma and Kalaka are the mothers
of numberless Danavas (30 millions), by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
He is thus named and included in the list of the Danavas in Vayu Purana; the
Commentator of Bhagavata Purana calls him a son of Danu, but the name means
also "Spirit of Humanity."
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[[Vol.
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Kasyapa,*
and live in Hiranyapura, "the golden city," floating in the air. Therefore,
Indra is, in a fashion, the step-son of these two as a son of Kasyapa; and
Kasyapa is, in this sense, identical with Agni, the fire-god, or Sun
(Kasyapa-Aditya). To this same group belongs Skanda or Karttikeya (god of War,
the six-faced planet Mars astronomically), a Kumara, or virgin-youth, born of
Agni** for the purpose of destroying Taraka, the Danava Demon, the grandson of
Kasyapa by Hiranyaksha, his son,*** whose (Taraka's) yogi austerities were so
extraordinary that they became formidable to the gods, who feared such a rival
in power.**** While Indra, the bright god of the Firmament, kills Vritra (or
Ahi), the Serpent-Demon -- for which feat he is called Vritra-han, "the
destroyer of Vritra"; he also leads the hosts of Devas (Angels or gods)
against other gods who rebel against Brahma, for which he is entitled Jishnu,
"leader of the celestial Host." Karttikeya is found bearing the same
titles. For killing Taraka, the Danava, he is Taraka-Jit, "Vanquisher of
Taraka,"***** "Kumara Guha," "the mysterious
Virgin-youth" "Siddha-Sena" -- "the leader of the
Siddhas"; and Saktidhara -- "Spear-holder."
(2.)
Now take Apollo, the Grecian sun-god, and by comparing the mythical accounts
given of him, see whether he does not answer both
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Kasyapa is called the Son of Brahma, and is the "Self-Born" to whom a
great part of the work of creation is attributed. He is one of the seven
Rishis; exoterically, the son of Marichi, the son of Brahma; while Atharva-veda
says, "The Self-born Kasyapa sprang from Time"; and esoterically --
Time and Space are forms of the One incognizable Deity. As an Aditya, Indra is
son of Kasyapa, as also Vaivasvata Manu, our progenitor. In the instance given in
the text, he is Kasyapa-Aditya, the Sun, and the Sun-god, from whom all the
"Cosmic" Demons, Dragons (nagas), Serpent, or Snake-gods, and
Danavas, the giants, are born. The meaning of the allegories given above is
purely astronomical and cosmical, but will serve to prove the identity of all.
**
All such stories differ in the exoteric texts. In the Mahabharata, Karttikeya,
"the six-faced Mars," is the son of Rudra or Siva, Self-born without
a mother from the seed of Siva cast into the fire. But Karttikeya is generally
called Agnibhu, "fire born."
***
Hiranyaksha is the ruler or king of the fifth region of Patala, a Snake-god.
****
The Elohim also feared the knowledge of Good and Evil for Adam, and therefore
are shown as expelling him from Eden or killing him spiritually.
*****
The story told is, that Taraka (called also Kalabhana), owing to his
extraordinary Yoga-powers, had obtained all the divine knowledge of yoga-vidya
and occult powers of the gods, who conspired against him. Here we see the
"obedient" Host of Archangels or minor gods conspiring against the
(future) Fallen angels, whom Enoch accuses of the great crime of disclosing to
the world all "the secret things done in heaven." It is Michael,
Gabriel, Raphael, Surgal and Uriel who denounced to the Lord God those of their
Brethren who were said to have pried into the divine mysteries and taught them
to men: by this means they themselves escaped a like punishment. Michael was
commissioned to fight the Dragon, and so was Karttikeya, and under the same
circumstances. Both are "leaders of the Celestial Host," both
Virgins, both "leaders of Saints," "Spear-holders"
(Saktidhara), etc., etc. Karttikeya is the original of Michael and St. George,
as surely as Indra is the prototype of Karttikeya.
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[[Vol.
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to
Indra, Karttikeya, and even Kasyapa-Aditya, and at the same time to Michael (as
the Angelic form of Jehovah) the "angel of the Sun," who is
"like," and "one with, God." Later ingenious
interpretations for monotheistic purposes, elevated though they be into
not-to-be questioned Church dogmas, prove nothing, except the abuse of human
authority and power, perhaps.
Apollo
is Helios (the Sun), Phoibus-Apollo ("the light of life and of the
World"*) who arises out of the golden-winged cup (the sun); hence he is
the sun-god par excellence. At the moment of his birth he asks for his bow to
kill Python, the Demon Dragon, who attacked his mother before his birth,** and
whom he is divinely commissioned to destroy -- like Karttikeya, who is born for
the purpose of killing Taraka, the too holy and wise demon. Apollo is born on a
sidereal island called Asteria -- "the golden star island," the
"earth which floats in the air," which is the Hindu golden
Hiranyapura; "he is called the pure, [[agnos]], Agnus Dei (the Indian
Agni, as Dr. Kenealy thinks), and in the primal myth he is exempt "from
all sensual love" ("Book of God," p. 88). He is, therefore, a
Kumara, like Karttikeya, and as Indra was in his earlier life and biographies.
Python, moreover, the "red Dragon," connects Apollo with Michael, who
fights the Apocalyptic Dragon, who wants to attack the woman in child-birth
(See Revelation xii.), as Python attacks Apollo's mother. Can any one fail to
see the identity? Had the Rt. Hon. W. E. Gladstone, who prides himself on his
Greek scholarship and understanding of the spirit of Homer's allegories, ever
had a real inkling of the esoteric meaning of the Iliad and Odyssey, he would
have understood St. John's "Revelation," and even the Pentateuch,
better than he does. For the way to the Bible lies through Hermes, Bel, and
Homer, as the way to these is through the Hindu and Chaldean religious symbols.
The
repetition of this archaic tradition is found in ch. xii. of St. John's
Revelations, and comes from the Babylonian legends without the smallest doubt,
though the Babylonian story had its origin in the allegories of the Aryans. The
fragment read by the late George Smith (See "The Chaldean account of
Genesis," p. 304) is sufficient to disclose the source of the xii. chapter
of the Apocalypse. Here it is as given by the eminent Assyriologist:
"Our
. . . fragment refers to the creation of mankind, called Adam; as (the man) in the
Bible, he is made perfect . . . but afterwards joins
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "life and the light" of the material physical world, the delight
of the senses -- not of the soul. Apollo is pre-eminently the human god, the
god of emotional, pomp-loving and theatrical Church ritualism, with lights and
music.
**
See chap. xii. in Revelation where we find Apollo's mother persecuted by that
Python, the Red Dragon, who is also Porphyrion, the scarlet or red Titan.
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[[Vol.
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with
the dragon of the Deep, the animal of Tiamat, the Spirit of Chaos, and offends
against his god, who curses him, and calls down on his head all the evils and
troubles of Humanity."*
"This
is followed by a war between the dragon and the powers of evil, or chaos on one
side and the gods on the other."
"The
gods have weapons forged for them,** and Merodach (the archangel Michael in
Revelation) undertakes to lead the heavenly host against the dragons. The war,
which is described with spirit, ends, of course, in the triumph of the
principles of Good. . . . ."***
This
war of gods with the powers of the Deep, refers also, in its last and terrestrial
application, to the struggle between the Aryan adepts of the nascent Fifth Race
and the Sorcerers of Atlantis, the Demons of the Deep, the Islanders surrounded
with water who disappeared in the Deluge. (See the last pages of Vol. I.,
"Isis Unveiled," Atlantis.)
The
symbols of the dragons and "War in Heaven" have, as already stated,
more than one significance; religious, astronomical and geological events being
included in the one common allegory. But it had also a Cosmological meaning. In
India the Dragon story is repeated in one of its forms in the battles of Indra
with Vritra. In the Vedas this Ahi-Vritra is referred to as the Demon of
Drought, the terrible hot Wind. Indra is shown to be constantly at war with
him; and with the help of his thunder and lightning the god compels Ahi-Vritra
to pour down in rain on Earth, and then slays him. Hence, Indra is called the
Vritra-Han or "the slayer of Vritra," as Michael is called the
Conqueror and "Slayer of the Dragon." Both these "Enemies"
are then the "Old Dragon" precipitated into the depths of the Earth,
in this one sense.
The
Zend-Avestic Amshaspends are a Host with a leader like St. Michael over them,
and seem identical with the legions of Heaven, when one reads the Vendidad.
Thus in Fargard XIX., ii. 13 (42), Zarathustra is told by Ahura Mazda to
"invoke the Amesha Spenta who rule over the seven Karshvares**** of the
Earth"; which Karshvares in their seven
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
No "god" who curses his (supposed) own work, because he has made it
imperfect, can be the one infinite absolute wisdom, whether called Bel or
Jehovah.
**
In the Indian allegory of Tarakamaya, the war between the gods and the Asuras
headed by Soma (the moon, the King of Plants), it is Viswa-Karma, the artificer
of the gods, who forges, like Vulcan (Tubal-Kain), their weapons for them.
***
We have said elsewhere that the "woman with child" of Revelation
(xii.) was Aime, the great mother, or Binah, the third Sephiroth, "whose name
is Jehovah"; and the "Dragon," who seeks to devour her coming
child (the Universe), is the Dragon of absolute Wisdom -- that Wisdom which,
recognising the non-separateness of the Universe and everything in it from the
Absolute ALL, sees in it no better than the great Illusion, Mahamaya, hence the
cause of misery and suffering.
****
The "Seven Karshvares of the Earth" -- the seven spheres of our
planetary chain, [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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applications
refer equally to the seven spheres of our planetary chain, to the seven
planets, the seven heavens, etc., according to whether the sense is applied to
a physical, supra-mundane, or simply a sidereal world. In the same Fargard (ii.
and iii.), in his invocation against Angra Mainyu and his Host, Zarathustra
appeals to them in these words: "I invoke the seven bright Sravah with
their sons and their flocks" (42 Vendid. Saddh). The "Sravah" --
a word which the Orientalists have given up as one "of unknown
meaning" -- means the same Amshaspends, but in their highest occult
meaning. The "Sravah" are the noumenoi of the phenomenal Amshaspends,
the souls or spirits of those manifested Powers; and "their sons and their
flock" refers to the planetary angels and their sidereal flock of stars
and constellations. "Amshaspend" is the exoteric term used in
terrestrial combinations and affairs only. Zarathustra addresses Ahura Mazda
constantly as "thou, the maker of the material world." Ormazd is the
father of our earth (Spenta Armaiti), and she is referred to, when personified,
as "the fair daughter of Ahura Mazda" (Fargard, XIX. ii.), who is
also the creator of the Tree (of occult and spiritual knowledge and wisdom)
from which the mystic and mysterious Caresma is taken. But the occult name of
the bright God was never pronounced outside the temple.
Samael
or Satan, the seducing Serpent of Genesis, and one of the primeval angels who
rebelled, is the name of the "Red Dragon." He is the Angel of Death,
the Talmud saying that "the Angel of Death and Satan are the same,"
and, killed by Michael, he is once more killed by St. George, who also is a
Dragon Slayer; but see the transformations of this. Samael is identical with
the Simoom, the hot wind of the desert, or again with the Vedic demon of
drought, as Vritra; "Simoom is called Atabutos" or -- Diabolos, the
devil.
Typhon,
or the Dragon Aphophis -- the Accuser in the "Book of the Dead" -- is
worsted by Horus, who pierces his opponent's head with a spear; and Typhon is
the all-destroying wind of the desert, the rebellious element that throws
everything into confusion. As Set -- he is the darkness of night, the murderer
of Osiris, who is the light of day and the sun. Archaeology demonstrates that
Horus is identical with Anubis,* whose effigy was discovered upon an Egyptian
monument, with a cuirass and a spear, like Michael and St. George. Anubis is
also represented
[[Footnote(s)]]
------------------------------------------------- §
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] the seven worlds -- also mentioned in the
Rig-Veda -- are fully referred to elsewhere. There are six rajamsi (worlds)
above prithivi -- the earth, or "this" (idam), as opposed to that
which is yonder (the six globes on the three other planes). (See Rig-Veda, I.,
34; III., 56; VII., 10411, and V., 60, 6. See § on Chronology.)
*
Verse 62, chap. xvii., "Book of the Dead": Anubis is Horus who melts
in him who is eyeless.
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[[Vol.
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as
slaying a dragon, that has the head and tail of a serpent. (See Lenoir's
"Du Dragon de Metz.")
Cosmologically,
then, all the Dragons and Serpents conquered by their "Slayers" are,
in their origin, the turbulent confused principles in Chaos, brought to order
by the Sun-gods or creative powers. In the "Book of the Dead" those
principles are called "the Sons of Rebellion." (See also
"Egyptian Pantheon," pp. 20, 23.) "In that night, the oppressor,
the murderer of Osiris, otherwise called the deceiving Serpent (Verse 54) . . .
. calls the Sons of Rebellion in Air, and when they arrive to the East of
Heavens, then there is War in Heaven and in the entire World" (v. 49,
"Book of the Dead," xvii.).
In
the Scandinavian Eddas the "War" of the Ases with the Hrim-thurses
(frost-giants), and of Asathor with the Jotuns, the Serpents and Dragons and
the "wolf" who comes out of "Darkness" --- is the repetition
of the same myth. The "evil Spirits,"* having begun by being simply
the emblems of Chaos, became euhemerized by the superstition of the rabble,
until they have finally won the right of citizenship in the most civilized and
learned races of this globe -- since its creation as alleged -- and became a
dogma with Christians. As George Smith has it: "The evil principles
(Spirits) emblems of Chaos" (in Chaldea and Assyria as in Egypt, we see) .
. "resist this change and make war on the Moon, the eldest son of Bel,
drawing over to their side the Sun, Venus and the atmospheric god Vul."
("Assyrian Discoveries," p. 403.) This is only another version of the
Hindu "War in Heaven," between Soma, the moon, and the gods -- Indra
being the atmospheric Vul; which shows it plainly to be both a Cosmogonical and
an astronomical allegory, woven into and drawn from the earliest theogony as
taught in the Mysteries.
It
is in the religious doctrines of the Gnostics that the real meaning of the
Dragon, the Serpent, the Goat, and all those symbols of powers now called Evil,
can be seen the best; as it is they who divulged the esoteric nature of the
Jewish Substitute for AIN-SOPH in their teachings; of the true meaning of
which, while the Rabbins concealed it, the Christians, with a few exceptions,
knew nothing. Surely Jesus of Nazareth would have hardly advised his apostles
to show themselves as wise as the serpent, had the latter been a symbol of the
Evil one; nor would the Ophites, the learned Egyptian Gnostics of "the Brotherhood
of the Serpent," have reverenced a living snake in their ceremonies as the
emblem of WISDOM, the divine Sophia (and a type of the all-good, not the
all-bad), were that reptile so closely connected with Satan. The fact is, that
even as a common ophidian it has ever been a dual symbol; and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These "evil Spirits" can by no means be identified with Satan or the
Great Dragon. They are the Elementals generated or begotten by ignorance --
Cosmic and human passions -- or Chaos.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 387 WHO FIRST CREATED WOMAN?
as
a Dragon it had never been anything else than a symbol of the manifested Deity
in its great Wisdom. The Draco volans, the flying Dragon of the early painters,
may be an exaggerated picture of the real extinct antediluvian animal; but
those who have faith in the Occult teachings believe that in the days of old
there were such creatures as flying Dragons, or a kind of Pterodactyl, and that
it is those gigantic winged lizards that served as the prototypes for the
Seraph of Moses and his great Brazen Serpent.* The Jews had worshipped the
latter idol themselves, but, after the religious reforms brought about by
Hezekiah, turned round, and called that symbol of the great or Higher God of
every other nation -- a Devil, and their own usurper -- the "One
God."**
The
appellation Sa'tan, in Hebrew satan, "an adversary" (from the verb
shatana, "to be adverse," to persecute) belongs by right to the first
and cruelest "adversary of all the other gods" -- Jehovah, not to the
Serpent, which spoke only words of sympathy and wisdom, and is at the worst,
even in the dogma, "the adversary of men." This dogma, based as it is
on chapter iii. of Genesis, is as illogical and unjust as it is paradoxical.
For who was the first to create that original and hence-forward universal
tempter of man -- the woman? Not the serpent surely, but the "Lord
God" himself, who, saying:-- "It is not good that the man should be
alone" -- made woman, and "brought her unto the man" (18-22). If
the unpleasant little incident that followed was and is still to be regarded as
the "original sin," then it exhibits the Creator's divine foresight
in a poor light indeed. It would have been far better for the first Adam (of
chap. 1.) to have been left either "male and female," or
"alone." It is the Lord God, evidently, who was the real cause of all
the mischief, the "agent provocateur," and the Serpent -- only a
prototype of Azazel, "the scapegoat for the sin of (the God of)
Israel," the poor Tragos having to pay the penalty for his Master's and
Creator's blunder. This, of course, is addressed only to those who accept the
opening events of the drama of humanity in Genesis in their dead-letter sense.
Those who read them esoterically, are not reduced to fanciful
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Numbers xxi. 8-9. God orders Moses to build a brazen Serpent
"Saraph"; to look upon which heals those bitten by the fiery
serpents. The latter were the Seraphim, each one of which, as Isaiah shows (vi.
2), "had six wings"; they are the symbols of Jehovah, and of all the
other Demiurgi who produce out of themselves six sons or likenesses -- Seven
with their Creator. Thus, the Brazen Serpent is Jehovah, the chief of the
"fiery serpents." And yet, in 2 Kings xviii., it is shown that King
Hezekiah, who, like as David his father, "did that which was right in the
sight of the Lord" -- "brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses
had made . . . and called it Nehushtan," or piece of brass.
**
And Satan stood up against Israel and moved David to number Israel (Chron. xxi.
1.) "The anger of the Lord Jehovah was kindled against Israel," and
he moved David to say: "Go, number Israel" (2 Samuel, xxiv. 1). The
two are then identical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 388 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
speculations
and hypothesis; they know how to read the symbolism therein contained, and
cannot err.
There
is at present no need to touch upon the mystic and manifold meaning of the name
Jehovah in its abstract sense, one independent of the Deity falsely called by
that name. It was a blind created purposely by the Rabbins, a secret preserved
by them with ten-fold care after the Christians had despoiled them of this
God-name which was their own property.* But the following statement is made.
The personage who is named in the first four chapters of Genesis variously as
"God," the "Lord God," and "Lord" simply, is not
one and the same person; certainly it is not Jehovah. There are three distinct
classes or groups of the Elohim called Sephiroth in the Kabala, Jehovah
appearing only in chapter iv., in the first verse of which he is named Cain,
and in the last transformed into mankind -- male and female, jah-veh.** The
"Serpent," moreover, is not Satan, but the bright Angel, one of the
Elohim clothed in radiance and glory, who, promising the woman that if they ate
of the forbidden fruit "ye shall not surely die," kept his promise,
and made man immortal in his incorruptible nature. He is the Iao of the
mysteries, the chief of the Androgyne creators of men. Chapter iii. contains
(esoterically) the withdrawal of the veil of ignorance that closed the
perceptions of the Angelic Man, made in the image of the "Boneless"
gods, and the opening of his consciousness to his real nature; thus showing the
bright Angel (Lucifer) in the light of a giver of Immortality, and as the
"Enlightener"; while the real Fall into generation and matter is to
be sought in chapter iv. There, Jehovah-Cain, the male part of Adam the dual
man, having separated himself from Eve, creates in her "Abel," the
first natural woman,* and sheds the Virgin blood. Now Cain, being shown
identical with Jehovah, on the authority of the correct reading of verse i.
(chapter iv., Genesis), in the original Hebrew text; and the Rabbins teaching
that "Kin (Cain), the Evil, was the Son of Eve by Samael, the devil who
took Adam's place"; and the Talmud adding that "the evil Spirit,
Satan, and Samael, the angel of Death, are the same" --(Babba Battra, 16a)
-- it becomes easy to see that Jehovah (mankind, or "Jah-hovah") and
Satan (therefore the tempting Serpent) are one and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Dozens of the most erudite writers have sifted thoroughly the various meanings
of the name J'hovah (with, and without the masoretic points), and shown their multifarious
bearings. The best of such works is the "Source of Measures, the Hebrew
Egyptian Mystery."
**
In the above-mentioned work (p. 233 App.), verse 26 of the 4th chap. of Genesis
is correctly translated "then men began to call themselves Jehovah,"
but less correctly explained, perhaps, as the last word ought to be written Jah
(male) Hovah (female), to show that from that time the race of distinctly
separate man and woman began.
***
See for explanation the excellent pages of appendix vii. of the same work.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 389 JEHOVAH OPHIOMORPHOS.
the
same in every particular. There is no Devil, no Evil, outside mankind to
produce a Devil. Evil is a necessity in, and one of the supporters of the
manifested universe. It is a necessity for progress and evolution, as night is
necessary for the production of Day, and Death for that of Life -- that man may
live for ever.
Satan
represents metaphysically simply the reverse or the polar opposite of
everything in nature.* He is the "adversary," allegorically, the
"murderer," and the great Enemy of all, because there is nothing in
the whole universe that has not two sides -- the reverses of the same medal.
But in that case, light, goodness, beauty, etc., may be called Satan with as
much propriety as the Devil, since they are the adversaries of darkness,
badness, and ugliness. And now the philosophy and the rationale of certain
early Christian sects -- called heretical and viewed as the abomination of the
times -- will become more comprehensible. We may understand how it was that the
sect of SATANIANS came to be degraded, and were anathematized without any hope
of vindication in a future day, since they kept their tenets secret. How, on the
same principle, the CAINITES came to be degraded, and even the (Judas)
ISCARIOTES; the true character of the treacherous apostle having never been
correctly presented before the tribunal of Humanity.
As
a direct consequence, the tenets of the Gnostic sects also become clear. Each
of these sects was founded by an Initiate, while their tenets were based on the
correct knowledge of the symbolism of every nation. Thus it becomes
comprehensible why Ilda-Baoth was regarded by most of them as the god of Moses,
and was held as a proud, ambitious, and impure spirit, who had abused his power
by usurping the place of the highest God, though he was no better, and in some
respects far worse than his brethren Elohim; the latter representing the
all-embracing, manifested deity only in their collectivity, since they were the
fashioners of the first differentiations of the primary Cosmic substance for
the creation of the phenomenal Universe. Therefore Jehovah was called by the
Gnostics the Creator of, and one with Ophiomorphos, the Serpent, Satan, or
EVIL. (See "Isis Unveiled," II, 184). They taught that Turbo and
Adonai were "names of Jao-Jehovah, who is an emanation of Ilda Baoth"
(Codex Nazaraeus). (See Part II., "The Fallen Angels.") This amounted
in their language to saying what the Rabbins expressed in a more veiled way, by
stating that -- "Cain had been generated by Samael or Satan."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In Demonology, Satan is the leader of the opposition in Hell, the monarch of
which was Beelzebub. He belongs to the fifth kind or class of demons (of which
there are nine according to mediaeval demonology), and he is at the head of
witches and sorcerers. But see in the text the true meaning of Baphomet, the
goat-headed Satan, one with Azaziel, the scape goat of Israel. Nature is the
god PAN.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 390 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
fallen Angels are made in every ancient system the prototypes of fallen men --
allegorically, and, those men themselves -- esoterically. Thus the Elohim of
the hour of creation became the "Beni-Elohim," the sons of God, among
whom is Satan -- in the Semitic traditions; war in heaven between Thraetaona and
Azhi-dahaka, the destroying Serpent, ends on earth, according to Burnouf, in
the battle of pious men against the power of Evil, "of the Iranians with
the Aryan Brahmins of India." And the conflict of the gods with the Asuras
is repeated in the Great War -- the Mahabharata. In the latest religion of all,
Christianity, all the Combatants, gods and demons, adversaries in both the
camps, are now transformed into Dragons and Satans, simply in order to connect
EVIL personified with the Serpent of Genesis, and thus prove the new dogma.*
-------
NOAH
WAS A KABIR, HENCE HE MUST HAVE BEEN A DEMON.
It
matters little whether it is Isis, or Ceres -- the "Kabiria" -- or
again the Kabiri, who have taught men agriculture; but it is very important to prevent
fanatics from monopolising all the facts in history and legend, and from
fathering their distortions of truth, history, and legend upon one man. Noah is
either a myth along with the others, or one whose legend was built upon the
Kabirian or Titanic tradition, as taught in Samothrace; he has, therefore, no
claim to be monopolized by either Jew or Christian. If, as Faber tried to
demonstrate at such cost of learning and research, Noah is an Atlantean and a
Titan, and his family are the Kabiri or pious Titans, etc. -- then biblical
chronology falls by its own weight, and along with it all the patriarchs -- the
antediluvian and pre-Atlantean Titans. As now discovered and proven, Cain is
Mars, the god of power and generation, and of the first (sexual) bloodshed.**
Tubal-Cain is a Kabir, "an instructor of every artificer in brass and
iron"; or -- if this will please better -- he is one with Hephaestos or
Vulcan; Jabal is taken from the Kabiri -- instructors in agriculture,
"such as have cattle," and Jubal is "the father of all those who
handle the harp," he, or they who fabricated the harp for Kronos and the
trident for Poseidon.***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide for further details upon the Satanic myth, Part II. on Symbolism, in this
volume.
**
As he is also Vulcan or Vul-cain, the greatest god with the later Egyptians,
and the greatest Kabir. The god of time was Chium in Egypt, or Saturn, or Seth,
and Chium is the same as Cain.
***
See Strabo, comparing them to the Cyclopes -- XIV. p. 653 et seq. (Callim in
Del., 31 Stat. Silo. IV., 6, 47; etc., etc.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 391 THE FLOOD LEGENDS.
The
history or "fables" about the mysterious Telchines -- fables echoing
each and all the archaic events of our esoteric teachings -- furnish us with a
key to the origin of Cain's genealogy (Genesis, ch. iii.); they give the reason
why the Roman Catholic Church identifies "the accursed blood" of Cain
and Ham with Sorcery, and makes it responsible for the Deluge. Were not the
Telchines -- it is argued -- the mysterious ironworkers of Rhodes; they who
were the first to raise statues to the gods, furnish them with weapons, and men
with magic arts? And is it not they who were destroyed by a deluge at the
command of Zeus, as the Cainites were by that of Jehovah?
The
Telchines are simply the Kabiri and the Titans, in another form. They are the
Atlanteans also. "Like Lemnos and Samothrace," says Decharme,
"Rhodes, the birth-place of the Telchines, is an island of volcanic
formation." (Genii of Fire, p. 271.) The island of Rhodes emerged suddenly
out of the seas, after having been previously engulfed by the Ocean, say the
traditions. Like Samothrace (of the Kabiri) it is connected in the memory of
men with the Flood legends. As enough has been said on this subject, however,
it may be left for the present.
But
we may add a few more words about Noah, the Jewish representative of nearly
every pagan God in one or another character. The Homeric songs contain,
poetized, all the later fables about the Patriarchs, who are all sidereal,
cosmic, and numerical symbols and signs. The attempt to disconnect the two
genealogies -- those of Seth and Cain* -- and the further attempt, as futile,
to show them real, historical men, has only led to more serious inquiries into
the history of the Past, and to discoveries which have damaged for ever the
supposed revelation. For instance, the identity of Noah and Melchizedek being
established, the further identity of Melchizedek, or Father Sadik, with
Kronos-Saturn is proved also.
That
it is so may be easily demonstrated. It is not denied by any of the Christian
writers. Bryant (See "Analysis of Ancient Mythology," Vol. II., p.
760) concurs with all those who are of opinion, that Sydic, or
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nothing could be more awkward and childish, we say, than this fruitless attempt
to disconnect the genealogies of Cain and of Seth, or to conceal the identity
of names under a different spelling. Thus, Cain has a Son ENOCH, and Seth a Son
ENOCH also (Enos, Ch'anoch, Hanoch; -- one may do what one likes with Hebrew
unvowelled names). In the Cainite line Enoch begets IRAD, Irad MEHUJAEL, the
latter METHUSAEL, and Methusael, Lamech. In the Sethite line, Enoch begets
Cainan, and this one MAHALEEL (a variation on Mehujael), who gives birth to
JARAD (or Irad); Jarad to ENOCH (Number 3), who produces Methuselah (from
Methusael), and finally Lamech closes the list. Now all these are symbols
(Kabalistically) of solar and lunar years, of astronomical periods, and of
physiological (phallic) functions, just as in any other pagan symbolical creed.
This has been proven by a number of writers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 392 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Sadic,
was the patriarch Noah (as also Melchizedek); and that the name by which he is
called, or Sadic, corresponds to the character given of him in Genesis, chap.
vi., 9. "He was [[diagram]], Sadic, a JUST man, and perfect in his
generation. All science and every useful art were attributed to him, and
through his sons transmitted to posterity." (See New Encyclopaedia by
Abraham Rees, F.R.S.)
Now
it is Sanchoniathon, who informs the world that the Kabiri were the Sons of
Sydic or Zedek (Melchizedek). True enough, this information, having descended
to us through Eusebius (Preparatio Evangelica), may be regarded with a certain
amount of suspicion, as it is more than likely that he dealt with
Sanchoniathon's works as he has with Manetho's Synchronistic Tables. But let us
suppose that the identification of Sydic, Kronos, or Saturn with Noah and
Melchizedek, is based on one of the Eusebian pious hypotheses. Let us accept it
as such, along with Noah's characteristic as a just man, and his supposed
duplicate, the mysterious Melchizedek, King of Salem, and priest of the high
god, after "his own order" (See Hebrews, ch. v. 6, and vii. 1, et
seq.); and finally, having seen what they all were spiritually, astronomically,
psychically and cosmically, let us now see what they became rabbinically and
KABALISTICALLY.
Speaking
of Adam, Kain, Mars, etc., as personifications, we find the author of "The
Source of Measures" enunciating our very esoteric teachings in his
Kabalistic researches. Thus he says:--
"Now
Mars was the lord of birth and of death, of generation and of destruction, of
ploughing, of building, of sculpture or stone-cutting, of Architecture . . . .
in fine, of all . . . . ARTS. He was the primeval principle, disintegrating
into the modification of two opposites for production. Astronomically, too,* he
held the birthplace of the day and year, the place of its increase of strength,
Aries, and likewise the place of its death, Scorpio. He held the house of
Venus, and that of the Scorpion. He, as birth, was good; as death, was Evil. As
good, he was light; as bad, he was night. As good, he was man; as bad, he was
woman. He held the cardinal points, and as Cain, or Vulcan,** or Pater Sadic,
or Melchizadek, he was lord of the Ecliptic, or
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The AEolian name of Mars was [[Areus]], and the Greek Ares, [[Ares]], is a name
over the etymological significance of which, philologists and Indianists, Greek
and Sanskrit scholars have vainly worked to this day. Very strangely, Max
Muller connects both the names Mars and Ares with the Sanskrit root mar, whence
he traces their derivation, and from which, he says, the name of Maruts (the
storm-gods) comes. Welcker, however, offers more correct etymologies. (See
Griech. Gotterlehre, I., 415.) However it may be, etymologies of roots and
words alone will never yield the esoteric meaning fully, though they may help to
useful guesses.
**
As the same author shows: "The very name Vulcain appears in the reading;
for in the first words (of chap. iv. Genesis, 5) is to be found V'elcain, or
V'ulcain, agreeably to the deepened u sound of the letter vau. Out of its
immediate context, it may be [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 393 THE LEGENDS OF IRAN.
balance,
or line of adjustment, and therefore was THE JUST ONE. The ancients held to
there being seven planets, or great gods, growing out of eight, and Pater
Sadik, the Just or Right One, was lord of the eighth, which was Mater Terra.
("Source of Measures," p. 186-70.)
This
makes their functions plain enough after they had been degraded, and
establishes the identity.
The
Noachian Deluge, as described in its dead letter and within the period of
Biblical chronology, having been shown to have never existed, the pious, but
very arbitrary supposition of Bishop Cumberland has but to follow that deluge
into the land of fiction. Indeed it seems rather fanciful to any impartial
observer to be told that there were "two distinct races of Kabiri,"
the first consisting of Ham and Mizraim, whom he conceives to be Jupiter and
Dionysus of Mnaseas; the second, "of the children of Shem, are the Kabiri
of Sochoniston, while their father Sydyk is consequently the Scriptural
Shem." (Append. de Cabiris, ap. Orig. gent. p. 364, 376, and the latter
statement on p. 357.)
The
Kabirim, "the mighty ones," are identical with our primeval
Dhyan-Chohans, with the corporeal and the incorporeal Pitris, and with all the
rulers and instructors of the primeval races, which are referred to as the Gods
and Kings of the divine Dynasties.
-------
THE
OLDEST PERSIAN TRADITIONS ABOUT THE POLAR, AND THE SUBMERGED CONTINENTS.
Legendary
lore could not distort facts so effectually as to reduce them to unrecognisable
shape. Between the traditions of Egypt and Greece on the one hand, and Persia
on the other -- a country ever at war with the former -- there is too great a
similarity of figures and numbers to allow such coincidence to be due to simple
chance. This was well proven by Bailly. Let us pause for a moment to examine
these traditions from every available source, to compare the better those of
the Magi with the so-called Grecian "fables."
Those
legends have now passed into popular tales, the folklore of Persia, as many a
real fiction has found its way into our universal History. The stories of King Arthur
and his knights of the Round Table are also fairy tales to all appearance; yet
they are based on facts, and pertain to the History of England. Why should not
the folklore of Iran be part and parcel of the history and the pre-historic
events of Atlantis? That folklore says as follows:
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] read as "and the god Cain," or
Vulcain. If, however, anything is wanting to confirm the Cain-Vulcain idea, Fuerst
says: [[hebrew]], Cain, the iron point of a lance, a smith (blacksmith),
inventor of sharp iron tools and smith work" (p. 278).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 394 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Before
the creation of Adam, two races lived and succeeded each other on Earth; the
Devs who reigned 7,000 years, and the Peris (the Izeds) who reigned but 2,000,
during the existence of the former. The Devs were giants, strong and wicked;
the Peris were smaller in stature, but wiser and kinder.
Here
we recognize the Atlantean giants and the Aryans, or the Rakshasas of the
Ramayana and the children of Bharata Varsha, or India; the ante- and the
post-diluvians of the Bible.
Gyan
(or rather Gnan, true or occult Wisdom and knowledge), also called
Gian-ben-Gian (or Wisdom, son of Wisdom), was the king of the Peris.* He had a
shield as famous as that of Achilles, only instead of serving against an enemy
in war, it served as a protection against black magic, the sorcery of the Devs.
Gian-ben-Gian had reigned 2,000 years when Iblis, the devil, was permitted by
God to defeat the Devs and scatter them to the other end of the world. Even the
magic shield, which, produced on the principles of astrology, destroyed charms,
enchantments, and bad spells, could not prevail against Iblis, who was an agent
of Fate (or Karma).** They count ten kings in their last metropolis called
Khanoom, and make the tenth, Kaimurath, identical with the Hebrew Adam. These
kings answer to the ten antediluvian generations of kings as given by Berosus.
Distorted
as those legends are now found, one can hardly fail to identify them with the
Chaldean, Egyptian, Greek, and even Hebrew traditions. The latter, disdaining
in its exclusiveness to speak of pre-adamite nations, yet allows these to be
clearly inferred, by sending out Cain -- one of the two only living men on
earth -- into the land of Nod, where he gets married and builds a city (Gen.
iv.), etc.
Now
if we compare the 9,000 years mentioned by the Persian tales with the 9,000
years, which Plato declared had passed since the submersion of the last
Atlantis, a very strange fact is made apparent. Bailly remarked, but distorted
it by his interpretation. The Secret Doctrine may restore the figures to their
true meaning. "First of all," we read in "Critias" that
"one must remember that 9,000 years have elapsed since the war of the
nations, which lived above and outside the Pillars of Hercules, and those which
peopled the lands on this side."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Some derive the word from Paras which produced Pars, Persia, Pars; but it may
be equally derived from Pitar or Pitris, the Hindu progenitors of the Fifth
Race -- the Fathers of Wisdom or the Sons of "Will and Yoga" -- who
were called Pitar, as were the divine Pitars of the First Race.
**
See for these traditions the "Collection of Persian Legends," in
Russian, Georgian, Armenian, and Persian; Herbelot's narrative Legendes
Persanes, "Bibliotheque Orientale," p. 298, 387, etc., and Danville's
Memoires. We give in a condensed narrative that which is scattered in hundreds
of volumes in European and Asiatic languages, as well as in oral traditions.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 395 ESOTERIC CHRONOLOGY.
In
"Timaeus" Plato says the same. The Secret Doctrine declaring that
most of the later islander Atlanteans perished in the interval between 850,000 and
700,000 years ago, and that the Aryans were 200,000 years old when the first
great "island" or continent was submerged, there hardly seems any
reconciliation possible between the figures. But there is, in truth. Plato,
being an Initiate, had to use the veiled language of the Sanctuary, and so had
the Magi of Chaldea and Persia, through whose exoteric revelations the Persian
legends were preserved and passed to posterity. Thus, one finds the Hebrews
calling a week "seven days," and "a week of years" when
each of its days represents 360 solar years, and the whole "week" is
2,520 years, in fact. They had a Sabbatical week, a Sabbatical year, etc.,
etc., and their Sabbath lasted indifferently 24 hours or 24,000 years -- in
their secret calculations of the Sods. We of the present times call an age a
century. They of Plato's day, the initiated writers, at any rate, meant by a
millenium, not a thousand but 100,000 years; Hindus, more independent than any,
never concealed their chronology. Thus, when saying 9,000 years, the Initiates
will read 900,000 years, during which space of time -- i.e, from the first
appearance of the Aryan race, when the Pliocene portions of the once great
Atlantis began gradually sinking* and other continents to appear on the
surface, down to the final disappearance of Plato's small island of Atlantis,
the Aryan races had never ceased to fight with the descendants of the first
giant races. This war lasted till nearly the close of the age which preceded
the Kali Yug, and was the Mahabharatean war so famous in Indian History. Such
blending of the events and epochs, and the bringing down of hundreds of
thousands into thousands of years, does not interfere with the numbers of years
that had elapsed, according to the statement made by the Egyptian priests to
Solon, since the destruction of the last portion of Atlantis. The 9,000 years
were the correct figures given. The latter event has never been kept a secret,
and had only faded out of the memory of the Greeks. The Egyptians had their
records complete, because isolated; for, being surrounded by sea and desert,
they had been left untrammelled by other nations, till about a few millenniums
before our era.
History,
for the first time, catches a glimpse of Egypt and its great mysteries through
Herodotus, if we do not take into account the Bible, and its queer
chronology.** And how little Herodotus could tell is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The main continent perished in the Miocene times, as already stated.
**
From Bede downwards all the chronologists of the Church have differed among
themselves, and contradicted each other. "The chronology of the Hebrew
text has been grossly altered, especially in the interval next after the
Deluge":-- says Whiston (Old Test., p. 20).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 396 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
confessed
by himself when speaking of a mysterious tomb of an Initiate at Sais, in the
sacred precinct of Minerva. There, he says "behind the chapel . . . is the
tomb of One, whose name I consider it impious to divulge . . . In the enclosure
stand large obelisks and there is a lake near, surrounded with a stone wall
formed in a circle. In this lake they perform by night, that person's
adventures, which they call Mysteries: on these matters, however, though I am
accurately acquainted with the particulars of them, I must observe a discreet
silence" (ii. 170).
On
the other hand, it is well to know that no secret was so well preserved and so
sacred with the ancients, as that of their cycles and computations. From the
Egyptians down to the Jews it was held as the highest sin to divulge anything
pertaining to the correct measure of time. It was for divulging the secrets of
the Gods, that Tantalus was plunged into the infernal regions; the keepers of
the sacred Sibylline Books were threatened with the death penalty for revealing
a word from them. Sigalions (images of Harpocrates) were in every temple --
especially in those of Isis and Serapis -- each pressing a finger to the lips;
while the Hebrews taught that to divulge, after initiation into the Rabbinical
mysteries, the secrets of Kabala, was like eating of the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge: it was punishable by death.
And
yet, we Europeans accepted the exoteric chronology of the Jews! What wonder
that it has influenced and coloured ever since all our conceptions of science
and the duration of things!
The
Persian traditions, then, are full of two nations or races, now entirely
extinct, as some think; whereas, they are only transformed. They are ever
speaking of, and describing the mountains of Kaf (Kafaristan?), which contain a
gallery built by the giant Argeak, wherein the statues of the ancient men under
all their forms are preserved. They call them Sulimans (Solomons), or the wise
kings of the East, and count seventy-two kings of that name.* Three among them
reigned for 1,000 years each. (Herbelot, p. 829.)
Siamek,
the beloved son of Kaimurath (Adam), their first king, died murdered by his
giant brother. The father had a perpetual fire preserved on the tomb which
contained his cremated ashes; hence -- the origin of fire-worship, as some
Orientalists think.
Then
came Huschenk, the prudent and the wise. It was his dynasty which re-discovered
metals and precious stones, which had been concealed by the Devs or Giants in
the bowels of the earth; how to make brass-work, to cut canals, and improve
agriculture. As usual, it is Huschenk, again, who is credited with having
written the work called
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thence King Solomon, whose traces are nowhere to be found outside of the Bible,
and the description of whose magnificent palace and city dovetail with those of
the Persian tales; though they were unknown to all pagan travellers, even to
Herodotus.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 397 THE PERSIAN PHOENIX.
"Eternal
Wisdom," and even with having built the cities of Luz, Babylon and
Ispahan, though they were built ages later. But as modern Delhi is built on six
other older cities, so these just-named cities may be built on emplacements of
other cities of an immense antiquity. As to his date, it can only be inferred
from another legend.
In
the same tradition that wise prince is credited with having made war against
the giants on a twelve-legged horse, whose birth is attributed to the amours of
a crocodile with a female hippopotamus. This dodecaped was found on the
"dry island" or new continent; much force and cunning had to be used
to secure the wonderful animal, but no sooner had Huschenk mounted him, than he
defeated every enemy. No giants could withstand his tremendous power. Notwithstanding,
this king of kings was killed by an enormous rock thrown at him by the giants
from the great mountains of Damavend.*
Tahmurath
is the third king of Persia, the St. George of Iran, the knight who always has
the best of, and who kills, the Dragon. He is the great enemy of the Devs who,
in his day, dwelled in the mountains of Kaf, and occasionally made raids on the
Peris. The old French chronicles of the Persian folklore call him the Dev-bend,
the conqueror of the giants. He, too, is credited with having founded Babylon,
Nineveh, Diarbek, etc., etc. Like his grand-sire Huschenk, Tahmurath (Taimuraz)
also had his steed, only far more rare and rapid -- a bird called Simorgh-Anke.
A marvellous bird, in truth, intelligent, a polyglot, and even very religious.
(See Orient. Collect. ii., 119.) What says that Persian Phoenix? It complains
of its old age, for it is born cycles and cycles before the days of Adam (also
Kaimurath). It has witnessed the revolutions of long centuries. It has seen the
birth and the close of twelve cycles of 7,000 years each, which multiplied
esoterically will give us again 840,000 years.** (Orient. Collect. ii., 119 et
seq.) Simorgh is born with the last deluge of the pre-Adamites, says the
"romance of Simorgh and the good Khalif"! (Tales of Derbent.)
What
says the "Book of Numbers"? Esoterically, Adam Rishoon is the lunar
Spirit (Jehovah, in a sense, or the Pitris) and his three Sons -- Ka-yin,
Habel, and Seth -- represent the three races, as already explained.
Noah-Xisuthrus represents in his turn (in the cosmo-geological key) the 3rd
Race separated, and his three sons, its last three races; Ham, moreover,
symbolizing that race which uncovered the "nakedness" of the Parent
Race, and of the "Mindless," i.e., committed sin.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Orient. Trad., p. 454. See also Bailly's "Lettres sur l'Atlantide."
**
Remember that the Rabbins teach that there are to be seven successive renewals
of the globe; that each will last 7,000 years, the total duration being thus
49,000 years (See Rabbi Parcha's "wheel"; also Kenealy's "Book
of God," p. 176). This refers to 7 Rounds, 7 Root-races, and sub-races,
the truly occult figures, though sorely confused.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 398 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Tahmurath
visits on his winged steed (Ahriman) the Mountains of Koh-Kaf or Kaph. He finds
there the Peris ill-treated by the giants, and slays Argen, and the giant
Demrusch. Then he liberates the good Peri, Mergiana*, whom Demrusch had kept as
a prisoner, and takes her over to the dry island, i.e., the new continent of
Europe.** After him came Giamschid, who builds Esikekar, or Persepolis. This
king reigns 700 years, and believes himself, in his great pride, immortal, and
demands divine honours. Fate punishes him, he wanders for 100 years in the
world under the name of Dhulkarnayn "the two horned." But this
epithet has no connection with the "two-horned" gentleman of the cloven
foot. The "two-horned" is the epithet given in Asia, uncivilized
enough to know nothing of the attributes of the devil, to those conquerors who
have subdued the world from the East to the West.
Then
come the usurper Zohac, and Feridan, one of the Persian heroes, who vanquishes
the former, and shuts him up in the mountains of Damavend. These are followed
by many others down to Kaikobad, who founded a new dynasty.
Such
is the legendary history of Persia, and we have to analyze it. What are the
mountains of Kaf to begin with?
Whatever
they may be in their geographical status, whether they are the Caucasian or
Central Asian mountains, it is far beyond these mountains to the North, that
legend places the Devs and Peris; the latter the remote ancestors of the Parses
or Farses. Oriental tradition is ever referring to an unknown glacial, gloomy
sea, and to a dark region, within which, nevertheless, are situated the
Fortunate Islands, wherein bubbles, from the beginning of life on earth, the
fountain of life (Herbelot, p. 593; Armenian Tales, p. 35). But the legend
asserts, moreover, that a portion of the first dry island (continent), having
detached itself from the main body, has remained, since then, beyond the
mountains of Koh-kaf, "the stony girdle that surrounds the world." A
journey of seven months' duration will bring him who is possessed of
"Soliman's ring" to that "fountain," if he keeps on
journeying North straight before him as the bird flies. Journeying therefore
from Persia straight north, will bring one along the sixtieth degree of
longitude, holding to the west, to Nova Zemblia; and from the Caucasus to the
eternal ice beyond the Arctic circle would land one between 60 and 45 degrees
of longitude, or between Nova Zemblia and Spitzbergen. This, of course, if one
has the dodecapedian horse of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Mergain, or Morgana, the fairy sister of King Arthur, is thus shown of Oriental
descent.
**
Where we find her, indeed, in Great Britain, in the romance of the Knights of
the Round Table. Whence the identity of name and fairy-hood, if both heroines
did not symbolize the same historical event which had passed into a legend?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 399 THE ARCTIC CONTINENT.
Huschenk
or the winged Simorgh of Tahmurath (or Taimuraz), upon which to cross over the
Arctic Ocean.*
Nevertheless,
the wandering songsters of Persia and the Caucasus will maintain, to this day,
that far beyond the snow-capped summits of Kap, or Caucasus, there is a great
continent now concealed from all. That it is reached by those who can secure
the services of the twelvelegged progeny of the crocodile and the female
hippopotamus, whose legs become at will twelve wings**; or by those who have
the patience to wait for the good pleasure of Simorgh-anke, who promised that
before she dies she will reveal the hidden continent to all, and make it once
more visible and within easy reach, by means of a bridge, which the Ocean Devs
will build between that portion of the "dry island" and its severed
parts.*** This relates, of course, to the seventh race, Simorgh being the
Manvantaric cycle.
It
is very curious that Cosmas Indicopleustes, who lived in the sixth century
A.D., should have always maintained that man was born, and dwelt at first in a
country beyond the Ocean, a proof of which had been given him in India, by a
learned Chaldean (Cosmas Indicopleustes in Collect. nova Patrum, t. ii, p. 188;
also see Journ. des Savants, Suppl. 1707, p. 20.) He says: "The lands we
live in are surrounded by the ocean, but beyond that ocean there is another
land which touches the walls of the sky; and it is in this land that man was
created and lived in paradise. During the Deluge, Noah was carried in his ark
into the land his posterity now inhabits." (Ibid.) The twelve-legged horse
of Huschenk was found on that continent named the dry island. (Supra, p. 154.)
The
"Christian topography" of Cosmas Indicopleustes and its merits are
well known; but here the good father repeats a universal tradition, now,
moreover, corroborated by facts. Every arctic traveller suspects a continent or
a "dry island" beyond the line of eternal ice. Perhaps now the
meaning of the following passage from one of the Commentaries may become
clearer.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To this day the aborigines of Caucasus speak of their mountains as Kap-kaz,
using the consonant p instead of the usual v (Kavkaz or Caucasus). But their
bards say that it requires seven months for a swift horse to reach the
"dry land" beyond Kaf, holding north without ever deviating from
one's way.
**
Bailly thought he saw in this horse a twelve-oared ship. The Secret Doctrine
teaches that the early Third Race built boats and flotillas before it built
houses. But the "horse," though a much later animal, has,
nevertheless, a more occult primitive meaning. The crocodile and the
hippopotamus were held sacred and represented divine symbols, both with the
ancient Egyptians and with the Mexicans. Poseidon is, in Homer, the God of the
Horse, and assumes that form himself to please Ceres. Arion, their progeny, is
one of the aspects of that "horse," which is a cycle.
***
The severed parts must be Norway and other lands in the neighbourhood of the
Arctic Circle.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 400 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"In
the first beginnings of (human) life, the only dry land was on the Right end*
of the sphere, where it (the globe) is motionless.** The whole earth was one
vast watery desert, and the waters were tepid . . . . There man was born on the
seven zones of the immortal, the indestructible of the Manvantara.*** There was
eternal spring in darkness. (But) that which is darkness to the man of today,
was light to the man of his dawn. There, the gods rested, and Fohat**** reigns
ever since . . . . Thus the wise fathers say that man is born in the head of
his mother (earth), and that her feet at the left end generated (begot) the
evil winds that blow from the mouth of the lower Dragon . . . . Between the
first and second (races) the eternal central (land) was divided by the water of
life.*****
"It
flows around and animates her (mother earth's) body. Its one end issues from
her head; it becomes foul at her feet (the Southern Pole). It gets purified (on
its return) to her heart -- which beats under the foot of the sacred Shambalah,
which then (in the beginnings) was not yet born. For it is in the belt of man's
dwelling (the earth) that lies concealed the life and health of all that lives
and breathes.****** During the first and second (races) the belt was covered
with the great waters. (But) the great mother travailed under the waves and a
new land was joined to the first one which our wise men call the head-gear (the
cap). She travailed harder for the third (race) and her waist and navel
appeared above the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The two poles are called the right and left ends of our globe -- the right
being the North Pole -- or the head and feet of the earth. Every beneficent
(astral and cosmic) action comes from the North; every lethal influence from
the South Pole. They are much connected with and influence "right"
and "left" hand magic.
**
The more one approaches the poles the less rotation is felt; at the poles
proper, the diurnal revolution is quite neutralized. Thence the expression that
the sphere is "motionless."
***
It is averred in Occultism that the land or island, which crowns the North Pole
like a skull-cap, is the only one which prevails during the whole Manvantara of
our "Round." All the central continents and lands will emerge from
the sea bottom many times in turn, but this land will never change.
****
Bear in mind that the Vedic and Avestian name of Fohat is Apam-Napat. In the
Avesta he stands between the fire-yazatas and the water-yazatas. The literal
meaning is "Son of the Waters," but these "waters" are not
the liquid we know, but Ether -- the fiery waters of space. Fohat is the
"Son of Ether" in its highest aspect, Akasa, the Mother-Father of the
primitive Seven, and of Sound or LOGOS. Fohat is the light of the latter. See
Book I.
*****
This "water" is the blood or fluid of life which animates the earth,
compared here to a living body.
******
Occult teaching corroborates the popular tradition which asserts the existence
of a fountain of life in the bowels of the earth and in the North Pole. It is
the blood of the earth, the electromagnetic current, which circulates through
all the arteries; and which is said to be found stored in the "navel"
of the earth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 401 THE UNREACHABLE LAND.
water.
It was the belt, the sacred Himavat, which stretches around the world.* She
broke toward the setting sun from her neck** downward (to the south west), into
many lands and islands, but the eternal land (the cap) broke not asunder. Dry
lands covered the face of the silent waters to the four sides of the world. All
these perished (in their turn). Then appeared the abode of the wicked (the
Atlantis). The eternal land was now hid, for the waters became solid (frozen) under
the breath of her nostrils and the evil winds from the Dragon's mouth,"
etc., etc.
This
shows that Northern Asia is as old as the Second Race. One may even say that
Asia is contemporary with man, since from the very beginnings of human life its
root-continent, so to speak, already existed; that part of the world now known
as Asia being only cut off from it in a later age, and divided by the glacial
waters.
If,
then, the teaching is understood correctly, the first continent which came into
existence capped over the whole North Pole like one unbroken crust, and remains
so to this day, beyond that inland sea which seemed like an unreachable mirage
to the few arctic travellers who perceived it.
During
the Second Race more land emerged from under the waters as a continuation of
the "head" from the neck. Beginning on both hemispheres, on the line
above the most northern part of Spitzbergen*** on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Occultism points to the Himalayan chain as that "belt," and maintains
that whether under the water or above, it encircles the globe. The navel is
described as situated to the setting sun or to the west of the Himavat in which
lie the roots of Meru, which mountain is north of the Himalaya. Meru is not
"the fabulous mountain in the navel or centre of the earth," but its
roots and foundations are in that navel, though it is in the far north itself.
This connects it with the "central" land "that never
perishes"; the land in which "the day of the mortal lasts six months
and his night another six months." As the Vishnu Purana has it: "for
the North of Meru there is, therefore, always night during day in other
regions; for Meru is north of all the dwipas and varshas" (islands and
countries). (Book II., chap. viii.) Meru is therefore neither on Atlas as
Wilford suggests, nor, as Wilson tried to show, "absolutely in the centre
of the globe," only because "relatively with the inhabitants of the
several portions, to all of whom the East is that quarter where the sun first
appears."
**
Even the Commentaries do not refrain from Oriental metaphor. The globe is
likened to the body of a woman, "mother earth." From her neck
downward, means from the inland sea now beyond the impassable barrier of ice.
The Earth, as Parasara says: "is the mother and nurse, augmented with all
creatures and their qualities, the comprehender of all the worlds."
***
For the Stanzas call this locality by a term translated in the commentary as a
place of no latitude (niraksha) the abode of the gods. As a scholiast says from
the Surya-Sidhanta:
"Above
this (the Siddha) goes the sun when situated at the equinoxes; they have
neither equinoctial shadow nor elevation of the pole (akshonnati, v. 42). In both
directions from these are two pole-stars (dhruvatara), fixed in the midst of
the sky; [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 402 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Mercator's
Projection, on our side, it may have included, on the American side, the
localities that are now occupied by Baffin's Bay and the neighbouring islands
and promontories. There it hardly reached, southward, the 70th degree of
latitude; here -- it formed the horse-shoe continent of which the commentary
speaks; of the two ends of which, one included Greenland with a prolongation
which crossed the 50th degree a little south west, and the other Kamschatka,
the two ends being united by what is now the northern fringe of the coasts of
Eastern and Western Siberia. This broke asunder and disappeared. In the early
part of the Third Race -- Lemuria was formed (Vide supra). When it was
destroyed in its turn, Atlantis appeared.
-------
WESTERN
SPECULATIONS,
FOUNDED
ON THE GREEK AND PURANIC TRADITIONS.
Thus
it becomes natural to find that, on even such meagre data as have reached the
profane historian, Rudbeck, a Swedish scientist, tried to prove about two
centuries ago that Sweden was the Atlantis of Plato. He thought, even, that he
had found in the configuration of ancient Upsala, the situation and
measurements given by the Greek sage of the capital of "Atlantis." As
Bailly proved, Rudbeck was mistaken; but so was Bailly likewise, and still
more. For Sweden and Norway had formed part and parcel of ancient Lemuria, and
also of Atlantis on the European side, just as Eastern and Western Siberia and
Kamschatka had belonged to it, on the Asiatic. Only, once more, when was it? We
can find it out approximately only by studying the Puranas, if we will have
nought to do with the Secret teachings.
Three
quarters of a century have already elapsed since Captain (now Colonel) Wilford
brought forward his fanciful theories about the British islands being the
"White Island," the Atala of the Puranas. This was sheer nonsense, as
the Atala is one of the seven dwipas, or islands, belonging to the nether
lokas, one of the seven regions of Patala (the antipodes). Moreover, as
Wilford* shows, the Puranas place it "on
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] to those who are situated in places of no
latitude (niraksha) both these have their place in the horizon. Hence there is
(on that land) no elevation of the poles, the two pole-stars being situated in
their horizon; but their degrees of colatitude (lumbaka) are 90; at Meru the
degrees of latitude (aksha) are of the same number." (43 and 44.)
*
Wilford makes many mistakes. He identifies, for instance, Sveta-dwipa (the
white Island), the "island in the northern part of Toyambhudi," with
England, and then tries to identify it with Atala (a nether region) and
Atlantis. Now the former is the abode of Vishnu, exoterically, and Atala is a
hell. He also places it in the Euxine or Icshu (Black) Sea, and then seems to
connect it, in another place, with Africa and Atlas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 403 ORIENTALISTS IN THE WRONG BOX.
the
seventh zone or seventh climate," -- rather, on the seventh measure of
heat: which thus locates it between the latitudes of 24 and 28 degrees north.
It is then to be sought on the same degree as the Tropic of Cancer, whereas
England is between the 50th and 60th degrees of latitude. Wilford speaks of it
as Atala, Atlantis, the white island. And in vol. viii. of Journal of Asiatic
Researches, p. 280, its enemy is called the "White Devil," the demon
of terror. For he says: "In their (the Hindu and Mahomedan) romances, we
see Kai-caus going to the mountain of 'As-burj, at the foot of which the Sun
sets,' to fight the Dev-Sefid, or white devil, the Taradaitya of the Puranas,
whose abode was on the seventh stage of the world, answering to the seventh
zone of the Buddhists, or the White Island."
Now
here the Orientalists have been, and are still, facing the Sphinx's riddle, the
wrong solution of which will ever destroy their authority, if not their
persons, in the eyes of every Hindu scholar, even those who are not initiates.
For there is not a statement in the Puranas -- on the conflicting details of
which Wilford based his speculations -- which has not several meanings, and
does not apply to both the physical and the metaphysical worlds. If the old
Hindus divided the face of the globe geographically into seven zones, climates,
dwipas, and into seven hells and seven heavens, allegorically, that measure of
seven did not apply in both cases to the same localities. It is the north pole,
the country of "Meru," which is the seventh division, as it answers
to the Seventh principle (or fourth metaphysically), of the occult calculation,
for it represents the region of Atma, of pure soul, and Spirituality. Hence
Pushkara is shown as the seventh zone, or dwipa, which encompasses the Kshira
Ocean, or Ocean of milk (the ever-frozen white region) in the Vishnu (and
other) Puranas (Book II ch. iv.). And Pushkara, with its two Varshas, lies
directly at the foot of Meru. For it is said that "the two countries north
and south of Meru are shaped like a bow," . . and that "one half of
the surface of the earth is on the south of Meru and the other half on the
north of Meru -- beyond which is half of Pushkara" (Vishnu Purana, Asiatic
Researches, etc.). Geographically, then, Pushkara is America, Northern and Southern;
and allegorically it is the prolongation of Jambu-dwipa* in the middle of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Every name in the Puranas has to be examined at least under two aspects;
geographically, and metaphysically, in its allegorical application; e.g., Nila,
the (blue) mountain which is one of the boundaries to the north of Meru, is
again to be sought geographically in a mountain range in Orissa, and again in a
mountain quite different from the others (in Western Africa). Jambu-dwipa is
Vishnu's dominion -- the world, limited in the Puranas to our globe, the region
which contains Meru only, and again it is divided to contain Bharata-varsha
(India), its best division, and the fairest, says Parasara. Likewise with
Pushkara and all others.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 404 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
which
stands Meru, for it is the country inhabited by beings who live ten thousand
years, who are free from sickness or failing; where there is neither virtue nor
vice, caste or laws, for these men are "of the same nature as the
Gods," (Vishnu Purana, Book II. ch. iv.). Wilford is inclined to see Meru
in Mount Atlas, and locates there also the Loka-lokas. Now Meru, we are told,
which is the Swar-loka, the abode of Brahma, of Vishnu, and the Olympus of
Indian exoteric religions, is described geographically as "passing through
the middle of the earth-globe, and protruding on either side" (Surya
Siddhanta, v. 5, Whitney's trans.). On its upper station are the gods, on the
nether (or South pole) is the abode of demons (hells). How can then Meru be
Mount Atlas? Besides which, Taradaitya, a demon, cannot be placed on the
seventh zone if the latter is identified with the "white" Island, which
is Sveta-dwipa, for reasons given in the foot-note. (Vide infra.)
Wilford
accuses the modern Brahmans "of having jumbled them (islands and
countries) all together" (A.R. III. 300); but he jumbled them still more.
He believes that as the Brahmanda and Vayu Puranas divide the old continent
into seven dwipas, said to be surrounded by a vast ocean, beyond which lie the
regions and mountains of Atala (ibid), hence "most probably the Greeks
divided the nation of Atlantis, which, as it could not be found after having
once been discovered, they conceived to have been destroyed by some shock of
nature."
Finding
certain difficulties in believing that the Egyptian priests, Plato, and even
Homer, had all built their notions of Atlantis on Atala -- a nether region located
at the Southern pole -- we prefer holding to the statements given in the secret
books. We believe in the seven "continents," four of which have
already lived their day, the fifth still exists, and two are to appear in the
future. We believe that each of these is not strictly a continent in the modern
sense of the word, but that each name, from Jambu down to Pushkara,* refers to
the geographical names given (i.) to the dry lands covering the face of the
whole earth during the period of a Root-Race, in general; and (ii.) to what
remained of these after a geological (race) Pralaya -- as "Jambu,"
for instance: and (iii.) to those localities which will enter, after the future
cataclysms, into the formation of new universal "continents,"
peninsulas, or dwipas** -- each continent being, in one sense, a greater or
smaller region of dry land surrounded with water. Thus, that whatever
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Jambu, Plaksha, Salmali, Kusa, Krauncha, Saka, and Pushkara.
**
Such as Saka and Pushkara, for instance, which do not yet exist, but into which
will enter such lands as some portions of America, of Africa, and Central Asia,
with the Gobi region. Let us bear in mind that Upadwipas means "root"
islands, or the dry land in general.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 405 FUTURE CONTINENTS, SYMBOLIZED.
"jumble"
the nomenclature of these may represent to the profane, there is none, in fact,
to him who has the key.
Thus,
we believe we know that, though two of the Puranic "islands" -- the
sixth and seventh "continents" -- are yet to come, nevertheless there
were, or there are, lands which will enter into the composition of the future dry
lands, of new earths whose geographical faces will be entirely changed, as were
those of the past. Therefore we find in the Puranas that Saka-dwipa is (or will
be) a continent, and that Sankha-dwipa, as shown in the Vayu Purana, is only
"a minor island," one of the nine divisions (to which Vayu adds six
more) of Bharata Varsha. Because Sankha-dwipa was peopled by "Mlechchhas
(unclean foreigners), who worshipped Hindu divinities," therefore they
were connected with India.* This accounts for Sankhasura, a King of a portion
of Sankha-dwipa, who was killed by Krishna; that King who resided in the palace
"which was an ocean shell, and whose subjects lived in shells also,"
says Wilford.
"On
the banks of the Nile** (?) there were frequent contests between the Devatas
(divine beings, demi-gods) and the Daityas (giants); but the latter tribe
having prevailed, their King, Sankhasura, who resided in the Ocean, made
frequent incursions in the night" (As. Res., Vol. III. 225.)
It
is not on the banks of the Nile, but on the coasts of Western Africa, south of
where now lies Morocco, that these battles took place. There was a time when
the whole of the Sahara desert was a sea, then a continent as fertile as the
Delta, and then, only after another temporary submersion, it became a desert
similar to that other wilderness, the desert of Shamo or Gobi. This is shown in
Puranic tradition, for on the same page as above cited, it is said: "The
people were between two fires; for, while Sankhasura was ravaging one side of the
continent, Krauncha (or Cracacha), King of Kraunch, used to desolate the other;
both armies . . . thus changed the most fertile regions into a savage
desert."
That
not only the last island of Atlantis, spoken of by Plato, but a large
continent, first divided, and then broken later on into seven peninsulas and
islands (called dwipas), preceded Europe, is sure. It covered the whole of the
North and South Atlantic regions, as well as portions of the North and South
Pacific, and had islands even in the Indian Ocean (relics of Lemuria). The
claim is corroborated by Indian Puranas, Greek writers, and Asiatic, Persian,
and Mohammedan traditions. Wilford, who confuses sorely the Hindu and the
Mussulman legends, shows this, however, clearly. (See Vol. VIII., X. and XI. of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
They were called demons, Asuras, giants, and monsters, because of their
wickedness; and thus their country was likened to Atala -- a hell, because of
that.
**
Not on the river Nile, surely, but near the Nila mountains of the Atlas range.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 406 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Asiatic
Researches.) And his facts and quotations from the Puranas give direct and
conclusive evidence that the Aryan Hindus and other ancient nations were
earlier navigators than the Phoenicians, who are now credited with having been
the first seamen that appeared in the post-diluvian times. This is what is
given in the Journal of the Asiatic Society, III., pp. 325, et seq.:--
"In
their distress the few nations who survived (in the war between Devatas and
Daityas) raised their hands to Bhagavan, 'Let him who can deliver us . . . be
our King'; using the word I'T (a magic term not understood by Wilford,
evidently) which re-echoed through the whole country."
Then
comes a violent storm, the waters of the Kali are strangely agitated,
"when there appeared from the waves . . a man, afterwards called I'T, at
the head of a numerous army, saying abhayan, no fear" . . . and scattered
the enemy. "The King I'T," explains Wilford, "is a subordinate
incarnation of M'rira" (Mrida, a form of Rudra, probably?) who
"re-established peace and prosperity throughout all Sankha-dwipa, through
Barbaradesa, Hissast'han and Awasthan or Arabia . . " etc., etc.
Surely,
if the Hindu Puranas give a description of wars on continents and islands
situated beyond Western Africa in the Atlantic Ocean; if their writers speak of
Barbaras and other people such as Arabs -- they who were never known to
navigate, or cross the Kala pani (the black waters of the Ocean) in the days of
Phoenician navigation -- then their Puranas must be older than those
Phoenicians (placed at from 2,000 to 3,000 years B.C.). At any rate those traditions
must have been older;* as --
"In
the above accounts," writes an adept, "the Hindus speak of this
island as existing and in great power; it must, therefore, have been more than
eleven thousand years ago."
But
another calculation and proof may be adduced of the great antiquity of these
Hindu Aryans who knew of (because they had once dwelt in it) and described the
last surviving island of Atlantis -- or rather of that remnant of the Eastern
portion of that continent which had
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says Wilford of the division of Atlantis and Bharata or India, confusing the
two accounts and Priyavrata with Medhatithi:-- "The division was made by
Priyavrata. . . . He had ten sons, and it was his intention to divide the whole
world. In the same manner Neptune divided Atlantis between his ten sons. . . .
One of them had . . . the extremity of the Atlantis" -- which "is
probably the old continent. . . . This Atlantis was overwhelmed by a flood. . .
. and it seems that by Atlantis we should understand the Antediluvian Earth
over which ten princes were born to rule according to the mythology of the West
(and of the East, also) but seven only of them sat upon the throne." (Vol.
III. p. 286.) . . Some also are of opinion that of the seven dwipas six were
destroyed by a flood (Vol. VIII. p. 367). Wilford takes it to be "Gades
which included Spain," but it was Plato's island -- rather.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 407 THE PUZZLES OF ANTIQUITY.
perished
soon after the upheaval of the two Americas* -- the two Varshas of Pushkara.
This may be demonstrated, moreover, on an astronomical calculation by an adept
who criticises Wilford. For recalling what the Orientalist had brought forward
concerning the Mount Ashburj "at the foot of which the sun sets,"
where was the war between the Devatas and the Daityas,** he says:--
"We
will consider, then, the latitude and longitude of the lost island, and of the
remaining Mount Ashburj. It was on the seventh stage of the world, i.e., in the
seventh climate (which is between the latitude of 24 degrees and latitude 28
degrees north) . . . This island, the daughter of the Ocean, is frequently
described as lying in the West; and the sun is represented as setting at the
foot of its mountain (Ashburj, Atlas, Teneriffe or Nila, no matter the name),
and fighting the white Devil of the 'White Island.' "
Now,
considering this statement from its astronomical aspect, and knowing that
Krishna is the incarnated Sun (Vishnu), a solar God; and that he is said to
have killed Dev-Sefid, the white giant -- a possible personification of the
ancient inhabitants at the foot of the Atlas -- perchance Krishna may be only a
representation of the vertical beams of the Sun? Those inhabitants (the
Atlantides) are, we have seen, accused by Diodorus of daily cursing the Sun,
and ever fighting his influence. This is an astronomical interpretation of
course. But it will now be proved that Sankhasura, and Sancha dwipa, and all
their history, is also geographically and ethnologically Plato's
"Atlantis" in Hindu dress.
It
was just remarked that since, in the Puranic accounts, the island is still
existing, then those accounts must be older than the 11,000 years elapsed since
Sancha dwipa, or the Poseidonis of Atlantis, disappeared. Is it not barely
possible that Hindus should have known the island still earlier? Let us turn
again to astronomical demonstrations, which make this quite plain if one
assumes, according to the said adept, that "at the time when the summer
tropical 'colure' passed through the Pleiades, when cor-Leonis would be upon
the equator; and when Leo was vertical to Ceylon at sunset, then would Taurus
be vertical to the island of Atlantis at noon."
This
explains, perhaps, why the Singhalese, the heirs of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
America, the "new" world -- is thus, though not much, older; still it
is older than Europe, the "old world."
**
If Div or Dev-Sefid's (the Taradaitya's) abode was on the seventh stage, it is
because he came from Pushkara, the Patala (antipodes) of India, or from
America. The latter touched the walls, so to say, of Atlantis, before the
latter sank finally. The word Patala, meaning both the antipodal countries and
infernal regions, thus became synonymous in ideas and attributes as well as in
name.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 408 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Rakshasas
and Giants of Lanka, and the direct descendants of Singha, or Leo, became
connected with Sancha dwipa or Poseidonis (Plato's Atlantis). Only, as shown by
Mackey's "Sphinxiad," this must have occurred about 23,000 years ago,
astronomically; at which time the obliquity of the ecliptic must have been
rather more than 27 degrees, and consequently Taurus must have passed over
"Atlantis" or "Sancha dwipa." And that it was so is clearly
demonstrated.
"The
sacred bull Nandi was brought from Bharata to Sancha to meet Rishabha (Taurus)
every Kalpa. But when those of the White Island (who descended originally from
Sveta dwipa),* who had mixed with the Daityas (giants) of the land of iniquity,
had become black with Sin, then Nandi remained for ever in the "White
Island" (or Sveta dwipa.) "Those of the Fourth World (race) lost
AUM" -- say the Commentaries.
Asburj
(or Azburj), whether the peak of Teneriffe or not, was a volcano, when the
sinking of the "western Atala" (or hell) began, and those who were
saved told the tale to their children. Plato's Atlantis perished between water
below and fire above; the great mountain vomiting flames all the while.
"The 'fire-vomiting Monster' survived alone out of the ruins of the
unfortunate island."
Do
the Greeks, accused of borrowing a Hindu fiction (Atala), and inventing from it
another (Atlantis), stand also accused of getting their geographical notions
and the number seven from them? (Vide in Part II. the several sections on the
SEPTENATE in nature.)
"The
famous Atlantis exists no longer, but we can hardly doubt that it did
once," says Proclus, "for Marcellus, who wrote a history of Ethiopian
affairs, says that such, and so great an island once existed, and this is
evidenced by those who composed histories relative to the external sea. For
they relate that in this time there were seven islands in the Atlantic sea
sacred to Proserpine; and besides these, three of immense magnitude, sacred to
Pluto . . . Jupiter . . . and Neptune. And, besides this, the inhabitants of
the last island (Poseidonis) preserved the memory of the prodigious magnitude
of the Atlantic island as related by their ancestors, and of its governing for
many periods all the islands in the Atlantic sea. From this isle one may pass
to other large
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Neither Atlantis, nor yet Sancha dwipa, was ever called "White
Island." When tradition says that "the White Island became black on
account of the sins of people" it only means the denizens of the
"White Island," or Siddhapura, or Sveta dwipa, who descended to the
Atlantis of the Third and Fourth races, to "inform the latter; and who,
having incarnated, became black with sin" -- a figure of speech. All the
Avatars of Vishnu are said to come originally from the White Island. According
to Tibetan tradition the White Island is the only locality which escapes the
general fate of other dwipas and can be destroyed by neither fire nor water,
for -- it is the "eternal land."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 409 WHAT MARCELLUS SAYS.
islands
beyond, which are not far from the firm land, near which is the true sea."
"These
seven dwipas (inaccurately rendered islands) constitute, according to
Marcellus, the body of the famous Atlantis," writes Wilford himself. . . .
. This evidently shows that Atlantis is the old continent. . . . The Atlantis
was destroyed after a violent storm (?): this is well known to the Puranics,
some of whom assert that in consequence of this dreadful convulsion of nature,
six of the dwipas disappeared" . . . (xi., 27).
Enough
proofs have now been given to satisfy the greatest sceptic. Nevertheless,
direct proofs based on exact science are also added. Volumes might be written,
however, to no purpose for those who will neither see nor hear, except through
the eyes and ears of their respective authorities.
Hence
the teaching of the Roman Catholic scholiasts, namely, that Hermon, the mount
in the land of Mizpeth -- meaning "anathema," "destruction"
-- is the same as Mount Armon. As a proof of this, Josephus is often quoted, as
affirming that still in his own day enormous bones of giants were daily
discovered on it. But it was the land of Balaam the prophet, whom the
"Lord loved well"; and so mixed up are facts and personages in the
said scholiasts' brains, that, when the Zohar explains the "birds"
which inspired Balaam to mean "Serpents," to wit, the wise men and
adepts at whose school he had learnt the mysteries of prophecy -- the
opportunity is again taken of showing Mount Hermon inhabited by the
"winged dragons of Evil, whose chief is Samael" (the Jewish Satan).
"It
is to those unclean spirits chained on Mount Hermon of the Desert, that the
scapegoat of Israel, who assumed the name of one of them (Azaz(y)el), was
sent" (Spencer).
We
say it is not so. The Zohar has the following explanation on the practice of
magic which is called in Hebrew Nehhaschim, or the "Serpents' Works."
It says (Part III. col. 302):-- "It is called nehhaschim, because the
magicians (practical Kabalists) work surrounded by the light of the primordial
serpent, which they perceive in heaven as a luminous zone composed of myriads
of small stars" . . . which means simply the astral light, so called by
the Martinists, by Eliphas Levi, and now by all the modern Occultists. (Vide
Sections about.)
-------
THE
"CURSE" FROM A PHILOSOPHICAL POINT OF VIEW.
The
foregoing teachings of the SECRET DOCTRINE, supplemented by universal
traditions, must now have demonstrated that the Brahmanas and Puranas, the
Yathas and other Mazdean Scriptures,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 410 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
down
to the Egyptian, Greek, and Roman, and finally to the Jewish Sacred records,
all have the same origin. None are meaningless and baseless stories, invented
to entrap the unwary profane: all are allegories intended to convey, under a
more or less fantastic veil, the great truths gathered in the same field of
pre-historic tradition. Space forbids us from entering, in these two volumes,
into further and more minute details with respect to the four Races which preceded
our own. But before offering to the student the history of the psychic and
spiritual evolution of the direct antediluvian fathers of our Fifth (Aryan)
humanity, and before demonstrating its bearing upon all the other side branches
grown from the same trunk, we have to elucidate a few more facts. It has been
shown, on the evidence of the whole ancient literary world, and the intuitional
speculations of more than one philosopher and scientist of the later ages, that
the tenets of our Esoteric Doctrine are corroborated by inferential as well as
by direct proof in almost every case. That neither the "legendary"
giants, nor the lost continents, nor yet the evolution of the preceding races,
are quite baseless tales. In the Addenda which close this volume, science will
find itself more than once unable to reply; they will, it is hoped, finally
dispose of every sceptical remark with regard to the sacred number in nature,
and our figures in general. (Vide §§ on the Septenaries.)
Meanwhile,
one task is left incomplete: that of disposing of that most pernicious of all
the theological dogmas -- the CURSE under which mankind is alleged to have
suffered ever since the supposed disobedience of Adam and Eve in the bower of
Eden.
Creative
powers in man were the gift of divine wisdom, not the result of sin. This is
clearly instanced in the paradoxical behaviour of Jehovah, who first curses
Adam and Eve (or Humanity) for the supposed committed crime, and then blesses
his "chosen people" by saying "Be fruitful and multiply, and
replenish the earth" (Gen. ix. 1). The curse was not brought on mankind by
the Fourth Race, for the comparatively sinless Third Race, the still more
gigantic Antediluvians, had perished in the same way; hence the Deluge was no
punishment, but simply a result of a periodical and geological law. Nor was the
curse of KARMA called down upon them for seeking natural union, as all the
mindless animal-world does in its proper seasons; but, for abusing the creative
power, for desecrating the divine gift, and wasting the life-essence for no
purpose except bestial personal gratification. When understood, the third
chapter of Genesis will be found to refer to the Adam and Eve of the closing
Third and the commencing Fourth Races. In the beginning, conception was as easy
for woman as it was for all animal creation. Nature had never intended that
woman should bring forth her young ones "in sorrow." Since that
period, however, during the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 411 THE ANCIENT AND THE MODERN MAN.
evolution
of the Fourth Race, there came enmity between its seed, and the
"Serpent's" seed, the seed or product of Karma and divine wisdom. For
the seed of woman or lust, bruised the head of the seed of the fruit of wisdom
and knowledge, by turning the holy mystery of procreation into animal
gratification; hence the law of Karma "bruised the heel" of the
Atlantean race, by gradually changing physiologically, morally, physically, and
mentally, the whole nature of the Fourth Race of mankind,* until, from the
healthy King of animal creation of the Third Race, man became in the Fifth, our
race, a helpless, scrofulous being, and has now become the wealthiest heir on
the globe to constitutional and hereditary diseases, the most consciously and
intelligently bestial of all animals!**
This
is the real CURSE from the physiological standpoint, almost the only one
touched upon in the Kabalistic esotericism. Viewed from this aspect, the curse
is undeniable, for it is evident. The intellectual evolution, in its progress
hand-in-hand with the physical, has certainly been a curse instead of a
blessing -- a gift quickened by the "Lords of Wisdom," who have
poured on the human manas the fresh dew of their own spirit and essence. The
divine Titan has then suffered in vain; and one feels inclined to regret his
benefaction to mankind, and sigh for those days so graphically depicted by
AEschylus, in his "Prometheus Bound," when, at the close of the first
Titanic age (the age that followed that of ethereal man, of the pious Kandu and
Pramlocha), nascent, physical mankind, still mindless and (physiologically)
senseless, is described as --
"Seeing,
they saw in vain;
Hearing,
they heard not; but like shapes in dreams,
Through
the long time all things at random mixed."
Our
Saviours, the Agnishwatta and other divine "Sons of the Flame of
Wisdom" (personified by the Greeks in Prometheus***), may well, in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
How wise and grand, how far-seeing and morally beneficent are the laws of Manu
on connubial life, when compared with the licence tacitly allowed to man in
civilized countries. That those laws have been neglected for the last two
millenniums does not prevent us from admiring their forethought. The Brahmin
was a grihasta, a family man, till a certain period of his life, when, after
begetting a son, he broke with married life and became a chaste Yogi. His very
connubial life was regulated by his Brahmin astrologer in accordance with his
nature. Therefore, in such countries as the Punjab, for instance, where the
lethal influence of Mussulman, and later on of European, licentiousness, has
hardly touched the orthodox Aryan castes, one still finds the finest men -- so
far as stature and physical strength go -- on the whole globe; whereas the
mighty men of old have found themselves replaced in the Deccan, and especially
in Bengal, by men whose generation becomes with every century (and almost with
every year) dwarfed and weakened.
**
Diseases and over-population are facts that can never be denied.
***
In Mrs. Anna Swanwick's volumes, "The Dramas of AEschylus," it is
said of "Prometheus Bound" (Vol. II., pp. 146, 147), that Prometheus
truly appears in it "as [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
injustice of the human heart, be left unrecognized and unthanked. They may, in
our ignorance of the truth, be indirectly cursed for Pandora's gift: but to
find themselves proclaimed and declared by the mouth of the clergy, the EVIL
ONES, is too heavy a Karma for "Him" "who dared alone "--
when Zeus "ardently desired" to quench the entire human race -- to
save "that mortal race" from perdition, or, as the suffering Titan is
made to say:--
"From
sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom.
For
this by the dire tortures I am bent,
Grievous
to suffer, piteous to behold,
I
who did mortals pity! . . . . "
The
chorus remarking very pertinently:--
"Vast
boon was this thou gavest unto mortals . . . ."
Prometheus
answers:--
"Yea,
and besides 'twas I that gave them fire.
CHORUS:
Have now these short-lived creatures flame-eyed fire?
PROM.:
Ay, and by it full many arts will learn. . . . . "
But,
with the arts, the fire received has turned into the greatest curse: the animal
element, and consciousness of its possession, has changed periodical instinct
into chronic animalism and sensuality.* It is this which hangs over humanity
like a heavy funereal pall. Thus arises the responsibility of free-will; the
Titanic passions which represent humanity in its darkest aspect; "the
restless insatiability of the lower passions and desires, when, with
self-asserting insolence, they bid defiance to the restraints of law."**
Prometheus
having endowed man, according to Plato's "Protagoras," with that
"wisdom which ministers to physical well-being," but the lower aspect
of manas of the animal (Kama) having remained unchanged,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] the champion and benefactor of mankind, whose
condition . . . . is depicted as weak and miserable in the extreme. . . . Zeus,
it is said, proposed to annihilate these puny ephemerals, and to plant upon the
earth a new race in their stead." We see the Lords of Being doing
likewise, and exterminating the first product of nature and the sea, in the
Stanzas (V, et seq.). . . . Prometheus represents himself as having frustrated
this design, and as being consequently subjected, for the sake of mortals, to
the most agonising pain, inflicted by the remorseless cruelty of Zeus. We have,
thus, the Titan, the symbol of finite reason and free will (of intellectual
humanity, or the higher aspect of Manas), depicted as the sublime
philanthropist, while Zeus, the supreme deity of Hellas, is portrayed as the
cruel and obdurate despot, a character peculiarly revolting to Athenian
sentiment." The reason for it is explained further on. The "Supreme
Deity" bears, in every ancient Pantheon -- including that of the Jews -- a
dual character, composed of light and shadow.
*
The animal world, having simple instinct to guide it, has its seasons of
procreation, and the sexes become neutralized during the rest of the year.
Therefore, the free animal knows sickness but once in its life -- before it
dies.
**
Introduction to "Prometheus Bound," p. 152.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 413 THE TRAVESTY OF PROMETHEUS.
instead
of "an untainted mind, heaven's first gift" (AEschylus), there was
created the eternal vulture of the ever unsatisfied desire, of regret and
despair coupled with "the dreamlike feebleness that fetters the blind race
of mortals" (p. 556), unto the day when Prometheus is released by his
heaven-appointed deliverer, Herakles.
Now
Christians -- Roman Catholics especially -- have tried to prophetically connect
this drama with the coming of Christ. No greater mistake could be made. The
true theosophist, the pursuer of divine wisdom and worshipper of ABSOLUTE
perfection -- the unknown deity which is neither Zeus nor Jehovah -- will demur
to such an idea. Pointing to antiquity he will prove that there never was an
original sin, but only an abuse of physical intelligence -- the psychic being
guided by the animal, and both putting out the light of the spiritual. He will
say, "All ye who can read between the lines, study ancient wisdom in the
old dramas -- the Indian and the Greek; read carefully the one just mentioned,
one enacted on the theatres of Athens 2,400 years ago, namely 'Prometheus
Bound' " The myth belongs to neither Hesiod nor AEschylus; but, as Bunsen
says, it "is older than the Hellenes themselves," for it belongs, in
truth, to the dawn of human consciousness. The Crucified Titan is the
personified symbol of the collective Logos, the "Host," and of the
"Lords of Wisdom" or the HEAVENLY MAN, who incarnated in Humanity.
Moreover, as his name Pro-me-theus, meaning "he who sees before him"
or futurity, shows* -- in the arts he devised and taught to humanity,
psychological insight was not the least. For as he complains to the daughters
of Oceanos:--
"Of
prophecies the various modes I fixed,
And
among dreams did first discriminate
The
truthful vision . . . and mortals guided
To
a mysterious art. . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
All
arts to mortals from Prometheus came. . ."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
From [[pro metis]] pro metis, "forethought." "Professor
Kuhn," we are told in the above-named volumes of "The Dramas of
AEschylus," "considers the name of the Titan to be derived from the
Sanskrit word Pramantha, the instrument used for kindling fire. The root mand or
manth, implies rotatory motion, and the word manthami (used to denote the
process of fire kindling) acquired the secondary sense of snatching away; hence
we find another word of the same stock, pramatha, signifying theft." This
is very ingenious, but perhaps not altogether correct; besides, there is a very
prosaic element in it. No doubt in physical nature, the higher forms may
develop from the lower ones, but it is hardly so in the world of thought. And
as we are told that the word manthami passed into the Greek language and became
the word manthano, to learn; that is to say, to appropriate knowledge; whence
prometheia, fore-knowledge, fore-thought; we may find, in searching, a more
poetical origin for the "fire-bringer" than that displayed in its
Sanskrit origin. The Svastica, the sacred sign and the instrument for kindling
sacred fire, may explain it better. "Prometheus, the fire-bringer, is the
Pramantha personified," goes on the author; "he finds his prototype
in the Aryan [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 414 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Leaving
for a few pages the main subject, let us pause and see what may be the hidden
meaning of this, the most ancient as it is the most suggestive of traditional
allegories. As it relates directly to the early races, this will be no real
digression.
The
subject of AEschylus' drama (the trilogy is lost) is known to all cultured
readers. The demi-god robs the gods (the Elohim) of their secret -- the mystery
of the creative fire. For this sacrilegious attempt he is struck down by
KRONOS* and delivered unto Zeus, the FATHER and creator of a mankind which he
would wish to have blind intellectually, and animal-like; a personal deity,
which will not see MAN "like one of us." Hence Prometheus, "the
fire and light-giver," is chained on Mount Caucasus and condemned to
suffer torture. But the triform Fates (Karma), whose decrees, as the Titan
says, even Zeus:--
"E'en
he the fore-ordained cannot escape. . . "
--
ordain that those sufferings will last only to that day when a son of Zeus --
"Ay,
a son bearing stronger than his sire" (787)
.
. . . . . . . . .
"One
of thine (Io's) own descendants it must be. ."(791)
--
is born. This "Son" will deliver Prometheus (the suffering Humanity)
from his own fatal gift. His name is, "He who has to come. . . . "
On
the authority, then, of these few lines, which, like any other allegorical
sentence, may be twisted into almost any meaning; namely, on the words
pronounced by Prometheus and addressed to Io, the daughter of Inachos,
persecuted by Zeus -- a whole prophecy is constructed by some Catholic writers.
Says the crucified Titan:--
"And,
portent past belief, the speaking oaks
By
which full clearly, in no riddling phrase
Wast
hailed as the illustrious spouse of Zeus
.
. . . . . . . . (v. 853).
.
. . . stroking thee
With
touch alone of unalarming hand;
Then
thou dark Epaphos shalt bear, whose name
Records
his sacred gendering . . . . " (870)
This
was construed by several fanatics -- des Mousseaux and de Mir-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Matarisvan, a divine . . . . personage, closely
associated with the fire god of the Veda, Agni. . . ." Mati, in Sanskrit,
is "understanding," and a synonym of MAHAT and manas, and must be of
some account in the origin of the name: Promati is the son of Fohat, and has
his story also.
*
Kronos is "time," and thus the allegory becomes very suggestive. (See
closing pages of this Sub-section.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 415 CHRIST CONNECTED WITH EPAPHOS.
ville
amongst others -- into a clear prophecy. Io -- "is the mother of
God," we are told, and "dark Epaphos" -- Christ. But, the latter
has not dethroned his father, except metaphorically, if one has to regard
Jehovah as that "Father"; nor has the Christian Saviour hurled his
Father down into Hades. Prometheus says, in verse 930, that Zeus will be
humbled yet; as for himself:--
"
. . . . such marriage he prepares
Which
from his throne of power to nothingness
Shall
hurl him down; so shall be all fulfilled
His
father Kronos' curse . . . .
.
. . . Then let him sit
Confiding
in his lofty thunder-peals,
And
wielding with both hands the fiery bolt;
For
these shall not avail, but fail he shall,
A
fall disgraceful, not to be endured . . . . " (v. 980).
"Dark
Epaphos" was the Dionysos-Sabazius, the son of Zeus and of Demeter in the
Sabasian Mysteries, during which the "father of the gods," assuming
the shape of a Serpent, begot on Demeter, Dionysos, or the solar Bacchus. Io is
the moon, and at the same time the EVE of a new race, and so is Demeter -- in
the present case. The Promethean myth is a prophecy indeed; but it does not
relate to any of the cyclic Saviours who have appeared periodically in various
countries and among various nations, in their transitionary conditions of
evolution. It points to the last of the mysteries of cyclic transformations, in
the series of which mankind, having passed from the ethereal to the solid
physical state, from spiritual to physiological procreation, is now carried
onward on the opposite arc of the cycle, toward that second phase of its
primitive state, when woman knew no man, and human progeny was created, not
begotten.
That
state will return to it and to the world at large, when the latter shall
discover and really appreciate the truths which underlie this vast problem of
sex. It will be like "the light that never shone on sea or land," and
has to come to men through the Theosophical Society. That light will lead on
and up to the true spiritual intuition. Then (as expressed once in a letter to
a theosophist), "the world will have a race of Buddhas and Christs, for
the world will have discovered that individuals have it in their own powers to
procreate Buddha-like children -- or demons." "When that knowledge
comes, all dogmatic religions, and with these the demons, will die out."
If
we reflect upon the serial development of the allegory, and the character of
the heroes, the mystery may be unriddled. KRONOS is of course "time"
in its cyclic course. He swallows his children -- the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See, for explanation of this curse, the last page of the present sub-section.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 416 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
personal
gods of exoteric dogmas included. He has swallowed instead of Zeus, his stone
idol; but the symbol has grown, and has only developed in human fancy as
mankind was cycling down toward only its physical and intellectual -- not
spiritual -- perfection. When it is as far advanced in its spiritual evolution
Kronos will be no longer deceived. Instead of the stone image he will have
swallowed the anthropomorphic fiction itself. Because, the serpent of wisdom,
represented in the Sabasian mysteries by the anthropomorphised Logos, the unity
of spiritual and physical Powers, will have begotten in Time (Kronos) a progeny
-- Dionysos-Bacchus or the "dark Epaphos," the "mighty one"
-- the race that will overthrow him. Where will he be born? Prometheus traces
him to his origin and birth-place in his prophecy to Io. Io is the moon-goddess
of generation -- for she is Isis and she is Eve, the great mother.* He traces
the path of the (racial) wanderings as plainly as words can express it. She has
to quit Europe and go to Asia's continent, reaching there the highest of the
mountains of Caucasus (737), the Titan telling her:--
"When
thou hast crossed the flood, limit betwixt
Two
continents, fronting the burning East." (810)
that
she must travel eastward, after passing the "Kimmerian Bosphorus,"
and cross what is evidently the Volga and now Astrakhan on the Caspian Sea.
After this she will encounter "fierce northern blasts" and cross
thither to the land of the "Arimaspian host" (east of Herodotus'
Scythia) to --
"Pluto's
gold-abounding flood. . . ."(825)
Which
is rightly conjectured by Professor Newman to have meant the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is complained by the author of the version on, and translator of,
"Prometheus Bound" that in this tracing of Io's wanderings, "no
consistency with our known geography is attainable" (p. 191, Vol. II).
There may be good reason for it. First of all it is the journey and wandering
from place to place of the race from which the "tenth," or Kalki Avatar,
so called, is to issue. This he calls the "Kingly race born in Argos"
(888). But Argos has no reference here to Argos in Greece. It comes from Arg or
arca -- the female generative power symbolised in the moon -- the navi-formed
Argha of the mysteries, meaning the Queen of Heaven. Eustathius shows that, in
the dialect of the Arg-ians, Io signified the moon; while esotericism explains
it as the divine Androgyne, or the mystic 10; in Hebrew 10 is the perfect
number, or Jehovah. Arghya in Sanskrit is the libation cup, the navi-form or
boat-shaped vessel in which flowers and fruit are offered to the deities.
Arghyanath is a title of the Maha-Chohan, meaning "the Lord of
Libations;" and Arghya Varsha -- "the land of libations" -- is
the mystery name of that region which extends from Kailas mountain nearly to
the Schamo Desert -- from within which the Kalki Avatar is expected. The
Airyana-Varsedya of the Zoroastrians, as a locality, is identical with it. It
is now said to have been situated between the sea of Aral, Baltistan, and
little Tibet; but in olden times its area was far larger, as it was the
birth-place of physical humanity, of which Io is the mother and symbol.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 417 THE MISTAKE OF ARRIAN EXPLAINED.
Ural,
the Arimaspi of Herodotus being "the recognised inhabitants of this golden
region."
And
here comes, between verses 825 and 835, a puzzle to all the European
interpreters. Says the Titan:--
"To
these (Arimaspi and Grypes) approach not; a far border land
Thou
next wilt reach, where dwells a swarthy race
Near
the Sun's founts, where is the AEthiop "river";
Along
its banks proceed till thou attain
The
mighty rapids, where from Bybline heights
Pure
draughts of sacred water Neilos sends . . . "
There
Io was ordained to found a colony for herself and sons. Now we must see how the
passage is interpreted. As Io is told that she has to travel eastward till she
comes to the river Ethiops, which she is to follow till it falls into the Nile
-- hence the perplexity. "According to the geographical theories of the
earliest Greeks" we are informed by the author of the version on
"Prometheus Bound" --
"This
condition was fulfilled by the river Indus. Arrian (vi. i.) mentions that
Alexander the Great, when preparing to sail down the Indus (having seen
crocodiles in the river Indus, and in no other river except the Nile . . . ),
seemed to himself to have discovered the sources of the Nile, as though the
Nile, rising from some place in India, and flowing through much desert land,
and thereby losing its name Indus, next . . . flowed through inhabited land,
being now called the Nile by the Ethiopians of those parts and afterwards by
the Egyptians. Virgil in the 4th Georgic echoes the absolute error" (p.
197, Vol. II.).
Both
Alexander and Virgil may have erred considerably in their geographical notions;
but the prophecy of Prometheus has not so sinned, in the least -- not, at any
rate, in its esoteric spirit. When a certain race is symbolised, and events
pertaining to its history are rendered allegorically, no topographical accuracy
ought to be expected in the itinerary traced for its personification. Yet it so
happens, that the river "Ethiops" is certainly the Indus, and it is
also the Nil or Nila. It is the river born on the Kailas (heaven) mountain, the
mansion of the gods -- 22,000 feet above the level of the sea. It was the
Ethiops river -- and was so called by the Greeks, long before the days of
Alexander, because its banks, from Attock down to Sind, were peopled by tribes
generally referred to as the Eastern Ethiopians. India and Egypt were two
kindred nations, and the Eastern Ethiopians -- the mighty builders -- have come
from India, as is pretty well proved, it is hoped, in "ISIS
UNVEILED." (Vol. I. p. 569-70).
Then
why could not Alexander, and even the learned Virgil have used the word Nile or
Neilos when speaking of the Indus, since it is one of its names? To this day
that river is called, in the regions around Kala-Bagh, nil (blue), and Nilah,
"the blue river." The water here is of such dark blue colour that the
name given to it from time immemorial led to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 418 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
a
small town on its banks being called by the same name. It exists to this day.
Evidently Arrian -- who wrote far later than the day of Alexander, and who was
ignorant of the old name of the Indus -- has unconsciously slandered the Greek
conqueror. Nor are our modern historians much wiser, in judging as they do. For
they often make the most sweeping declarations on mere appearances, as much as
their ancient colleagues ever did in days of old, when no Encyclopaedias were
yet ready for them.
The
race of IO, "the cow-horned maid" is then simply the first pioneer
race of the AEthiopians brought by her from the Indus to the Nile (which
received its name in memory of the mother river of the colonists from India*).
For does not Prometheus say to Io** that the sacred Neilos (the god, not the
river) --
.
. . "He to the land, three-cornered, thee shall guide," -- namely, to
the Delta, where her sons are foreordained to found -- . . . . . "that
far-off colony . . ." (v. 830 et seq.).
It
is there that a new race (the Egyptians) will begin, and a "female
race" (873) which, "fifth in descent" from dark Epaphos --
"Fifty
in number shall return to Argos."
Then
one of the fifty virgins will fail through love and shall -- . . .
A
kingly race in Argos bear
.
. . . . . . .
But
from this seed shall dauntless heroes spring,
Bow-famous,
who shall free me from these ills."
When
this hero shall arise, the Titan does not reveal; for as he remarks:--
"This,
to set forth at large needs lengthy speech."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Alexander, who was better acquainted with Attock than with India (where he
never went) could not have failed to hear the Indus near its very sources
called Nil and Nilah. Even if a mistake, it is thus easily accounted for.
**
That Io is identical allegorically with Isis and the moon is shown by her being
"cow-horned." The allegory undeniably reached Greece from India,
where Vach -- "the melodious cow" (Rig-Veda) "from whom mankind
was produced" (Bhagavata Purana) is shown in the Aitareya Brahmana as
pursued by her father Brahma, who was moved by an illicit passion, and changed
her into a deer. Hence Io, refusing to yield to Jupiter's passion, becomes
"horned." The cow was in every country the symbol of the passive
generative power of nature, Isis, Vach, Venus -- the mother of the prolific god
of love, Cupid, but, at the same time, that of the Logos whose symbol became
with the Egyptians and the Indians -- the bull -- as testified to by Apis and
the Hindu bulls in the most ancient temples. In esoteric philosophy the cow is
the symbol of creative nature, and the Bull (her calf) the spirit which
vivifies her, or "the Holy Spirit," as Mr. Kenealy shows. Hence the
symbol of the horns. These were sacred also with the Jews, who placed near the
altar horns of Shittim wood, by seizing which a criminal ensured his safety.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 419 WAS AESCHYLUS INITIATED?
But
"Argos" is Arghya Varsha, the land of libation of the old
Hierophants, whence the deliverer of Humanity will appear, a name which became
ages later that of its neighbour, India -- the Arya-varta of old.
That
the subject formed part of the Sabasian mysteries is made known by several
ancient writers: by Cicero (in Tuscul. Quaest. I, ii. No. 20) and by Clemens
Alexandrinus (Strom. I, ii., oper. tom. 1, p. 467 -- Ed. Potter's). The latter
writers are the only ones who attribute the fact that AEschylus was charged by
the Athenians with sacrilege and condemned to be stoned to death, to its true
cause. They say that having been himself uninitiated, AEschylus had profaned
the Mysteries by exposing them in his trilogies on a public stage.* But he
would have incurred the same condemnation had he been initiated -- which must
have been the case, as otherwise he must, like Socrates, have had a daimon to
reveal to him the secret and sacred allegorical drama of initiation. At all
events, it is not the "father of the Greek tragedy" who invented the
prophecy of Prometheus; for he only repeated in dramatic form that which was
revealed by the priests during the MYSTERIA of the Sabasia.** The latter,
however, is one of the oldest sacred festivals, whose origin is to this day
unknown to history. Mythologists connect it through Mithras (the Sun, called
Sabasius on some old monuments) with Jupiter and Bacchus. But it was never the
property of the Greeks, but dates from days immemorial.
The
translators of the drama wonder how AEschylus could become guilty of such
"discrepancy between the character of Zeus as portrayed in the 'Prometheus
Bound' and that depicted in the remaining dramas." (Mrs. A. Swanwick.)
This is just because AEschylus, like Shakespeare, was and will ever remain the
intellectual "Sphinx" of the ages. Between Zeus, the abstract deity
of Grecian thought, and the Olympic Zeus, there was an abyss. The latter
represented during the mysteries no higher a principle than the lower aspect of
human physical intelligence -- Manas wedded to Kama; Prometheus -- its divine
aspect merging into and aspiring to Buddhi -- the divine Soul. Zeus was the
human soul and nothing more, whenever shown yielding to his lower passions, --
the jealous God, revengeful and cruel in its egotism or I-AM-NESS. Hence, Zeus
is represented as a serpent -- the intellectual tempter of man -- which,
nevertheless, begets in the course of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Herodotus and Pausanias supposed that the cause of the condemnation was that
AEschylus, adopting the theogony of the Egyptians, made Diana, the daughter of
Ceres, and not of Latona. (See AElian Var. Hist. I, v. c. xviii., tom. 1, p.
433 Edition Gronov.) But AEschyIus was initiated.
**
Sabasia was a periodical festival with mysteries enacted in honour of some
gods, a variant on the Mithraic Mysteries. The whole evolution of the races was
performed in them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 420 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
cyclic
evolution the "Man-Saviour," the solar Bacchus or
"Dionysos," more than a man.
Dionysos
is one with Osiris, with Krishna, and with Buddha (the heavenly wise), and with
the coming (tenth) Avatar, the glorified Spiritual Christos, who will deliver
the suffering Christos (mankind, or Prometheus, on its trial). This, say
Brahminical and Buddhistic legends, echoed by the Zoroastrian and now by the
Christian teachings (the latter only occasionally), will happen at the end of
Kaliyuga. It is only after the appearance of Kalki-Avatar, or Sosiosh, that man
will be born from woman without sin. Then will Brahma, the Hindu deity;
Ahura-Mazda (Ormazd), the Zoroastrian; Zeus, the Greco-Olympian Don Juan;
Jehovah, the jealous, repenting, cruel, tribal God of the Israelites, and all
their likes in the universal Pantheon of human fancy -- vanish and disappear in
thin air. And along with these will vanish their shadows, the dark aspects of
all those deities, ever represented as their "twin brothers" and
creatures, in exoteric legend, their own reflection on earth -- in esoteric
philosophy. The Ahrimans and Typhons, the Samaels and Satans, must be all
dethroned on that day, when every dark evil passion will be subdued.
There
is one eternal Law in nature, one that always tends to adjust contraries and to
produce final harmony. It is owing to this law of spiritual development
superseding the physical and purely intellectual, that mankind will become
freed from its false gods, and find itself finally -- SELF-REDEEMED.
In
its final revelation, the old myth of Prometheus -- his proto- and anti-types
being found in every ancient theogony -- stands in each of them at the very
origin of physical evil, because at the threshold of human physical life.
KRONOS is "Time," whose first law is that the order of the successive
and harmonious phases in the process of evolution during cyclic development
should be strictly preserved -- under the severe penalty of abnormal growth
with all its ensuing results. It was not in the programme of natural development
that man -- higher animal though he may be -- should become at once --
intellectually, spiritually, and psychically -- the demi-god he is on earth,
while his physical frame remains weaker and more helpless and ephemeral than
that of almost any huge mammal. The contrast is too grotesque and violent; the
tabernacle much too unworthy of its indwelling god. The gift of Prometheus thus
became a CURSE -- though foreknown and foreseen by the HOST personified in that
personage, as his name well shows.* It is in this that rests, at one and the
same time,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide supra, a foot-note concerning the etymology of [[prometis]] prometis or
forethought. Prometheus confesses it in the drama when saying:-- [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 421 ONE OF THE FUNCTIONS OF ZEUS.
its
sin and its redemption. For the Host that incarnated in a portion of humanity,
though led to it by Karma or Nemesis, preferred free-will to passive slavery,
intellectual self-conscious pain and even torture "while myriad time shall
flow" -- to inane, imbecile, instinctual beatitude. Knowing such an
incarnation was premature and not in the programme of nature, the heavenly
host, "Prometheus," still sacrificed itself to benefit thereby, at
least, one portion of mankind.* But while saving man from mental darkness, they
inflicted upon him the tortures of the self-consciousness of his responsibility
-- the result of his free will -- besides every ill to which mortal man and
flesh are heir to. This torture Prometheus accepted for himself, since the Host
became henceforward blended with the tabernacle prepared for them, which was
still unachieved at that period of formation.
Spiritual
evolution being incapable of keeping pace with the physical, once its
homogeneity was broken by the admixture, the gift thus became the chief cause,
if not the sole origin of Evil.** The allegory which shows KRONOS cursing Zeus
for dethroning him (in the primitive "golden" age of Saturn, when all
men were demi-gods), and for creating a physical race of men weak and helpless
in comparison; and then as delivering to his (Zeus') revenge the culprit, who
despoiled the gods of their prerogative of creation and who thereby raised man
to their level, intellectually and spiritually -- is highly philosophical. In
the case of Prometheus, Zeus represents the Host of the primeval progenitors,
of the PITAR, the "Fathers" who created man senseless
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]]
"Oh!
holy Ether, swiftly-winged gales . . . .
Behold
what I, a god, from gods endure
.
. . . . . . . .
And
yet what say I? Clearly I foreknew
All
that must happen . . . .
.
. . . The Destined it behoves,
As
best I may, to bear, for well I wot
How
incontestable the strength of Fate . . . . (105)
"Fate"
stands here for KARMA, or Nemesis.
*
Mankind is obviously divided into god-informed men and lower human creatures.
The intellectual difference between the Aryan and other civilized nations and
such savages as the South Sea Islanders, is inexplicable on any other grounds.
No amount of culture, nor generations of training amid civilization, could
raise such human specimens as the Bushmen, the Veddhas of Ceylon, and some
African tribes, to the same intellectual level as the Aryans, the Semites, and
the Turanians so called. The "sacred spark" is missing in them and it
is they who are the only inferior races on the globe, now happily -- owing to
the wise adjustment of nature which ever works in that direction -- fast dying
out. Verily mankind is "of one blood," but not of the same essence.
We are the hot-house, artificially quickened plants in nature, having in us a
spark, which in them is latent.
**
The philosophical view of Indian metaphysics places the Root of Evil in the
differentiation of the Homogeneous into the Heterogeneous, of the unit into
plurality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 422 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
and
without any mind; while the divine Titan stands for the Spiritual creators, the
devas who "fell" into generation. The former are spiritually lower,
but physically stronger, than the "Prometheans": therefore, the
latter are shown conquered. "The lower Host, whose work the Titan spoiled
and thus defeated the plans of Zeus," was on this earth in its own sphere
and plane of action; whereas, the superior Host was an exile from Heaven, who
had got entangled in the meshes of matter. They (the inferior "Host")
were masters of all the Cosmic and lower titanic forces; the higher Titan
possessed only the intellectual and spiritual fire. This drama of the struggle
of Prometheus with the Olympic tyrant and despot, sensual Zeus, one sees
enacted daily within our actual mankind: the lower passions chain the higher
aspirations to the rock of matter, to generate in many a case the vulture of sorrow,
pain, and repentance. In every such case one sees once more --
"A
god . . . in fetters, anguish fraught;
The
foe of Zeus, in hatred held by all. . . . "
A
god, bereft even of that supreme consolation of Prometheus, who suffered in
self-sacrifice --
"For
that to men he bare too fond a mind. . ."
as
the divine Titan is moved by altruism, but the mortal man by Selfishness and
Egoism in every instance.
The
modern Prometheus has now become Epi-metheus, "he who sees only after the
event"; because the universal philanthropy of the former has long ago
degenerated into selfishness and self-adoration. Man will rebecome the free
Titan of old, but not before cyclic evolution has re-established the broken
harmony between the two natures -- the terrestrial and the divine; after which
he becomes impermeable to the lower titanic forces, invulnerable in his
personality, and immortal in his individuality, which cannot happen before
every animal element is eliminated from his nature. When man understands that
"Deus non fecit mortem" (Sap. I., 13), but that man has created it
himself, he will re-become the Prometheus before his Fall.
For
the full symbolism of Prometheus and the origin of this mythos in Greece, the
reader is referred to Part II. of this Volume, chapter "A Second Key to
Prometheus," etc. In the said Part -- a kind of supplement to the present
portion -- every additional information is given upon those tenets that will be
the most controverted and questioned. This work is so heterodox, when confronted
with the acknowledged standards of theology and modern science, that no proof
which tends to show that these standards often usurp an illegal authority
should be neglected.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 423 THE "BUDDHAS OF CONFESSION."
ADDITIONAL
FRAGMENTS FROM A COMMENTARY ON THE VERSES OF STANZA XII.
THE
MS. from which these additional explanations are taken belongs to the group
called "Tongshaktchi Sangye Songa," or the Records of the "Thirty-five
Buddhas of Confession," as they are exoterically called. These personages,
however, though called in the Northern Buddhist religion "Buddhas,"
may just as well be called Rishis, or Avatars, etc., as they are "Buddhas
who have preceded Sakyamuni" only for the Northern followers of the ethics
preached by Gautama. These great Mahatmas, or Buddhas, are a universal and
common property: they are historical sages -- at any rate, for all the
Occultists who believe in such a hierarchy of Sages, the existence of which has
been proved to them by the learned ones of the Fraternity. They are chosen from
among some ninety-seven Buddhas in one group, and fifty-three in another,*
mostly imaginary personages, who are really the personifications of the powers
of the first-named.** These "baskets" of the oldest writings on
"palm leaves" are kept very secret. Each MS. has appended to it a
short synopsis of the history of that sub-race to which the particular
"Buddha-Lha" belonged. The one special MS. from which the fragments
which follow are extracted, and then rendered into a more comprehensible
language, is said to have been copied from stone tablets which belonged to a
Buddha of the earliest day of the Fifth Race, who had witnessed the Deluge and
the submersion of the chief continents of the Atlantean race. The day when
much, if not all, of that which is given here from the archaic records, will be
found correct, is not far distant. Then the modern symbologists will acquire
the certitude that even Odin, or the god Woden, the highest god in the German
and Scandinavian mythology, is one of these thirty-five Buddhas; one of the
earliest, indeed, for the continent to which he and his race belonged, is also
one of the earliest. So early, in truth, that in the days when tropical nature
was to be found, where now lie eternal unthawing snows, one could cross almost
by dry land from Norway via Iceland and Greenland, to the lands that at present
surround Hudson's
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Gautama Buddha, named Shakya Thub-pa, is the twenty-seventh of the last group,
as most of these Buddhas belong to the divine dynasties which instructed
mankind.
**
Of these "Buddhas," or the "Enlightened," the far distant
predecessors of Gautama the Buddha, and who represent, we are taught, once
living men, great adepts and Saints, in whom the "Sons of Wisdom" had
incarnated, and who were, therefore, so to speak, minor Avatars of the
Celestial Beings -- eleven only belong to the Atlantean race, and 24 to the
Fifth race, from its beginnings. They are identical with the Tirtankaras of the
Jainas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 424 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Bay.*
Just, as in the palmy days of the Atlantean giants, the sons of the
"giants from the East," a pilgrim could perform a journey from what
in our days is termed the Sahara desert, to the lands which now rest in
dreamless sleep at the bottom of the waters of the Gulf of Mexico and the
Caribbean Sea. Events which were never written outside the human memory, but
which were religiously transmitted from one generation to another, and from
race to race, may have been preserved by constant transmission "within the
book volume of the brain," and through countless aeons, with more truth
and accuracy than inside any written document or record. "That which is
part of our souls is eternal," says Thackeray; and what can be nearer to
our souls than that which happens at the dawns of our lives? Those lives are countless,
but the soul or spirit that animates us throughout these myriads of existences
is the same; and though "the book and volume" of the physical brain
may forget events within the scope of one terrestrial life, the bulk of
collective recollections can never desert the divine soul within us. Its
whispers may be too soft, the sound of its words too far off the plane
perceived by our physical senses; yet the shadow of events that were, just as
much as the shadow of the events that are to come, is within its perceptive
powers, and is ever present before its mind's eye.
It
is this soul-voice, perhaps, which tells those who believe in tradition more
than in written History, that what is said below is all true, and relates to
pre-historic facts.
This
is what is written in one passage:--
"THE
KINGS OF LIGHT HAVE DEPARTED IN WRATH. THE SINS OF MEN HAVE BECOME SO BLACK
THAT EARTH QUIVERS IN HER GREAT AGONY. . . . THE AZURE SEATS REMAIN EMPTY. WHO
OF THE BROWN, WHO OF THE RED, OR YET AMONG THE BLACK (races), CAN SIT IN THE
SEATS OF THE BLESSED, THE SEATS OF KNOWLEDGE AND MERCY! WHO CAN ASSUME THE
FLOWER OF POWER, THE PLANT OF THE GOLDEN STEM AND THE AZURE BLOSSOM?"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This may account for the similarity of the artificial mounds in the U. S. of
America, and the tumuli in Norway. It is this identity that led some American
archaeologists to suggest that Norwegian mariners had discovered America some
one thousand years ago. (Vide Holmboe's Traces de Bouddhisme en Norvege, p.
23). There is no doubt that America is that "far distant land into which
pious men and heavy storms had transferred the sacred doctrine," as a
Chinese writer suggested by his description to Neumann. But neither Professor
Holmboe, of Stockholm, nor the American archaeologists, have guessed the right
age of the mounds, or the tumuli. The fact that Norwegians may have
re-discovered the land that their long-forgotten forefathers believed to have
perished in the general submersion, does not conflict with that other fact that
the Secret Doctrine of the land which was the cradle of physical man, and of
the Fifth Race, had found its way into the so-called New World ages and ages
before the "Sacred Doctrine" of Buddhism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 425 THE OLDEST RECORDS ABOUT ATLANTIS.
The
"Kings of Light" is the name given in all old records to the
Sovereigns of the divine Dynasties. The "azure seats" are translated
"celestial thrones" in certain documents. The "flower of
power" is now the Lotus; what it may have been at that period, who can
tell.
The
writer proceeds, like the later Jeremiah, to bewail the fate of his people.
They had become bereft of their "azure" (celestial) kings, and
"they of the Deva hue," the moon-like complexion, and "they of
the refulgent (golden) face" have gone "to the land of bliss, the
land of metal and fire"; or -- agreeably with the rules of symbolism -- to
the lands lying North and East, from whence "the great waters have been
swept away, sucked in by the earth and dissipated in the air." The wise
races had perceived "the black storm-dragons, called down by the dragons
of wisdom" -- and "had fled, led on by the shining Protectors of the
most Excellent Land" -- the great ancient adepts, presumably; those the
Hindus refer to as their Manus and Rishis. One of them was Vaivasvata Manu.
They
"of the yellow hue" are the forefathers of those whom Ethnology now
classes as the Turanians, the Mongols, Chinese and other ancient nations; and
the land they fled to was no other than Central Asia. There entire new races
were born; there they lived and died until the separation of the nations. But
this "separation" did not take place either in the localities
assigned for it by modern science, nor in the way the Aryans are shown to have
divided and separated by Mr. Max Muller and other Aryanists. Nearly two-thirds
of one million years have elapsed since that period. The yellow-faced giants of
the post-Atlantean day, had ample time, throughout this forced confinement to
one part of the world, and with the same racial blood and without any fresh
infusion or admixture in it, to branch off during a period of nearly 700,000
years into the most heterogeneous and diversified types. The same is shown in
Africa; nowhere does a more extraordinary variability of types exist, from
black to almost white, from gigantic men to dwarfish races; and this only
because of their forced isolation. The Africans have never left their continent
for several hundred thousands of years. If to-morrow the continent of Europe
were to disappear and other lands to re-emerge instead; and if the African
tribes were to separate and scatter on the face of the earth, it is they who,
in about a hundred thousand years hence, would form the bulk of the civilized
nations. And it is the descendants of those of our highly cultured nations, who
might have survived on some one island, without any means of crossing the new
seas, that would fall back into a state of relative savagery. Thus the reason
given for dividing humanity into superior and inferior races falls to the
ground and becomes a fallacy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Such
are the statements made and facts given in the archaic records. Collating and
comparing them with some modern theories of Evolution, minus natural selection
(Vide "Physiological Selection" by G. J. Romanes, F.R.S.), these
statements appear quite reasonable and logical.* Thus, while the Aryans are the
descendants of the yellow Adams, the gigantic and highly civilized tlanto-Aryan
race, the Semites -- and the Jews along with them -- are those of the red Adam;
and both de Quatrefages and the writers of the Mosaic Genesis are right. For,
could chapter v. of the First Book of Moses be compared with the genealogies
found in our Archaic Bible, the period from Adam unto Noah would be found
noticed therein, of course under different names, the respective years of the
Patriarchs being turned into periods, the whole being shown symbolical and
allegorical. In the MS. under consideration many and frequent are the
references to the great knowledge and civilization of the Atlantean nations,
showing the polity of several of them and the nature of their arts and
sciences. If the Third Root-Race, the Lemuro-Atlanteans, are already spoken of
as having been drowned "with their high civilizations and gods"
("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 65), how much more may the same be said of
the Atlanteans!
It
is from the Fourth Race that the early Aryans got their knowledge of "the
bundle of wonderful things," the Sabha and Mayasabha, mentioned in the
Mahabharata, the gift of Mayasur to the Pandavas. It is from them that they
learnt aeronautics, Viwan Vidya (the "knowledge of flying in
air-vehicles"), and, therefore, their great arts of meteorography and
meteorology. It is from them, again, that the Aryans inherited their most
valuable science of the hidden virtues of precious and other stones, of
chemistry, or rather alchemy, of mineralogy, geology, physics and astronomy.
Several
times the writer has put to herself the question: "Is the story of Exodus
-- in its details at least -- as narrated in the Old Testament, original? Or is
it, like the story of Moses himself and many others, simply another version of
the legends told of the Atlanteans?" For who, upon hearing the story told
of the latter, will fail to perceive the great similarity of the fundamental
features? The anger of "God" at the obduracy of Pharaoh, his command
to the "chosen" ones, to spoil the Egyptians, before departing, of
their "jewels of silver and jewels of gold" (Exod. xi.); and finally
the Egyptians and their Pharaoh drowned in the Red Sea (xiv.). For here is a fragment
of the earlier story from the Commentary:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide the first pages of Part III., SCIENCE AND THE SECRET DOCTRINE CONTRASTED.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 427 THE DOOM OF ATLANTIS.
.
. . "And the 'great King of the dazzling Face,' the chief of all the
Yellow-faced, was sad, seeing the sins of the Black-faced.
"He
sent his air-vehicles (Viwan) to all his brother-chiefs (chiefs of other
nations and tribes) with pious men within, saying: 'Prepare. Arise ye men of
the good law, and cross the land while (yet) dry.'
'The
Lords of the storm are approaching. Their chariots are nearing the land. One
night and two days only shall the Lords of the Dark Face (the Sorcerers) live
on this patient land. She is doomed, and they have to descend with her. The
nether Lords of the Fires (the Gnomes and fire Elementals) are preparing their
magic Agneyastra (fire-weapons worked by magic). But the Lords of the Dark Eye
("Evil Eye") are stronger than they (the Elementals) and they are the
slaves of the mighty ones. They are versed in Ashtar (Vidya, the highest
magical knowledge).* Come and use yours (i.e., your magic powers, in order to
counteract those of the Sorcerers). Let every lord of the Dazzling Face (an
adept of the White Magic) cause the Viwan of every lord of the Dark Face to
come into his hands (or possession), lest any (of the Sorcerers) should by its
means escape from the waters, avoid the rod of the Four, (Karmic deities) and
save his wicked' (followers, or people).
'May
every yellow face send sleep from himself (mesmerize?) to every black face. May
even they (the Sorcerers) avoid pain and suffering. May every man true to the
Solar Gods bind (paralyze) every man under the lunar gods, lest he should
suffer or escape his destiny.
'And
may every yellow face offer of his life-water (blood) to the speaking animal of
a black face, lest he awaken his master.**
'The
hour has struck, the black night is ready, etc., etc.
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
'Let
their destiny be accomplished. We are the servants of the great Four.*** May
the Kings of light return.' "
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Wrote the late Brahmachari Bawa, a Yogi of great renown and holiness:
"Extensive works on Ashtar Vidya and such other sciences were at different
times compiled in the languages of the times. But the Sanskrit originals were
lost at the time of the partial deluge of our country." . . . (See
Theosophist of June, 1880, "Some Things the Aryans Knew.") For
Agneyastra, see Wilson's Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, I., p. 297.
**
Some wonderful, artificially-made beast, similar in some way to Frankenstein's
creation, which spoke and warned his master of every approaching danger. The
master was a "black magician," the mechanical animal was informed by
a djin, an Elemental, according to the accounts. The blood of a pure man alone
could destroy him. Vide Part II., xxvii., "Seven in Astronomy, Science,
and Magic."
***
The four Karmic gods, called the Four Maharajahs in the Stanzas.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 428 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"The
great King fell upon his dazzling Face and wept. . . .
"When
the Kings assembled the waters had already moved. . . .
"(But)
the nations had now crossed the dry lands. They were beyond the water mark.
Their Kings reached them in their Viwans, and led them on to the lands of Fire
and Metal (East and North)."
.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Still,
in another passage, it is said:--
"
. . . . Stars (meteors) showered on the lands of the black Faces; but they
slept.
"The
speaking beasts (the magic watchers) kept quiet.
"The
nether lords waited for orders, but they came not, for their masters slept.
"The
waters arose, and covered the valleys from one end of the Earth to the other.
High lands remained, the bottom of the Earth (the lands of the antipodes)
remained dry. There dwelt those who escaped; the men of the yellow-faces and of
the straight eye (the frank and sincere people).
"When
the Lords of the Dark Faces awoke and bethought themselves of their Viwans in
order to escape from the rising waters, they found them gone."
Then
a passage shows some of the more powerful magicians of the "Dark
Face" -- who awoke earlier than the others -- pursuing those who had
"spoilt them" and who were in the rear-guard, for -- "the nations
that were led away, were as thick as the stars of the milky way," says a
more modern Commentary, written in Sanskrit only.
"Like
as a dragon-snake uncoils slowly its body, so the Sons of men, led on by the
Sons of Wisdom, opened their folds, and spreading out, expanded like a running
stream of sweet waters. . . . . . many of the faint-hearted among them perished
on their way. But most were saved."
Yet
the pursuers, "whose heads and chests soared high above the water,"
chased them "for three lunar terms" until finally reached by the
rising waves, they perished to the last man, the soil sinking under their feet
and the earth engulfing those who had desecrated her.
This
sounds a good deal like the original material upon which the similar story in
Exodus was built many hundred thousands of years later. The biography of Moses,
the story of his birth, childhood and rescue from the Nile by Pharaoh's
daughter, is now shown to have been adapted from the Chaldean narrative about
Sargon. And if so, the Assyrian tile in the British Museum being a good proof
of it, why not that of the Jews robbing the Egyptians of their jewels, the
death of Pharaoh and his army, and so on? The gigantic magicians of Ruta and
Daitya, the "lords of the Dark Face," may have become in the later
narrative the Egyptian Magi, and the yellow-faced nations of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 429 SHADOWY MEMENTOS OF THE PAST.
the
Fifth Race, the virtuous sons of Jacob, the "chosen people." . . .
One more statement has to be made: There have been several Divine Dynasties --
a series for every Root Race beginning with the Third, each series according
and adapted to its Humanity. The last Seven Dynasties referred to in the
Egyptian and Chaldean records belong to the Fifth Race, which, though generally
called Aryan, was not entirely so, as it was ever largely mixed up with races
to which Ethnology gives other names. It would be impossible, in view of the
limited space at our disposal, to go any further into the description of the
Atlanteans, in whom the whole East believes as much as we believe in the
ancient Egyptians, but whose existence the majority of the Western Scientists
deny, as they have denied, before this, many a truth, from the existence of
Homer down to that of the carrier pigeon. The civilization of the Atlanteans
was greater even than that of the Egyptians. It is their degenerate
descendants, the nation of Plato's Atlantis, which built the first Pyramids in
the country, and that certainly before the advent of the "Eastern
AEthiopians," as Herodotus calls the Egyptians. This may be well inferred
from the statement made by Ammianus Marcellinus, who says of the Pyramids that
"there are also subterranean passages and winding retreats, which, it is
said, men skilful in the ancient mysteries, by means of which they divined the
coming of a flood, constructed in different places lest the memory of all their
sacred ceremonies should be lost."
These
men who "divined the coming of floods" were not Egyptians, who never
had any, except the periodical rising of the Nile. Who were they? The last
remnants of the Atlanteans, we maintain. Those races which are dimly suspected
by Science, and thinking of which Mr. Ch. Gould, the well-known geologist,
says: "Can we suppose that we have at all exhausted the great museum of
nature? Have we, in fact, penetrated yet beyond its antechambers? Does the
written history of man, comprising a few thousand years, embrace the whole
course of his intelligent existence? Or have we in the long mythical eras,
extending over hundreds of thousands of years, and recorded in the chronologies
of Chaldea and of China, shadowy mementos of pre-historic man, handed down by
tradition, and perhaps transported by a few survivors to existing lands from
others, which, like the fabled (?) Atlantis of Plato, may have been submerged,
or the scene of some great catastrophe which destroyed them with all their
civilization" ("Mythical Monsters," p. 19).
After
this one can turn with more confidence to the words of a Master who wrote,
several years before these words were penned by Mr. Gould:-- "The Fourth
Race had its periods of the highest civilization. Greek and Roman and even
Egyptian civilizations are nothing com-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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pared
to the civilizations that began with the Third Race" -- after its
separation.
But
if this civilization and the mastery of arts and sciences are denied to the
Third and Fourth Races, no one will deny that between the great civilizations
of antiquity, such as those of Egypt and India, there stretched the dark ages
of crass ignorance and barbarism ever since the beginning of the Christian era
up to our modern civilization; during which period all recollection of these
traditions was lost. As said in Isis Unveiled: "Why should we forget that,
ages before the prow of the adventurous Genoese clove the Western waters, the
Phoenician vessels had circumnavigated the globe, and spread civilization in
regions now silent and deserted? What archaeologist will dare assert that the
same hand which planned the Pyramids of Egypt, Karnak, and the thousand ruins
now crumbling to oblivion on the sandy banks of the Nile, did not erect the
monumental Nagkon-Wat of Cambodia? or trace the hieroglyphics on the obelisks
and doors of the deserted Indian village, newly discovered in British Columbia
by Lord Dufferin? or those on the ruins of Palenque and Uxmal, of Central
America? Do not the relics we treasure in our museums -- last mementos of the
long 'lost arts' -- speak loudly in favour of ancient civilization? And do they
not prove, over and over again, that nations and continents that have passed
away have buried along with them arts and sciences, which neither the first
crucible ever heated in a mediaeval cloister, nor the last cracked by a modern
chemist, have revived, nor will -- at least, in the present century."
And
the same question may be put now that was put then; it may be once more asked:
"How does it happen that the most advanced standpoint that has been
reached in our times, only enables us to see in the dim distance up the Alpine
path of knowledge the monumental proofs that earlier explorers have left to
mark the plateaux they had reached and occupied?
"If
modern masters are so much in advance of the old ones, why do they not restore
to us the lost arts of our postdiluvian forefathers? Why do they not give us
the unfading colours of Luxor -- the Tyrian purple; the bright vermilion and
dazzling blue which decorate the walls of this place, and are as bright as on
the first day of their application? The indestructible cement of the pyramids
and of ancient aqueducts; the Damascus blade, which can be turned like a
corkscrew in its scabbard without breaking; the gorgeous, unparalleled tints of
the stained glass that is found amid the dust of old ruins and beams in the
windows of ancient cathedrals; and the secret of the true malleable glass? And
if chemistry is so little able to rival even the early mediaeval ages in some
arts, why boast of achievements which, accord-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ing
to strong probability, were perfectly known thousands of years ago? The more
archeology and philology advance, the more humiliating to our pride are the
discoveries which are daily made, the more glorious testimony do they bear in
behalf of those who, perhaps on account of the distance of their remote
antiquity, have been until now considered ignorant flounderers in the deepest
mire of superstition."
Among
other arts and sciences, the ancients -- ay, as a heirloom from the Atlanteans
-- had those of astronomy and symbolism, which included the knowledge of the
Zodiac.
As
already explained, the whole of antiquity believed, with good reason, that
humanity and its races are all intimately connected with the planets, and these
with Zodiacal signs. The whole world's History is recorded in the latter. In
the ancient temples of Egypt this was proved by the Dendera Zodiac; but except
in an Arabic work, the property of a Sufi, the writer has never met with a
correct copy of these marvellous records of the past, as also of the future,
history of our globe. Yet the original records exist, most undeniably.
As
Europeans are unacquainted with the real Zodiacs of India, nor do they
understand those they happen to know (witness Bentley), the reader is advised,
in order to verify the statement, to turn to the work of Denon (Travels in
Egypt, Vol. II.) in which, if understood, the two famous Egyptian Zodiacs, can
be found and examined. Having seen them personally, the writer has no longer
need to trust to what other students -- who have examined and studied both very
carefully - have to say of them. As asserted by the Egyptian Priests to
Herodotus, who was informed that the terrestrial Pole and the Pole of the
Ecliptic had formerly coincided, thus was it found and corroborated by Mackey.*
For he states that the Poles are represented on the Zodiacs in both positions,
"And in that which shows the Poles (polar axes) at right angles, there are
marks which prove that 'it was not the last time they were in that position;
but the first' -- after the Zodiacs had been traced."
"Capricorn," he adds, "is represented at the North Pole, and
Cancer is divided, near its middle, at the South Pole; which is a confirmation
that originally they had their winter when the Sun was in Cancer; but the chief
characteristics of its being a monument commemorating the first time that the
Pole had been in that position, are the Lion and the Virgin." (See in Part
II., §"A Mystery of the Zodiac.")
Broadly
calculated, it is believed by the Egyptologists that the great Pyramid was
built 3,350 B.C. (See Proctor, Knowledge, Vol. I. pp. 242, 400); and that Menes
and his Dynasty existed 7 50 years before the Fourth
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Mythological Astronomy of the Ancients Demonstrated" by a
strangely intuitional symbologist and astronomer, a kind of a self-made adept
of Norwich, who lived in the first quarter of this century.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 432 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Dynasty
(supposed to have built the Pyramids) had appeared ("The Great
Pyramid," Staniland Wake). Thus 4,100 years B.C. is the age assigned to
Menes. Now Sir J. Gardner Wilkinson's declaration that "all the facts lead
to the conclusion that the Egyptians had already made very great progress in
the arts of civilization before the age of Menes, and perhaps before they
immigrated into the valley of the Nile" (Rawlinson's
"Herodotus," vol. ii. p. 345) is very suggestive, as destroying this
hypothesis. It points to great civilization in prehistoric times, and a still
greater antiquity. The Schesoo-Hor ("the servants of Horus") were the
people who had settled in Egypt; and, as M. G. Maspero affirms, it is to this
prehistoric race that "belongs the honour . . . of having founded the
principal cities of Egypt, and established the most important
sanctuaries." This was before the great Pyramid epoch, and when Egypt had
hardly arisen from the waters. Yet "they possessed the hieroglyphic form
of writing special to the Egyptians, and must have been already considerably
advanced in civilization." It was, says Lenormant, "the country of
the great prehistoric sanctuaries, seats of the sacerdotal dominion, which
played the most important part in the origin of civilization." What is the
date assigned to this people? We hear of 4,000, at the utmost of 5,000 years
B.C. (Maspero). Now it is claimed that it is by means of the cycle of 25,868
years (the Sidereal year) that the approximate year of the erection of the
Great Pyramid can be ascertained. "Assuming that the long narrow downward
passage was directed towards the pole star of the pyramid builders, astronomers
have shown that . . . . Alpha Draconis, the then pole-star, was in the required
position about 3,350 B.C., as well as in 2,170 B.C. (Proctor, quoted by
Staniland Wake.) But we are also told that "this relative position of
Alpha Draconis and Alcyone being an extraordinary one . . it could not occur
again for a whole sidereal year" (ibid). This demonstrates that, since the
Dendera Zodiac shows the passage of three sidereal years, the great Pyramid
must have been built 78,000 years ago, or in any case that this possibility
deserves to be accepted at least as readily as the later date of 3,350 B.C.
Now
on the Zodiac of a certain temple in far Northern India, as on the Dendera
Zodiac, the same characteristics of the signs are found. Those who know well
the Hindu symbols and constellations, will be able to find out by the
description of the Egyptian, whether the indications of the chronological time
are correct or not. On the Dendera Zodiac as preserved by the modern Egyptian
Coptic and Greek adepts, and explained a little differently by Mackey, the Lion
stands upon the Hydra and his tail is almost straight, pointing downwards at an
angle of forty or fifty degrees, this position agreeing with the original
conformation of these constellations. "But in many places we see the Lion
(Simha),"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Mackey
adds, "with his tail turned up over his back, and ending with a Serpent's
head; thereby showing that the Lion had been 'inverted'; which, indeed, must
have been the case with the whole Zodiac and every other Constellation, when
the Pole had been inverted."
Speaking
of the Circular Zodiac, given also by Denon, he says:-- There, "the Lion
is standing on the Serpent, and his tail forming a curve downward, from which
it is found that though six or seven hundred thousand years must have passed
between the two positions, yet they had made but little difference between in
the constellations of Leo and the Hydra; while Virgo is represented very
differently in the two. In the circular Zodiac, the Virgin is nursing her
child; but it seems that they had not had that idea when the pole was first
within the plane of the Ecliptic; for in this Zodiac, as given by Denon, we see
three Virgins between the Lion and the Scales, the last of which holds in her
hand an ear of wheat. It is much to be lamented that there is in this Zodiac a
breach of the figure in the latter part of Leo and the beginning of Virgo which
has taken away one Decan out of each sign."
Nevertheless,
the meaning is plain, as the three Zodiacs belong to three different epochs:
namely, to the last three family races of the fourth Sub-race of the Fifth
Root-race, each of which must have lived approximately from 25 to 30,000 years.
The first of these (the "Aryan-Asiatics") witnessed the doom of the
last of the populations of the "giant Atlanteans"* who perished some
850,000 years ago (the Ruta and Daitya Island-Continents) toward the close of
the Miocene Age.** The fourth sub-race witnessed the destruction of the last
remnant of the Atlanteans -- the Aryo-Atlanteans in the last island of
Atlantis, namely, some 11,000 years ago. In order to understand this the reader
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The term "Atlantean" must not mislead the reader to regard these as
one race only, or even a nation. It is as though one said "Asiatics."
Many, multityped, and various were the Atlanteans, who represented several
humanities, and almost a countless number of races and nations, more varied
indeed than would be the "Europeans" were this name to be given
indiscriminately to the five existing parts of the world; which, at the rate
colonization is proceeding, will be the case, perhaps, in less than two or
three hundred years. There were brown, red, yellow, white and black Atlanteans;
giants and dwarfs (as some African tribes comparatively are, even now).
**
Says a teacher in "Esoteric Buddhism," on p. 64: "In the Eocene
age, even in its very first part, the great cycle of the fourth race men the
(Lemuro) Atlanteans had already reached its highest point (of civilization),
and the great continent, the father of nearly all the present continents,
showed the first symptoms of sinking. . . ." And on page 70, it is shown
that Atlantis as a whole perished during the Miocene period. To show how the
continents, races, nations and cycles overlap each other, one has but to think
of Lemuria, the last of whose lands perished about 700,000 years before the
beginning of the Tertiary period (see p. 65 of the same work), and the last of
"Atlantis" only 11,000 years ago; thus both overlapping -- one the
Atlantean period, and the other the Aryan.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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is
asked to glance at the diagram of the genealogical tree of the Fifth Root-Race
-- generally, though hardly correctly, called the Aryan race, and the
explanations appended to it.
Let
the reader remember well that which is said of the divisions of Root Races and
the evolution of Humanity in this work, and stated clearly and concisely in Mr.
Sinnett's "Esoteric Buddhism."
1.
There are seven ROUNDS in every manvantara; this one is the Fourth, and we are
in the Fifth Root-Race, at present.
2.
Each Root-Race has seven sub-races.
3.
Each sub-race has, in its turn, seven ramifications, which may be called Branch
or "Family" races.
4.
The little tribes, shoots, and offshoots of the last-named are countless and
depend on Karmic action. Examine the "genealogical tree" hereto
appended, and you will understand. The illustration is purely diagrammatic, and
is only intended to assist the reader in obtaining a slight grasp of the
subject, amidst the confusion which exists between the terms which have been
used at different times for the divisions of Humanity. It is also here
attempted to express in figures -- but only within approximate limits, for the
sake of comparison -- the duration of time through which it is possible to
definitely distinguish one division from another. It would only lead to
hopeless confusion if any attempt were made to give accurate dates to a few;
for the Races, Sub-Races, etc., etc., down to their smallest ramifications,
overlap and are entangled with each other until it is nearly impossible to
separate them.
The
human Race has been compared to a tree, and this serves admirably as an
illustration.
[[diagram]]
The
main stem of a tree may be compared to the ROOT-RACE (A).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 435 ILLUSTRATION OF THE RACES.
Its
larger limbs to the various SUB-RACES; seven in number (B1, B2).
On
each of these limbs are seven BRANCHES, OR FAMILY-RACES. (C).
After
this the cactus-plant is a better illustration, for its fleshy
"leaves" are covered with sharp spines, each of which may be compared
to a nation or tribe of human beings.
Now
our Fifth Root-Race has already been in existence -- as a race sui generis and
quite free from its parent stem -- about 1,000,000 years; therefore it must be
inferred that each of the four preceding Sub-Races has lived approximately
210,000 years; thus each Family-Race has an average existence of about 30,000
years. Thus the European "Family Race" has still a good many thousand
years to run, although the nations or the innumerable spines upon it, vary with
each succeeding "season" of three or four thousand years. It is
somewhat curious to mark the comparative approximation of duration between the
lives of a "Family-Race" and a "Sidereal year."
The
knowledge of the foregoing, and the accurately correct division, formed part
and parcel of the Mysteries, where these Sciences were taught to the disciples,
and where they were transmitted by one hierophant to another. Everyone is aware
that the European astronomers assign (arbitrarily enough) the date of the
invention of the Egyptian Zodiac to the years 2000 or 2400 B.C. (Proctor); and
insist that this invention coincides in its date with that of the erection of
the Great Pyramid. This, to an Occultist and Eastern astronomer, must appear
quite absurd. The year of the Kaliyuga is said to have begun between the 17th
and 18th of February in the year 3102 B.C. Now the Hindus claim that in the
year 20400 before Kaliyugam, the origin of their Zodiac coincided with the
spring equinox -- there being at the time a conjunction of the Sun and Moon --
and Bailly proved by a lengthy and careful computation of that date, that, even
if fictitious, the epoch from which they had started to establish the beginning
of their Kaliyug was very real. That "epoch is the year 3102 before our
era," he writes. (See Part III., Book I. "Hindu Astronomy defended by
an Academician".) The lunar eclipse arriving just a fortnight after the
beginning of the black Age -- it took place in a point situated between the Wheat
Ear of Virgo and the star [[theta]] of the same constellation. One of their
most esoteric Cycles is based upon certain conjunctions and respective
positions of Virgo and the Pleiades -- (Krittika). Hence, as the Egyptians
brought their Zodiac from Southern India and Lanka,* the esoteric meaning was
evidently identical. The three "Virgins," or Virgo in three different
positions, meant, with both, the record of the first three "divine or
astronomical Dynasties," who taught the Third
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Ceylon.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 436 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Root-Race;
and after having abandoned the Atlanteans to their doom, returned (or redescended,
rather) during the third Sub-Race of the Fifth, in order to reveal to saved
humanity the mysteries of their birth-place -- the sidereal Heavens. The same
symbolical record of the human races and the three Dynasties (Gods, Manes --
semi-divine astrals of the Third and Fourth, and the "Heroes" of the
Fifth Race), which preceded the purely human kings, was found in the
distribution of the tiers and passages of the Egyptian Labyrinth. As the three
inversions of the Poles of course changed the face of the Zodiac, a new one had
to be constructed each time. In Mackey's "Sphinxiad" the speculations
of the bold author must have horrified the orthodox portion of the population
of Norwich, as he says, fantastically enough:--
"But,
after all, the greatest length of time recorded by those monuments (the
Labyrinth, the Pyramids and the Zodiacs) does not exceed five millions of years
(which is not so)*; which falls short of the records given us both by the
(esoteric) Chinese and Hindus; which latter nation has registered a knowledge
of time for seven or eight millions of years**; which I have seen upon a
talisman of porcelain. . . . "
The
Egyptian priests had the Zodiacs of the Atlantean Asura-Maya, as the modern
Hindus still have. As stated in "Esoteric Buddhism," the Egyptians,
as well as the Greeks and "Romans" some thousand years ago, were
"remnants of the Atlanto-Aryans," i.e., the former, of the older, or
the Ruta Atlanteans; the last-named, the descendants of the last race of that
island, whose sudden disappearance was narrated to Solon by the Egyptian
Initiates. The human Dynasty of the older Egyptians, beginning with Menes, had
all the knowledge of the Atlanteans, though there was no more Atlantean blood
in their veins. Nevertheless, they had preserved all their Archaic records. All
this has been shown long ago.*** And it is just because the Egyptian Zodiac is
between 75 and 80,000 years old that the Zodiac of the Greeks is far later.
Volney has correctly pointed out in his "Ruins of Empires" (p. 360)
that it is only 16,984 years old, or up to the present date 17,082.****
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The forefathers of the Aryan Brahmins had their Zodiacal calculations and
Zodiac from those born by Kriyasakti power, the "Sons of Yoga"; the
Egyptians from the Atlanteans of Ruta.
**
The former, therefore, may have registered time for seven or eight millions of
years, but the Egyptians could not.
***
This question was amply challenged, and as amply discussed and answered. See
Five Years of Theosophy. (Art. "Mr. Sinnett's Esoteric Buddhism," pp.
325-46).
****
Volney says that, as Aries was in its 15th degree 1447 B.C., it follows that
the first degree of "Libra" could not have coincided with the vernal
equinox more lately than 15,194 years B.C., to which if you add 1790 since
Christ, when Volney wrote this, it appears that 16,984 years have elapsed since
the (Greek or rather Hellenic) origin of the Zodiac.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 437 MORE IN THE FORTHCOMING VOLUMES.
CONCLUSION.
Space
forbids us to say anything more, and this part of the "Secret
Doctrine" has to be closed. The forty-nine Stanzas and the few fragments
from the Commentaries just given are all that can be published in these
volumes. These, with some still older records -- to which none but the highest
Initiates have access -- and a whole library of comments, glossaries, and
explanations, form the synopsis of Man's genesis.
It
is from the Commentaries that we have hitherto quoted and tried to explain the
hidden meaning of some of the allegories, thus showing the true views of
esoteric antiquity upon geology, anthropology, and even ethnology. We will
endeavour in the Part which follows, to establish a still closer metaphysical
connection between the earliest races and their Creators, the divine men from
other worlds; accompanying the statements proffered with the most important
demonstrations of the same in esoteric Astronomy and Symbolism.
In
Volume III. of this work (the said volume and the IVth being almost ready) a
brief history of all the great adepts known to the ancients and the moderns in
their chronological order will be given, as also a bird's eye view of the
Mysteries, their birth, growth, decay, and final death -- in Europe. This could
not find room in the present work. Volume IV. will be almost entirely devoted
to Occult teachings.
The
duration of the periods that separate, in space and time, the Fourth from the
Fifth Race -- in the historical* or even the legendary beginnings of the latter
-- is too tremendous for us to offer, even to a Theosophist, any more detailed
accounts of them. During the course of the post-diluvian ages -- marked at
certain periodical epochs by the most terrible cataclysms -- too many races and
nations were born, and have disappeared almost without leaving a trace, for any
one to offer any description of the slightest value concerning them. Whether
the Masters of Wisdom have a consecutive and full history of our race from its
incipient stage down to the present times; whether they possess the
uninterrupted record of man since he became the complete physical being, and
became thereby the king of the animals and master on this earth -- is not for
the writer to say. Most probably they have,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The word "historical" is used, because, although historians have
dwarfed almost absurdly the dates that separate certain events from our modern
day, nevertheless, once that they are known and accepted, they belong to
history. Thus the Trojan War is an historical event; and though even less than
1,000 years B.C. is the date assigned to it, yet in truth it is nearer 6,000
than 5,000 years B.C.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 438 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
and
such is our own personal conviction. But if so, this knowledge is only for the
highest Initiates, who do not take their students into their confidence. The
writer can, therefore, give but what she has herself been taught, and no more.
But
even this will appear to the profane reader rather as a weird, fantastic dream,
than as a possible reality.
This
is only natural and as it should be, since for years such was the impression
made upon the humble writer of these pages herself. Born and bred in European,
matter-of-fact and presumably civilized countries, she assimilated the
foregoing with the utmost difficulty. But there are proofs of a certain character
which become irrefutable and are undeniable in the long run, to every earnest
and unprejudiced mind. For a series of years such were offered to her, and now
she has the full certitude that our present globe and its human races must have
been born, grown and developed in this, and in no other way.
But
this is the personal view of the writer; and her orthodoxy cannot be expected
to have any more weight than any other "doxy," in the eyes of those
to whom every fresh theory is heterodox until otherwise proved. Therefore are
we Occultists fully prepared for such questions as these: "How does one
know that the writer has not invented the whole scheme? And supposing she has
not, how can one tell that the whole of the foregoing, as given in the Stanzas,
is not the product of the imagination of the ancients? How could they have
preserved the records of such an immense, such an incredible antiquity?"
The
answer that the history of this world since its formation and to its end
"is written in the stars," i.e., is recorded in the Zodiac and the
Universal Symbolism whose keys are in the keeping of the Initiates, will hardly
satisfy the doubters. The antiquity of the Zodiac in Egypt is much doubted, and
it is denied point-blank with regard to India. "Your conclusions are often
excellent, but your premises are always doubtful," the writer was once
told by a profane friend. To this, the answer came that it was one point, at
least, gained on the scientific syllogisms. For, with the exception of a few
problems from the domain of purely physical science, both the premises and
conclusions of the men of Science are as hypothetical as they are almost
invariably erroneous. And if they do not so appear to the profane, the reason
is simply this: the said profane is very little aware, taking as he does his
scientific data on faith, that both premises and conclusions are generally the
product of the same brains, which, however learned, are not infallible; a
truism demonstrated daily by the shifting and re-shifting of scientific theories
and speculations.
However
it may be, the records of the temples, Zodiacal and traditional, as well as the
ideographic records of the East, as read by the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 439 MODERN SCIENCE MISTRUSTED.
adepts
of the Sacred Science and Vidya, are not a whit more doubtful than the
so-called ancient history of the European nations, now edited, corrected, and
amplified by half a century of archaeological discoveries, and the very problematical
readings of the Assyrian tiles, cuneiform fragments, and Egyptian
hieroglyphics. So are our data based upon the same readings, in addition to an
almost inexhaustible number of Secret works of which Europe knows nothing --
plus the perfect knowledge by the Initiates of the symbolism of every word so
recorded. Some of these records belong to an immense antiquity. Every
archaeologist and palaeontologist is acquainted with the ideographic
productions of certain semi-savage tribes, who from time immemorial have aimed
at rendering their thoughts symbolically. This is the earliest mode of
recording events and ideas. And how old this knowledge is in the human race may
be inferred from some signs, evidently ideographic, found on hatchets of the
Palaeolithic period. The red Indian tribes of America, only a few years ago
comparatively speaking, petitioned the President of the United States to grant
them possession of four small lakes, the petition being written on the tiny
surface of a piece of a fabric, which is covered with barely a dozen
representations of animals and birds. (See Lubbock.) The American savages have
a number of such different kinds of writing, but not one of our Scientists is
yet familiar, or even knows of the early hieroglyphic cypher, still preserved
in some Fraternities, and named in Occultism the Senzar. Moreover, all those
who have decided to regard such modes of writing -- e.g., the ideographs of the
Red Indians, and even the Chinese characters -- as "attempts of the early
races of mankind to express their untutored thoughts," will decidedly
object to our statement, that writing was invented by the Atlanteans, and not
at all by the Phoenicians. Indeed, such a claim as that writing was known to
mankind many hundreds of millenniums ago, in the face of the philologists who
have decreed that writing was unknown in the days of, and to Panini, in India,
as also to the Greeks in the time of Homer, will be met by general
disapprobation, if not with silent scorn. All denial and ridicule notwithstanding,
the Occultists will maintain the claim, and simply for this reason: from Bacon
down to our modern Royal Society, we have a too long period, full of the most
ludicrous mistakes made by Science, to warrant our believing in modern
scientific assumptions rather than in the denials of our Teachers. Writing, our
scientists say, was unknown to Panini; and this sage nevertheless composed a
grammar which contains 3,996 rules, and is the most perfect of all the grammars
that were ever made! Panini is made out to have lived barely a few centuries
B.C., by the most liberal; and the rocks in Iran and Central Asia (whence the
philologists and historians
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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show
us the ancestors of the same Panini, the Brahmins, coming into India) are
covered with writing, two and three thousand years old (12,000, according to
some fearless palaeontologists).
Writing
was an ars incognita in the days of Hesiod and Homer, agreeably to Grote, and
unknown to the Greeks so late as 770 B.C.; and the Phoenicians who had invented
it, and knew writing as far back as 1500 B.C., at the earliest,* were living
among the Greeks, and elbowing them, all the time! All these scientific and contradictory
conclusions disappeared, however, into thin air, when Schliemann discovered (a)
the site of ancient Troy, whose actual existence had been so long regarded as a
fable; and (b), excavated on that site earthenware vessels with inscriptions in
characters unknown to the paleontologists and the all-denying Sanskritists. Who
will now deny Troy, or these Archaic inscriptions? As Professor Virchow
witnesses:-- "I was myself an eye-witness of two such discoveries, and
helped to gather the articles together. The slanderers have long since been
silenced, who were not ashamed to charge the discoverer with an
imposture."** Nor were truthful women spared any more than truthful men.
Du Chaillu, Gordon-Cumming, Madame Merian,*** Bruce, and a host of others were
charged with lying.
Madame
Merian -- says the author of "Mythical Monsters," who gives this
information in the Introduction -- was accused of deliberate falsehood in
reference to her description of a bird-eating spider nearly two hundred years
ago. But now-a-days reliable observers have confirmed it in regard to South
America, India, and elsewhere. Audubon was accused by botanists of having
invented the yellow water-lily, which he figured in his Birds of the South
under the name of Nymphaea lutea, and after having lain under the imputation
for years, was confirmed at last by the discovery of the long-lost flower in
Florida in 1876 (Pop. Sci. Monthly, No. 60, April 1877). And, as Audubon was
called a liar for this, and for his Holiaetus Washingtonii,**** so Victor Hugo
was ridiculed for . . . . his marvellous word-painting of the devil-fish, and
his description of a man becoming its helpless victim. "The thing was
derided as an impossibility; yet within a few years were discovered, on the
shores of Newfoundland, cuttle fish with arms extending to thirty feet in
length, and capable of dragging a good-sized
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is an historical fact that Sanchoniathon compiled and wrote in Phoenician
characters -- from annals and State documents in the archives of the older
Phoenician cities -- the full record of their religion in 1250 B.C.
**
Prof. Virchow, in Appendix I to Schliemann's Ilios. Murray, 1880.
***
Gosse writes of the latter: "She is set down a thorough heretic, not at
all to be believed, a manufacturer of unsound natural history, an inventor of
false facts in science." ("Romance of Natural History," p. 227.)
****
Dr. Cover writes: "That famous bird of Washington was a myth; either
Audubon was mistaken, or else, as some do not hesitate to affirm, he lied about
it."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 441 A WHOLESALE DENIAL.
boat
beneath the surface; and their action has been reproduced for centuries past .
. . . by Japanese artists." ("Mythical Monsters," p. 11
Introd.).
And
if Troy was denied, and regarded as a myth; the existence of Herculaneum and
Pompeii declared a fiction; the travels of Marco Polo laughed at and called as
absurd a fable as one of Baron Munchausen's tales, why should the writer of
"Isis Unveiled" and of the "Secret Doctrine" be any better
treated? Mr. Charles Gould, the author of the above-cited volume quotes in his
excellent work a few lines from Macmillan (1860), which are as true as life,
and too much to the point not to be reproduced: "When a naturalist, either
by visiting such spots of earth as are still out of the way, or by his good
fortune, finds a very queer plant or animal, he is forthwith accused of inventing
his game. . . . . . As soon as the creature is found to sin against
preconception, the great (mis ?) guiding Spirit, a priori by name, who
furnishes philosophers with their omniscience pro re nata, whispers that no
such thing can be, and forthwith there is a charge of hoax. The heavens
themselves have been charged with hoaxes. When Leverrier and Adams predicted a
planet by calculation, it was gravely asserted in some quarters that the planet
which had been calculated was not the planet but another which had clandestinely
and improperly got into the neighbourhood of the true body. The disposition to
suspect hoax is stronger than the disposition to hoax. Who was it that first
announced that the classical writings of Greece and Rome were one huge hoax
perpetrated by the monks in what the announcer would be as little or less
inclined than Dr. Maitland to call the dark ages?" (p. 13).
Thus
let it be. No disbeliever who takes the "Secret Doctrine" for a
"hoax" is forced or even asked to credit our statements. These have
already been proclaimed to be such by certain very clever American journalists
before even the work went to press.*
Nor,
is it after all, necessary that any one should believe in the Occult Sciences
and the old teachings, before one knows anything or even
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So far back as July, 1888, at a time when the MSS. of this work had not yet
left my writing table, and the Secret Doctrine was utterly unknown to the world,
it was already being denounced as a product of my brain and no more. These are
the flattering terms in which the Evening Telegraph (of America) referred to
this still unpublished work in its issue of June 30, 1888: "Among the
fascinating books for July reading is Mme. Blavatsky's new book on Theosophy .
. . (!) the SECRET DOCTRINE. . . . But because she can soar back into the
Brahmin ignorance . . . (! ?) . . . is no proof that everything she says is
true." And once the prejudiced verdict given on the mistaken notion that
my book was out, and that the reviewer had read it, neither of which was or
could be the case, now that it is really out the critic will have to support
his first statement, whether correct or otherwise, and thus get out of it, probably
by a more slashing criticism than ever.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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believes
in his own soul. No great truth was ever accepted a priori, and generally a
century or two passed before it began to glimmer in the human consciousness as
a possible verity, except in such cases as the positive discovery of the thing
claimed as a fact. The truths of to-day are the falsehoods and errors of
yesterday, and vice versa. It is only in the XXth century that portions, if not
the whole, of the present work will be vindicated.
It
is no fact going against our statements, therefore, even if Sir John Evans does
affirm that writing was unknown in the stone age. For it may have been unknown
during that period in the Fifth Aryan race, and have been perfectly known to
the Atlanteans of the Fourth, in the palmy days of their highest civilization.
The cycles of the rise and fall of the nations and races are there to account
for it.
If
told that there have been cases before now of forged pseudographs being palmed
off on the credulous, and that our work may be classed with Jacolliot's
"Bible in India" (in which, by the way, there are more truths among
its errors than are found in the works of orthodox and recognized Orientalists)
-- the charge and comparison will dismay us very little. We bide our time. Even
the famous "Ezour-Veda" of the last century, considered by Voltaire
"the most precious gift from the East to the West," and by Max Muller
"about the silliest book that can be read," is not altogether without
facts and truths in it. The cases when the a priori negations of specialists
became justified by subsequent corroborations form but an insignificant
percentage of those that were fully vindicated by subsequent discoveries, and
confirmed to the great dismay of the learned objectors. "Ezour Veda,"
was a very small bone of contention compared with the triumph of Sir William
Jones, Anquetil de Perron, and others in the matter of Sanskrit and its
literature. Such facts are recorded by Professor Max Muller himself, who,
speaking of the discomfiture of Dugald Stewart and Co. in connection with this,
states that "if the facts about Sanskrit were true, Dugald Stewart was too
wise not to see that the conclusions drawn from them were inevitable. He
therefore denied the reality of such a language as Sanskrit altogether, and
wrote his famous essay to prove that Sanskrit had been put together after the
model of Greek and Latin, by those arch-forgers and liars, the Brahmans, and
that the whole of Sanskrit literature was an imposition" (Science of
Language, p. 168). The writer is quite willing and feels proud to keep company
with these Brahmans, and other historical "liars," in the opinion of
our modern Dugald Stewarts. She has lived too long, and her experience has been
too varied and personal, for her not to know at least something of human
nature. "When you doubt, abstain," says the wise Zoroaster,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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whose
prudent aphorism is found corroborated in every case by daily life and
experience. Yet, like St. John the Baptist, this sage of the past Ages is found
preaching in the desert, in company with a more modern philosopher, namely
Bacon, who offers the same priceless bit of practical Wisdom. "In
contemplation," he says (in any question of Knowledge, we add), "if a
man begin with certainties, he shall end in doubts; but if he will be content
to begin with doubts, he shall end in certainties."
With
this piece of advice from the father of English Philosophy to the
representatives of British scepticism we ought to close the debate, but our
theosophical readers are entitled to a final piece of Occult information.
Enough
was said to show that evolution in general, events, mankind, and everything
else in Nature proceed in cycles. We have spoken of seven Races, five of which
have nearly completed their earthly career, and have claimed that every
Root-Race, with its sub-races and innumerable family divisions and tribes, was
entirely distinct from its preceding and succeeding race. This will be objected
to, on the authority of uniform experience in the question of Anthropology, and
Ethnology. Man was -- save in colour and type, and perhaps a difference in
facial peculiarities and cranial capacity -- ever the same under every climate
and in every part of the world, say the Naturalists: ay, even in stature. This,
while maintaining that man descends from the same unknown ancestor as the ape,
a claim that is logically impossible without an infinite variation of stature
and form, from his first evolution into a biped. The very logical persons who
maintain both propositions are welcome to their paradoxical views. Once more we
address only those who, doubting the general derivation of myths from "the
contemplation of the visible workings of external nature" . . . . think
it, "less hard to believe that these wonderful stories of gods and
demi-gods, of giants and dwarfs, of dragons and monsters of all descriptions,
are transformations, than to believe them to be inventions." It is only
such "transformations" in physical nature, as much as in the memory
and conceptions of our present mankind, that the Secret Doctrine teaches. It
confronts the purely speculative hypotheses of modern Science, based upon the
experience and exact observations of barely a few centuries, with the unbroken
tradition and records of its Sanctuaries; and brushing away that tissue of
cobweb-like theories, spun in the darkness that covers a period of hardly a few
millenniums back, and which Europeans call their "History," the Old
Science says to us: Listen, now, to my version of the memoirs of Humanity.
The
human Races are born one from the other, grow, develop, become
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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old,
and die. Their sub-races and nations follow the same rule. If your all-denying
modern science and so-called philosophy do not contest that the human family is
composed of a variety of well-defined types and races, it is only because the
fact is undeniable, no one would say that there was no external difference
between an Englishman, an African negro, and a Japanese or Chinaman. On the
other hand it is formally denied by most naturalists that mixed human races,
i.e., the seeds for entirely new races, are any longer formed in our days. But
this last is maintained on good grounds by de Quatrefages and some others.
Nevertheless
our general proposition will not be accepted. It will be said that whatever
forms man has passed through in the long pre-historic Past there are no more
changes for him (save certain variations, as at present) in the future. Hence
that our Sixth and Seventh Root Races are fictions.
To
this it is again answered: How do you know? Your experience is limited to a few
thousand years, to less than a day in the whole age of Humanity and to the
present types of the actual continents and isles of our Fifth Race. How can you
tell what will or will not be? Meanwhile, such is the prophecy of the Secret
Books and their no uncertain statements.
Since
the beginning of the Atlantean Race many million years have passed, yet we find
the last of the Atlanteans, still mixed up with the Aryan element, 11,000 years
ago. This shows the enormous overlapping of one race over the race which
succeeds it, though in character and external type the elder loses its
characteristics, and assumes the new features of the younger race. This is
proved in all the formations of mixed human races. Now, Occult philosophy
teaches that even now, under our very eyes, the new Race and Races are
preparing to be formed, and that it is in America that the transformation will
take place, and has already silently commenced.
Pure
Anglo-Saxons hardly three hundred years ago, the Americans of the United States
have already become a nation apart, and, owing to a strong admixture of various
nationalities and inter-marriage, almost a race sui generis, not only mentally,
but also physically. "Every mixed race, when uniform and settled, has been
able to play the part of a primary race in fresh crossings," says de
Quatrefages. "Mankind, in its present state, has thus been formed, certainly,
for the greatest part, by the successive crossing of a number of races at
present undetermined" ("The Human Species," p. 274.)
Thus
the Americans have become in only three centuries a "primary race,"
pro tem., before becoming a race apart, and strongly separated from all other
now existing races. They are, in short, the germs of the Sixth sub-race, and in
some few hundred years more, will become
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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most
decidedly the pioneers of that race which must succeed to the present European
or fifth sub-race, in all its new characteristics. After this, in about 25,000
years, they will launch into preparations for the seventh sub-race; until, in
consequence of cataclysms -- the first series of those which must one day
destroy Europe, and still later the whole Aryan race (and thus affect both
Americas), as also most of the lands directly connected with the confines of
our continent and isles -- the Sixth Root-Race will have appeared on the stage
of our Round. When shall this be? Who knows save the great Masters of Wisdom,
perchance, and they are as silent upon the subject as the snow-capped peaks
that tower above them. All we know is, that it will silently come into existence;
so silently, indeed, that for long millenniums shall its pioneers -- the
peculiar children who will grow into peculiar men and women -- be regarded as
anomalous lusus naturae, abnormal oddities physically and mentally. Then, as
they increase, and their numbers become with every age greater, one day they
will awake to find themselves in a majority. It is the present men who will
then begin to be regarded as exceptional mongrels, until these die out in their
turn in civilised lands; surviving only in small groups on islands -- the
mountain peaks of to-day -- where they will vegetate, degenerate, and finally
die out, perhaps millions of years hence, as the Aztecs have, as the Nyam-Nyam
and the dwarfish Moola Koorumba of the Nilghiri Hills are dying. All these are
the remnants of once mighty races, the recollection of whose existence has
entirely died out of the remembrance of the modern generations, just as we
shall vanish from the memory of the Sixth Race Humanity. The Fifth will overlap
the Sixth Race for many hundreds of millenniums, changing with it slower than
its new successor, still changing in stature, general physique, and mentality,
just as the Fourth overlapped our Aryan race, and the Third had overlapped the
Atlanteans.
This
process of preparation for the Sixth great Race must last throughout the whole
sixth and seventh sub-races (vide supra, the diagram of the Genealogical Tree
of the Fifth Race). But the last remnants of the Fifth Continent will not
disappear until some time after the birth of the new Race; when another and new
dwelling, the sixth continent, will have appeared above the new waters on the
face of the globe, so as to receive the new stranger. To it also will emigrate
and settle all those who shall be fortunate enough to escape the general
disaster. When this shall be -- as just said -- it is not for the writer to
know. Only, as nature no more proceeds by sudden jumps and starts, than man
changes suddenly from a child into a mature man, the final cataclysm will be
preceded by many smaller submersions and destructions both by wave and volcanic
fires. The exultant pulse will beat
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 446 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
high
in the heart of the race now in the American zone, but there will be no more
Americans when the Sixth Race commences; no more, in fact, than Europeans; for
they will have now become a new race, and many new nations. Yet the Fifth will
not die, but survive for a while: overlapping the new Race for many hundred
thousands of years to come, it will become transformed with it -- slower than
its new successor -- still getting entirely altered in mentality, general
physique, and stature. Mankind will not grow again into giant bodies as in the
case of the Lemurians and the Atlanteans; because while the evolution of the
Fourth race led the latter down to the very bottom of materiality in its
physical development, the present Race is on its ascending arc; and the Sixth
will be rapidly growing out of its bonds of matter, and even of flesh.
Thus
it is the mankind of the New world -- one by far the senior of our Old one, a
fact men had also forgotten -- of Patala (the Antipodes, or the Nether World,
as America is called in India), whose mission and Karma it is, to sow the seeds
for a forthcoming, grander, and far more glorious Race than any of those we
know of at present. The Cycles of Matter will be succeeded by Cycles of
Spirituality and a fully developed mind. On the law of parallel history and
races, the majority of the future mankind will be composed of glorious Adepts.
Humanity is the child of cyclic Destiny, and not one of its Units can escape
its unconscious mission, or get rid of the burden of its co-operative work with
nature. Thus will mankind, race after race, perform its appointed
cycle-pilgrimage. Climates will, and have already begun, to change, each
tropical year after the other dropping one sub-race, but only to beget another
higher race on the ascending cycle; while a series of other less favoured
groups -- the failures of nature -- will, like some individual men, vanish from
the human family without even leaving a trace behind.
Such
is the course of Nature under the sway of KARMIC LAW: of the ever present and
the ever-becoming Nature. For, in the words of a Sage, known only to a few
Occultists:-- "THE PRESENT IS THE CHILD OF THE PAST; THE FUTURE, THE
BEGOTTEN OF THE PRESENT. AND YET, O PRESENT MOMENT! KNOWEST THOU NOT THAT THOU
HAST NO PARENT, NOR CANST THOU HAVE A CHILD; THAT THOU ART EVER BEGETTING BUT
THYSELF? BEFORE THOU HAST EVEN BEGUN TO SAY 'I AM THE PROGENY OF THE DEPARTED
MOMENT, THE CHILD OF THE PAST,' THOU HAST BECOME THAT PAST ITSELF. BEFORE THOU
UTTEREST THE LAST SYLLABLE, BEHOLD! THOU ART NO MORE THE PRESENT BUT VERILY
THAT FUTURE. THUS, ARE THE PAST, THE PRESENT, AND THE FUTURE, THE EVER-LIVING
TRINITY IN ONE -- THE MAHAMAYA OF THE ABSOLUTE IS."
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 447]]
BOOK
II., PART II.
THE
ARCHAIC
SYMBOLISM OF THE
WORLD-RELIGIONS.
---------
"The
narratives of the Doctrine are its cloak. The simple look only at the garment
-- that is, upon the narrative of the Doctrine; more they know not. The
instructed, however, see not merely the cloak, but what the cloak covers.
(The
ZOHAR, iii., 152; Franck, 119.)
"THE
MYSTERIES OF THE FAITH (are) NOT TO BE DIVULGED TO ALL. . . . . It is requisite
to hide in a mystery the wisdom spoken."
(Clem.
Alex., "Strom." 12.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 448]]
CONTENTS.
--------
PAGE.
§
ESOTERIC TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE ... 449
------
XVI.
ADAM-ADAMI ... 452
------
XVII.
THE "HOLY OF HOLIES" -- ITS DEGRADATION ... 459
------
XVIII.
ON THE MYTH OF THE "FALLEN ANGEL," IN ITS VARIOUS PHASES ... 475
The
Evil Spirit: Who and What? ... 475
The
Gods of Light proceed from the Gods of Darkness ... 483
The
Many Meanings of the "War in Heaven" ... 492
-------
XIX.
IS PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR? ... 506
-------
XX.
PROMETHEUS, THE TITAN ... 519
His
Origin in Ancient India ... 519
-------
XXI.
ENOICHION ... 529
------
XXII.
THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH, WITH THEIR RELATION TO THE
CROSS AND CIRCLE ... 536
Cross
and Circle ... 545
The
Fall of the Cross into Matter ... 553
------
XXIII.
THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE ... 563
------
XXIV.
THE CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECADE ... 573
-------
XXV.
THE MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD ... 590
Saptaparna
... 590
The
Tetraktis in relation to the Heptagon ... 598
The
Septenary Element in the Vedas. It corroborates the Occult Teaching concerning
the Seven Globes and the Seven Races ... 605
The
Septenary in the Exoteric Works ... 611
Seven
in Astronomy, Science and Magic ... 618
The
Seven Souls of the Egyptologists ... 630
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 449]]
BOOK
II. -- PART II.
--------
ESOTERIC
TENETS CORROBORATED IN EVERY SCRIPTURE.
IN
view of the strangeness of the teachings, and of many a doctrine which from the
modern scientific stand-point must seem absurd, some necessary and additional
explanations have to be made. The theories contained in the Second Part of the
Stanzas are even more difficult to assimilate than those which are embodied in
Vol. 1, on Cosmogony. Theology, therefore, has to be questioned here, as
Science will be in the Addenda (Part III.). Since our doctrines differ so
widely from the current ideas of both Materialism and Theology, the Occultists
must be ever prepared to repel the attacks of either or of both.
The
reader can never be too often reminded that, as the abundant quotations from
various old Scriptures prove, these teachings are as old as the world; and that
the present work is a simple attempt to render, in modern language and in a
phraseology with which the scientific and educated student is familiar, archaic
Genesis and History as taught in certain Asiatic centres of esoteric learning.
They must be accepted or rejected on their own merits, fully or partially; but
not before they have been carefully compared with the corresponding theological
dogmas and the modern scientific theories and speculations.
One
feels a serious doubt whether, with all its intellectual acuteness, our age is
destined to discover in each western nation even one solitary uninitiated
scholar or philosopher capable of fully comprehending the spirit of archaic
philosophy. Nor can one be expected to do so, before the real meaning of these terms,
the Alpha and the Omega of Eastern esotericism, the words Sat and Asat, -- so
freely used in the Rig-Veda, and elsewhere -- is thoroughly assimilated.
Without this key to the Aryan Wisdom, the Cosmogony of the Rishis and the
Arhats is in danger of remaining a dead letter to the average Orientalist. Asat
is not merely the negation of Sat, nor is it the "not yet existing";
for Sat is in itself neither the "existent," nor "being."
SAT is the immutable, the ever present, changeless and eternal root, from and
through which all proceeds. But it is far more than the potential force in the
seed, which propels onward the process of development, or what is now called
evolution. It is the ever becoming, though the never manifesting.* Sat
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Hegelian doctrine, which identifies Absolute Being or "Be-ness"
with "non-Being," and represents the Universe as an eternal becoming,
is identical with the Vedanta philosophy.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 450 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
is
born from Asat, and ASAT is begotten by Sat: the perpetual motion in a circle,
truly; yet a circle that can be squared only at the supreme Initiation, at the
threshold of Paranirvana.
Barth
started a reflection on the Rig-Veda which was meant for a stern criticism, an
unusual, therefore, as was thought, an original view of this archaic volume. It
so happened, however, that, while criticising, that scholar revealed a truth,
without being himself aware of its full importance. He premises by saying that
"neither in the language nor in the thought of the Rig-Veda" has he
"been able to discover that quality of primitive natural simplicity, which
so many are fain to see in it." Barth had Max Muller in his mind's eye
when writing this. For the famous Oxford professor has throughout characterised
the hymns of the Rig Veda, as the unsophisticated expression of the religious
feeling of a pastoral innocent people. "In the Vedic hymns the ideas and
myths appear in their simplest and freshest form;" -- the Sanskrit scholar
thinks. Barth is of a different opinion, however.
So
divided and personal are the opinions of Sanskritists as to the importance and
intrinsic value of the Rig Veda, that those opinions become entirely biassed
whichever way they incline. Thus Mr. Max Muller declares that: "Nowhere is
the wide distance which separates the ancient poems of India from the most
ancient literature of Greece more clearly felt, than when we compare the
growing myths of the Veda with the full grown and decayed myths on which the
poetry of Homer is founded. The Veda is the real Theogony of the Aryan races,
while that of Hesiod is a distorted caricature of the original image."
This is a sweeping assertion, and perhaps rather unjust in its general
application. But why not try to account for it? Orientalists cannot do so, for
they reject the chronology of the Secret Doctrine, and could hardly admit the
fact that between the Rig-Vedic hymns and Hesiod's Theogony tens of thousands
of years have elapsed. So they fail to see that the Greek myths are no longer
the primitive symbolical language of the Initiates, the disciples of the
gods-Hierophants, the divine ancient "sacrificers," and that
disfigured by the distance, and encumbered by the exuberant growth of human
profane fancy, they now stand like distorted images of stars in running waves.
But if Hesiod's Cosmogony and Theogony are to be viewed as caricatures of the
original images, how much more so the myths in the Hebrew Genesis in the sight
of those, for whom they are no more divine revelation or the word of God, than
Hesiod's Theogony is for Mr. Gladstone.
"The
poetry it (the Rig Veda) contains appears to me, on the contrary," says
Barth "to be of a singularly refined character and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 451 THE VEDAS WRITTEN BY INITIATES.
artificially
elaborated, full of allusions and reticences, of pretensions (?) to mysticism
and theosophic insight, and the manner of its expression is such as reminds one
more frequently of the phraseology in use among certain small groups of
initiated, than the poetic language of a large community." ("The
Religions of India," p. xiii.)
We
will not stop to enquire of the critic what he can know of the phraseology in
use among the "initiated," or whether he belongs himself to such a
group; for, in the latter case, he would hardly have used such language. But
the above shows the remarkable disagreement between scholars even with regard
to the external character of the Rig Veda. What, then, can any of the modern
Sanskritists know about its internal or esoteric meaning, beyond the correct
inference of Barth, that this Scripture has been compiled by INITIATES?
The
whole of the present work is an endeavour to prove this truth. The ancient
adepts have solved the great problems of science, however unwilling modern
materialism may be to admit the fact. The mysteries of Life and Death were
fathomed by the great master-minds of antiquity; and if they have preserved
them in secresy and silence, it is because these problems formed part of the
sacred mysteries; and, secondly, because they must have remained
incomprehensible to the vast majority of men then, as they do now. If such
teachings are still regarded as chimeras by our opponents in philosophy, it may
be a consolation to the Theosophists to learn, on good proofs, that the speculations
of modern psychologists -- whether serious Idealists, like Mr. Herbert Spencer,
or wool-gathering pseudo-Idealists -- are far more chimerical. Indeed, instead
of resting on the firm foundation of facts in Nature, they are the unhealthy
will-o'-the-wisps of materialistic imagination, of the brains that evolved them
-- and no more. While they deny, we affirm; and our affirmation is corroborated
by almost all the sages of antiquity. Believing in Occultism and a host of
invisible Potencies for good reasons, we say: Certus sum, scio quod credidi; to
which our critics reply: Credat Judaeus Apella. Neither is converted by the
other, nor does such result affect even our little planet. E pur se muove!
Nor
is there any need of proselytizing. As remarked by the wise Cicero, "Time
destroys the speculations of man, but it confirms the judgment of nature."
Let us bide our time. Meanwhile, it is not in the human constitution to witness
in silence the destruction of one's gods, whether they be true or false. And as
theology and materialism have combined together to destroy the old gods of
antiquity and seek to disfigure every old philosophical conception, it is but
just that the lovers of old wisdom should defend their position, by proving
that the whole arsenal of the two is, at best, formed of new weapons made out
of very old material.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 452 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
§
XVI.
ADAM-ADAMI.
NAMES
such as Adam-Adami, used by Mr. Chwolsohn in his "Nabathean
Agriculture"* and derided by M. Renan, may prove little to the profane. To
the Occultist, however, once that the term is found in a work of such immense
antiquity as the above cited, it proves a good deal: for instance that Adami
was a manifold symbol, originating with the Aryan people, as the root word
shows, and having been taken from them by the Semites and the Turanians -- as
many other things were.
"Adam-Adami"
is a generic compound name as old as languages are. The Secret Doctrine teaches
that Ad-i was the name given to the first speaking race of mankind -- in this
Round -- by the Aryans. Hence the Adonim and Adonai (the ancient plural form of
the word Adon), which the Jews applied to their Jehovah and angels, who were
simply the first spiritual and ethereal sons of the earth; and the god Adonis,
who in his many variations stood for the "First Lord." Adam is the
Sanskrit Ada-Nath, also meaning first Lord, as Ad-Iswara, or any Ad (the first)
followed by any adjective or substantive. The reason for this is that such
truths were a common inheritance. It was a revelation received by the first
mankind before that time which, in Biblical phraseology, is called "the
period of one lip and word," or speech; knowledge expanded by man's own intuition
later on, but still later hidden from profanation under an adequate symbology.
The author of the "Qabbalah, (according to), the philosophical writings of
Ibn Gebirol," shows the Israelite using "Adonai," (Lord) instead
of Eh'yeh (I am) and YHVH, and adds that, while Adonai is rendered
"Lord" in the Bible, "the lowest designation, or the Deity in
Nature, the more general term Elohim, is translated God." (p. 175.)
A
curious work was translated in 1860 or thereabout, by the Orientalist
Chwolsohn, and presented to ever-incredulous and flippant Europe under the
innocent title of Nabathean Agriculture. In the opinion of the translator that
archaic volume is "a complete initiation into the mysteries of the
pre-Adamite nations, on the authority of undeniably authentic documents."
It is "an invaluable compendium, the full epitome of the Doctrines held,
of the arts and sciences, not only of the Chaldeans, but also of the Assyrians
and Canaanites of the prehistoric ages." These
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide infra.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 453 "NABATHEAN AGRICULTURE."
"Nabatheans"
-- as some critics thought -- were simply the Sabeans, or Chaldean star-worshippers.
The work is a retranslation from the Arabic, into which language it was at
first translated from the Chaldean.
Masoudi,
the Arabic Historian, speaks of those Nabatheans, and explains their origin in
this wise: "After the Deluge (?) the nations established themselves in
various countries. Among these were the Nabatheans, who founded the city of
Babylon, and were those descendants of Ham who settled in the same province
under the leadership of Nimrod, the son of Cush, who was the son of Ham, and
great-grandson of Noah. . . . . This took place at the time when Nimrod
received the governorship of Babylonia as the delegate of Dzahhak named
Biurasp."
The
translator, Chwolsohn, finds that the assertions of this historian are in
perfect accord with those of Moses in Genesis; while more irreverent critics
might express the opinion that for this very reason their truth should be
suspected. It is useless to argue this point, which is of no value in the
present question. The weather-beaten, long-since-buried problem, and the
difficulty of accounting, on any logical ground, for the phenomenal derivation
of millions of people of various races, of many civilized nations and tribes,
from three couples (Noah's sons) in 346 years* after the Deluge, may be left to
the Karma of the author of Genesis, whether he is called Moses or Ezra. That
which is interesting in the work noticed is its, the doctrines enunciated in
it, which are again, if read esoterically, almost all of them identical with
the Secret Teachings.
Quatremere
suggested that this book might have been simply a copy made under
Nebuchadnezzar II., from some Hamitic treatise, "infinitely more
ancient," while the author maintains, on "internal and external
evidence," that its Chaldean original was written out from the oral
discourses and teachings of a wealthy Babylonian landowner, named Qu-tamy, who
had used for those lectures still more ancient materials. The first Arabic
translation is placed by Chwolsohn so far back as the XIII. cent. B.C. On the
first page of this "revelation," the author, or amanuensis, Qu-tamy,
declares that "the doctrines propounded therein, were originally told by
Saturn to the Moon, who communicated them to her idol, which idol revealed them
to her devotee, the writer -- the adept Scribe of that work -- Qu-tamy.
The
details given by the God for the benefit and instruction of mortals, show
periods of incalculable duration and a series of numberless kingdoms and
Dynasties that preceded the appearance on Earth of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Genesis and the authorised Chronology. In Chapt. ix. "Noah leaveth the
Ark" "B.C. 2348." Chapter x. "Nimrod the first
Monarch," stands over "B.C. 1998."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 454 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Adami
(the "red-earth"). These periods have aroused, as might have been
expected, the defenders of the chronology of the Biblical dead-letter meaning
almost to fury. De Rougemont was the first to make a levee-in-arms against the
translator. He reproaches him* with "sacrificing Moses to an anonymous
author." Berosus, he urges, "however great were his chronological
errors, was at least in perfect accord with the prophet with regard to the
first men, since he speaks of Alorus-Adam, of Xisuthrus-Noah, and of
Belus-Nimrod," etc. "Therefore," he adds, "the work must be
an APOCRYPHA to be ranged with its contemporaries -- the fourth book of Esdras,
that of Enoch, the Sibylline Oracles, and the Book of Hermes -- every one of
these dating no further back than two or three centuries B.C." Ewald came
down still harder on Chwolsohn, and finally M. Renan. In the "Revue
Germanique,"** the ex-pupil pulls down the authority of his master, by
asking him to show a reason why his Nabathean Agriculture should not be the
fraudulent work of some Jew of the third or fourth century of our era? It can
hardly be otherwise -- argues the romancer of the "Life of Jesus."
Since, in this in-folio on astrology and Sorcery we recognise in the personages
introduced by Qu-tamy, all the patriarchs of the Biblical legends, such as
Adam-Adami, Anouka-Noah, and his Ibrahim-Abraham etc., etc."
This
is no reason, since Adam and others are generic names. Meanwhile it is humbly
submitted that, all things considered, an apocrypha -- if even of the third
century A.D., instead of the thirteenth century B.C., as suggested by
Quatremere -- is old enough to appear genuine as a document, and so satisfy the
demands of the most exacting archaeologist and critic. For, even admitting, for
argument's sake, that this literary relic has been compiled by "some Jew
of the third century of our era" -- what of that? Leaving the credibility
of its doctrines for a moment aside, why should it be less entitled to a
hearing, or less instructive as reflecting older opinions, than any other
religious work, also a "compilation from old texts" or oral tradition
-- of the same or even a later age? In such case we should have to reject and
call "apocryphal" the Kuran -- two centuries older, though we know it
to have sprung, Minerva-like, direct from the brain of the Arabian prophet; and
we should have to pooh-pooh all the information we can get from the Talmud,
which, in its present form, was also compiled from older materials, and is not
earlier than the IX. century of our era.
The
curious "Bible" of the Chaldean adept, and the various criticisms
upon it (as in the Chwolsohn's translation), are noticed, because it has an
important bearing upon a great portion of the present work.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Annales de Philosophie, June 1860, p. 415.
**
April 30, 1860.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 455 MANY VIEWS OF MANY MINDS.
With
the exception of M. Renan, an iconoclast by principle -- so pointedly called by
Jules Lemaitre "le Paganini du Neant" -- the worst fault found with
the work is, it would seem, that the "apocrypha" pretends to have
been communicated as a revelation to an adept by, and from, the "idol of
the moon," who received it from "Saturn." Hence, very naturally,
it is "a fairy tale all round." To this there is but one answer: it
is no more a fairy tale than the Bible, and if one falls, the other must follow
it. Even the mode of divination through "the idol of the moon" is the
same as practised by David, Saul, and the High Priests of the Jewish Tabernacle
by means of the Teraphim. In Volume III., Part II. of this present work, the
practical methods of such ancient divination will be found.
The
"Nabathean Agriculture" is a compilation indeed; it is no apocrypha,
but the repetition of the tenets of the Secret Doctrine under the exoteric
Chaldean form of national symbols, for the purpose of "cloaking" the
tenets, just as the Books of Hermes and the Puranas are Egyptian and Hindu
attempts at the same. The work was as well known in antiquity as it was during
the Middle Ages. Maimonides speaks of it, and refers more than once to this
Chaldeo-Arabic MS., calling the Nabatheans by their co-religionary name, i.e.,
"star-worshippers," or Sabeans, but yet failing to see in this
disfigured word "Nabatheans" the mystic name of the caste devoted to
Nebo (god of secret wisdom), which shows on its face that the Nabatheans were
an occult Brotherhood.* The Nabatheans who, according to the Persian Yezidi,
originally came to Syria from Busrah, were the degenerate members of that
fraternity; still their religion, even at that late day, was purely Kabalistic.**
Nebo is the deity of the planet Mercury, and Mercury is the god of Wisdom or
Hermes, and Budha, which the Jews called [[hebrew]] "the Lord on high, the
aspiring," . . . and the Greeks Nabo, [[Nabo]], hence Nabatheans.
Notwithstanding that Maimonides calls their doctrines "heathenish
foolishness" and their archaic literature "Sabaeorum foetum," he
places their "agriculture," the Bible of Qu-tamy, in the first rank
of Archaic literature; and Abarbinel
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"I will mention to thee the writings . . . respecting the belief of the
Sabeans," he says. "The most famous is the Book 'The Agriculture of
the Nabatheans,' which has been translated by Ibn Wahohijah. This book is full
of heathenish foolishness. . . . It speaks of preparations of TALISMANS, the
drawing down of the powers of the SPIRITS, MAGIC, DEMONS, and ghouls, which
make their abode in the desert." (Maimonides, quoted by Dr. D. Chwolsohn,
"Die Ssabier und der Ssabismus," II., p. 458.) The Nabatheans of
Mount Lebanon believed in the Seven Archangels, as their forefathers had
believed in the Seven Great Stars, the abodes and bodies of these Archangels,
believed in to this day by the Roman Catholics, as is shown elsewhere.
**
See "Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 197.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 456 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
praises
it in unmeasured terms. Spencer, quoting the latter, speaks of it as that
"most excellent Oriental work," adding (vol. 1., p. 354) that by
Nabatheans, the Sabeans, the Chaldeans, and the Egyptians, in short all those
nations against whom the laws of Moses were most severely enacted, have to be
understood.
Nebo,
the oldest God of Wisdom of Babylonia and Mesopotamia, was identical with the
Hindu Budha and Hermes-Mercury of the Greeks. A slight change in the sexes of
the parents is the only alteration. As Budha was the Son of Soma (the Moon) in
India, and of the wife of Brihaspati (Jupiter), so Nebo was the son of
Zarpa-nitu (the Moon deity) and of Merodach, who had become Jupiter, after
having been a Sun God. As Mercury the planet, Nebo was the "overseer"
among the seven gods of the planets; and as the personification of the Secret
Wisdom he was Nabin, a seer and a prophet. The fact that Moses is made to die
and disappear on the mount sacred to Nebo, shows him an initiate and a priest
of that god under another name; for this God of Wisdom was the great creative
deity, and was worshipped as such, not alone at Borsippa in his gorgeous
Temple, or planet-tower. He was likewise adored by the Moabites, the
Canaanites, the Assyrians, and throughout the whole of Palestine: then why not
by the Israelites? "The planetary temple of Babylon" had "its holy
of holies" within the shrine of Nebo, the prophet god of Wisdom. We are
told in the Hibbert Lectures, "The ancient Babylonians had an intercessor
between men and the gods . . . and Nebo, was the 'proclaimer' or 'prophet,' as
he made known the desire of his father Merodach."
Nebo
is a creator, like Budha, of the Fourth and also of the Fifth Race. For the
former starts a new race of Adepts, and the latter, the Solar-Lunar Dynasty, or
the men of these Races and Round. Both are the Adams of their respective
creatures. Adam-Adami is a personation of the dual Adam: of the paradigmic
Adam-Kadmon, the creator, and of the lower Adam, the terrestrial, who, as the
Syrian Kabalists have it, had only nephesh, "the breath of life," but
no living soul, until after his Fall.
If,
therefore, Renan persists in regarding the Chaldean Scriptures -- or what
remains of them -- as apocryphal, it is quite immaterial to truth and fact.
There are other Orientalists who may be of a different opinion; and even were
they not, it would still really matter very little. These doctrines contain the
teachings of Esoteric philosophy, and this must suffice. To those who
understand nothing of symbology it may appear astrolatry, pure and simple, or
to him who would conceal the esoteric truth, even "heathenish foolishness."
Maimonides, however, while expressing scorn for the esotericism in the religion
of other nations, confessed esotericism and symbology in his own, preached
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 457 THE KABALISTIC FOUR ADAMS.
silence
and secresy upon the true meaning of Mosaic sayings, and thus came to grief.
The Doctrines of Qu-tamy, the Chaldean, are, in short, the allegorical
rendering of the religion of the earliest nations of the Fifth Race.
Why
then should M. Renan treat the name "Adam-Adami" with such academical
contempt? The author of the "Origins of Christianity" evidently knows
nothing of the "origins of pagan symbolism" or of Esotericism either,
otherwise he would have known that the name was a form of universal symbol,
referring, even with the Jews, not to one man, but to four distinct humanities
or mankinds. This is very easily proven.
The
Kabalists teach the existence of four distinct Adams, or the transformation of four
consecutive Adams, the emanations from the Dyooknah (divine phantom) of the
Heavenly Man, an ethereal combination of Neschamah, the highest Soul or Spirit:
this Adam having, of course, neither a gross human body, nor a body of desire.
This "Adam" is the prototype (tzure) of the second Adam. That they
represent our Five Races is certain, as everyone can see by their description
in the Kabala: the first being the "perfect, Holy Adam"; . . .
"a shadow that disappeared" (the Kings of Edom) produced from the
divine Tzelem (Image); the second is called the protoplastic androgyne Adam of
the future terrestrial and separated Adam; the third Adam is the man made of
"dust" (the first, innocent Adam); and the fourth, is the supposed
forefather of our own race -- the Fallen Adam. See, however, the admirably
clear description of these in Mr. Isaac Myer's "Qabbalah," p. 418, et
seq. He gives only four Adams, because of the Kings of Edom, no doubt.
"The fourth Adam," he writes, " . . . . was clothed with skin,
flesh, nerves, etc. This answers to the Lower Nephesch and Guff, i.e., body,
united. He has the animal power of reproduction and continuance of
species," and this is the human Root-Race.
It
is just at this point that the modern Kabalists -- led into error by the long
generations of Christian mystics who have tampered with the Kabalistic records
wherever they could -- diverge from the Occultists in their interpretations,
and take the later thought for the earlier idea. The original Kabala was
entirely metaphysical, and had no concern with animal, or terrestrial sexes;
the later Kabala has suffocated the divine ideal under the heavy phallic
element. The Kabalists say:-- "God made man male and female."
"Among the Qabbalists, the necessity to continued creation and existence
is called the Balance," says the author of Qabbalah; and being without
this "Balance," connected with Ma-qom (mysterious place),* even the
First Race is not,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Simply, the womb, the "Holy of Holies" with the Semites.
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[[Vol.
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as
we have seen, recognized by the Sons of the Fifth Adam. From the highest
Heavenly Man, the upper Adam who is "male female" or Androgyne, down
to the Adam of dust, these personified symbols are all connected with sex and
procreation. With the Eastern Occultists it is entirely the reverse. The sexual
relation they consider as a "Karma" pertaining only to the mundane
relation of man, who is dominated by Illusion, a thing to be put aside, the
moment that the person becomes "wise." They considered it a most
fortunate circumstance if the Guru (teacher) found in his pupil an aptitude for
the pure life of Brahmacharya. Their dual symbols were to them but the poetical
imagery of the sublime correlation of creative Cosmic forces. And this ideal
conception is found beaming like a golden ray upon each idol, however coarse
and grotesque, in the crowded galleries of the sombre fanes of India and other
Mother lands of cults.
This
will be demonstrated in the following Section.
Meanwhile,
it may be added that, with the Gnostics, the second Adam also emanates from the
Primeval Man, the Ophite Adamas, in "whose image he is made"; the
third, from this second -- an Androgyne. The latter is symbolized in the 6th
and 7th pairs of the male-female AEons, --Amphian-Essumene, and Vannanin-Lamer
(Father and Mother; vide Valentinian Table, in Epiphanius) -- while the fourth
Adam, or Race, is represented by a Priapean monster. The latter -- a
post-Christian fancy -- is the degraded copy of the ante-Christian Gnostic
symbol of the "Good One," or "He, who created before anything
existed," the Celestial Priapus -- truly born from Venus and Bacchus when
that God returned from his expedition into India, for Venus and Bacchus are the
post-types of Aditi and the Spirit. The later Priapus, one, however, with
Agathodaemon, the Gnostic Saviour, and even with Abraxas, is no longer the
glyph for abstract creative Power, but symbolizes the four Adams, or Races, the
fifth being represented by the five branches cut off from the Tree of Life on
which the old man stands in the Gnostic gems. The number of the Root-Races was
recorded in the ancient Greek temples by the seven vowels, of which five were
framed in a panel in the Initiation halls of the Adyta. The Egyptian glyph for
it was a hand with five fingers spread, the fifth or little finger being only
half-grown, and also five "N's" -- hieroglyphs standing for that
letter. The Romans used the five vowels A E I O V in their fanes; and this
archaic symbol was adopted during the middle ages as a motto by the House of
the Hapsburgs. Sic transit gloria!
---------
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[[Vol.
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§
XVII.
THE
"HOLY OF HOLIES."
ITS
DEGRADATION.
THE
Sanctum Sanctorum of the Ancients, i.e., that recess on the Western side of the
Temple which was enclosed on three sides by blank walls and had its only
aperture or door hung over with a curtain -- also called the Adytum -- was
common to all ancient nations.
Nevertheless,
a great difference is found between the secret meanings of this symbolical
place, in the esotericism of the Pagans and that of later Jews; though the
symbology of it was originally identical throughout the ancient Races and
Nations. The Gentiles, by placing in the Adytum a sarcophagus, or a tomb
(taphos), and the solar-god to whom the temple was consecrated, held it, as
Pantheists, in the greatest veneration. They regarded it -- in its esoteric
meaning -- as the symbol of resurrection, cosmic, solar (or diurnal), and
human. It embraced the wide range of periodical and (in time) punctual,
Manvantaras, or the re-awakenings of Kosmos, Earth, and Man to new existences;
the sun being the most poetical and also the most grandiose symbol of the same
in heaven, and man -- in his re-incarnations -- on Earth. The Jews -- whose realism,
if judged by the dead letter, was as practical and gross in the days of Moses
as it is now* -- in the course of their estrangement from the gods of their
pagan neighbours, consummated a national and levitical polity, by the device of
setting forth their Holy of Holies as the most solemn sign of their Monotheism
-- exoterically; while seeing in it but a universal phallic symbol --
esoterically. While the Kabalists knew but Ain-Soph and the "gods" of
the Mysteries, the Levites had no tomb, no god in their adytum but the
"Sacred" Ark of the Covenant -- their "Holy of Holies."
When
the esoteric meaning of this recess is made clear, however, the profane will be
better able to understand why David danced "uncovered" before the ark
of the Covenant, and was so anxious to appear vile for the sake of his
"Lord," and base in his own sight. (See 2 Samuel vi. 16-22.)
The
ark is the navi-form Argha of the Mysteries. Parkhurst, who has
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
But it was not so, in reality, witness their prophets. It is the later Rabbis
and the Talmudic scheme that killed out all spirituality from the body of their
symbols; leaving only their Scriptures -- a dead shell, from which the Soul has
departed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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a
long dissertation upon it in his Greek dictionary, and who never breathes a
word about it in the Hebrew lexicon, explains it thus:-- "[[Arche]] in
this application answers to the Hebrew rasit or wisdom . . . . a word which had
the meaning of the emblem of the female generative power, the Arg or Arca, in
which the germ of all nature was supposed to float or brood on the great abyss
during the interval which took place after every mundane cycle." Quite so;
and the Jewish ark of the Covenant had precisely the same significance; with
the supplementary addition that, instead of a beautiful and chaste sarcophagus
(the symbol of the matrix of Nature and resurrection) as in the Sanctum
sanctorum of the pagans, they had the ark made still more realistic in its
construction by the two cherubs set up on the coffer or ark of the covenant,
facing each other, with their wings spread in such a manner as to form a
perfect yoni (as now seen in India). Besides which, this generative symbol had
its significance enforced by the four mystic letters of Jehovah's name, namely,
[[hebrew]]; or [[hebrew]] meaning Jod (membrum Virile, see Kabala); [[hebrew]]
(the womb); [[hebrew]] (Vau, a crook or a hook, a nail), and [[hebrew]] again,
meaning also "an opening"; the whole forming the perfect bisexual
emblem or symbol or Y (e) H (o) V (a) H, the male and female symbol.
Perhaps
also, when people realise the true meaning of the office and title of the
Kadesh Kadeshim, "the holy ones," or "the consecrated to the
temple of the Lord," -- the "Holy of Holies" of the latter may
assume an aspect far from edifying.
Iacchus
again is Iao or Jehovah; and Baal or Adon, like Bacchus, was a phallic god.
"Who shall ascend into the hill (the high place) of the Lord?" asks
the holy king David, "who shall stand in the place of his Kadushu
[[hebrew]]?" (Psalms xxiv. 3). Kadesh may mean in one sense to devote,
hallow, sanctify, and even to initiate or to set apart; but it also means the
ministry of lascivious rites (the Venus-worship) and the true interpretation of
the word Kadesh is bluntly rendered in Deuteronomy xxiii. 17; Hosea iv. 14; and
Genesis xxxvii. from verses 15 to 22. The "holy" Kadeshuth of the Bible
were identical, as to the duties of their office, with the Nautch-girls of the
later Hindu pagodas. The Hebrew Kadeshim, or galli, lived "by the house of
the Lord, where the women wove hangings for the grove," or the bust of
Venus-Astarte, says verse the seventh in the twenty-third chapter of 2 Kings.
The
dance performed by David round the ark was the "circle-dance." said
to have been prescribed by the Amazons for the Mysteries. Such was the dance of
the daughters of Shiloh (Judges xxi. 21, 23 et passim), and the leaping of the
prophets of Baal (I Kings xviii. 26). It was simply a characteristic of the
Sabean worship, for it denoted the motion of the planets round the sun. That
the dance was a Bacchic frenzy is
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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apparent.
Sistra were used on the occasion, and the taunt of Michal and the King's reply
are very expressive. Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 49.
"The
Ark, in which are preserved the germs of all living things necessary to
repeople the earth, represents the survival of life, and the supremacy of
spirit over matter, through the conflict of the opposing powers of nature. In
the Astro-Theosophic chart of the Western Rite, the Ark corresponds with the
navel, and is placed at the sinister side, the side of the woman (the moon),
one of whose symbols is the left pillar of Solomon's temple -- BOAZ. The
umbilicus is connected through the placenta with the receptacle in which are
fructified the embryos of the race. . . The Ark is the sacred Argha of the
Hindus, and thus the relation in which it stands to Noah's ark may be easily
inferred when we learn that the Argha was an oblong vessel, used by the high
priests as a sacrificial chalice in the worship of Isis, Astarte, and
Venus-Aphrodite, all of whom were goddesses of the generative powers of nature,
or of matter -- hence representing symbolically the Ark containing the germs of
all living things." ("Isis Unveiled," Vol. II., p. 444.) Mistaken
is he who accepts the Kabalistic works of to-day, and the interpretations of
the Zohar by the Rabbis, for the genuine Kabalistic lore of old!* For no more
to-day than in the day of Frederick von Schelling does the Kabala accessible to
Europe and America, contain much more than "ruins and fragments, much
distorted remnants still of that primitive system which is the key to all
religious systems" (See Kabbala, by Prof. Franck, Preface). The oldest
system and the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The author of the "Qabbalah" makes several attempts to prove
conclusively the antiquity of the Zohar. Thus he shows that Moses de Leon could
not be the author or the forger of the Zoharic works in the XIIIth century, as
he is accused of being, since Ibn Gebirol gave out the same philosophical
teaching 225 years before the day of Moses de Leon. No true Kabalist or scholar
will ever deny the fact. It is certain that Ibn Gebirol based his doctrines
upon the oldest Kabalistic sources, namely, the "Chaldean Book of
Numbers," as well as some no longer extant Midrashim, the same, no doubt,
as those used by Moses de Leon. But it is just the difference between the two
ways of treating the same esoteric subjects, which, while proving the enormous
antiquity of the esoteric system, points to a decided ring of Talmudistic and
even Christian sectarianism in the compilation and glossaries of the Zoharic
system by Rabbi Moses. Ibn Gebirol never quoted from the Scriptures to enforce
the teachings (vide I. Myer's Qabbalah, p. 7). Moses de Leon has made of the
Zohar that which it has remained to this day, "a running commentary on the
. . . Books of the Pentateuch" (ibid.), with a few later additions made by
Christian hands. One follows the archaic esoteric philosophy; the other, only
that portion which was adapted to the lost Books of Moses restored by Ezra.
Thus, while the system, or the trunk on which the primitive original Zohar was
engrafted, is of an immense antiquity many of the (later) Zoharic offshoots are
strongly coloured by the peculiar views held by Christian Gnostics (Syrian and
Chaldean), the friends and co-workers of Moses de Leon who, as shown by Munk,
accepted their interpretations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Chaldean
Kabala were identical. The latest renderings of the Zohar are those of the
Synagogue in the early centuries -- i.e., the Thorah, dogmatic and
uncompromising.
The
"King's Chamber" in Cheops' Pyramid is thus an Egyptian "Holy of
Holies." On the days of the Mysteries of Initiation, the candidate,
representing the solar god, had to descend into the Sarcophagus, and represent
the energizing ray, entering into the fecund womb of Nature. Emerging from it
on the following morning, he typified the resurrection of life after the change
called Death. In the great MYSTERIES his figurative death lasted two days, when
with the Sun he arose on third morning, after a last night of the most cruel
trials. While the postulant represented the Sun -- the all-vivifying Orb that
"resurrects" every morning but to impart life to all -- the
Sarcophagus was symbolic of the female principle. This, in Egypt; its form and
shape changed with every country, provided it remained a vessel, a symbolic
navis or boat-shaped vehicle, and a container, symbolically, of germs or the
germ of life. In India, it is the "golden" Cow through which the
candidate for Brahminism has to pass if he desires to be a Brahmin, and to
become DWIJA ("reborn a second time"). The crescent-form Argha of the
Greeks was the type of the Queen of Heaven -- Diana, or the Moon. She was the
great Mother of all Existences, as the Sun was the Father. The Jews, previous to,
as well as after their metamorphosis of Jehovah into a male god, worshipped
Astoreth, which made Isaiah declare: "Your new moons and feasts my soul
hateth," (i. 14); saying which, he was evidently unjust. Astoreth and the
New-moon (the crescent argha) festivals, had no worse significance as a form of
public worship than had the hidden meaning of the moon in general, which was
Kabalistically connected directly with, and sacred to, Jehovah, as is well
known; with the sole difference that one was the female and the other the male
aspect of the moon, and of the star Venus.
The
Sun (the Father), the Moon (the Mother), and Mercury-Thoth (the Son), were the
earliest Trinity of the Egyptians, who personified them in Osiris, Isis, and
Thoth (Hermes). In [[PISTIS SOPHIA]], the seven great gods, divided into two
triads and the highest God (the Sun) are: the lower [[Tridunameis]], whose
powers reside respectively in Mars, Mercury and Venus; and the higher Triad
("the three unseen gods") who dwell in the Moon, Jupiter and Saturn;
(vide §§ 359 and 361 et seq).
This
requires no proof. Astoreth was in one sense an impersonal symbol of nature,
the ship of Life carrying throughout the boundless Sidereal Ocean the germs of
all being. And when she was not identified with Venus, like every other
"Queen of Heaven" to whom cakes and buns were offered in sacrifice,
Astoreth became the reflection of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Chaldean
"Nuah, the Universal Mother" (female Noah, considered as one with the
ark), and of the female triad, Ana, Belita and Davikina; called, when blended
into one, "Sovereign goddess, lady of the Nether Abyss, Mother of gods,
Queen of the Earth, and Queen of fecundity." Later, Belita or Damti (the
sea), the Mother of the City of Erech (the great Chaldean Necropolis) became
Eve; and now she is Mary the Virgin, in the Latin Church, represented as
standing on the crescent-moon, and, at times on the Globe, to vary the
programme. The navi, or ship-like form of the crescent, which blends in itself
all those common symbols of the ship of life, such as Noah's ark, the Yoni of
the Hindus, and the ark of the Covenant, is the female symbol of the Universal
"Mothers of the gods," and is now found under its Christian symbol in
every Church, as the nave (from navis, the ship).* The navis -- the Sidereal
vessel -- is fructified by the Spirit of Life -- the male God; or, as the
learned Kenealy (in his Apocalypsis) calls it very appropriately -- the Holy
Spirit. In Western religious symbology the Crescent was the male, the full
moon, the female aspect of that universal Spirit. "The mystic word Alm,
which the prophet Mahomet prefixed to many chapters of the Koran, alludes to
her as the Alm, the immaculate Virgin of the heavens. And -- the sublime ever
falling into the ridiculous -- it is from this root Alm that we have to derive
the word Almeh -- the Egyptian dancing-girls. The latter are
"Virgins" of the same type as the Nautchnis in India, and the (female)
Kadeshim, the Holy Ones of the Jewish temples (those consecrated to Jehovah,
who represented both sexes), whose holy functions in the Israelite fanes were
identical with those of the Nautchnis.
Now
Eustathius declares that ([IO]) IO means the moon, in the dialect of the
Argians; and it was one of the names of the same in Egypt. Says Jablonski,
"[[IO]], Ioh, AEgyptiis LUNAM significat neque habent illi in communi
sermonis usu, aliud nomen quo Lunam, designent praeter IO." The pillar and
Circle (IO), now constituting the first decimal number, and which with
Pythagoras was the perfect number contained in the Tetractis,** became later a
pre-eminently phallic Number -- amongst the Jews, foremost of all, with whom it
is the male and female Jehovah.
This
is how a scholar explains it:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Timaeus, the Locrian, speaking of Arka, calls her "the Principle of best
things." The word arcane, "hidden," or secret, is derived from
Arka. "To no one is the Arcane shown except to the most High" (Codex
Nazareus), alluding to nature the female, and Spirit, the male Power. All the
Sun-Gods were called Archagetos "born from the Arka," the divine
Virgin-Mother of the Heavens.
**
Because composed of ten dots arranged triangularly in four rows. It is the
Tetragrammaton of the Western Kabalists.
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[[Vol.
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"I
find, on the Rosetta stone of Uhlemann, the word mouth, also in Seiffarth,
viz., the name of the Moon used as a cycle of Time, hence the lunar month from
the hieroglyph [[diagram]] with [[diagram]] and [[diagram]] as determinatives
given, as the Coptic I O H, or I O H. The Hebrew [[hebrew]] may also be used as
I O H, for the letter yau, or [[hebrew]], was used for o and for u, and for v
or w. This, before the Massora, of which the . was used as [[hebrew]] = o,
[[hebrew]] = u, and [[hebrew]] = v or w. Now I had worked it out by original
search that the great distinctive function of the god-name Jehovah was
designative of the influence of the moon as the causative of generation, and as
of its exact value as a lunar year in the natural measure of days, as you will
fully see, . . . . And here comes this linguistic same word from a source far
more ancient; viz., the Coptic, or rather from the old Egyptian in time of the
Coptic.". . . . (From a MS.)
This
is the more remarkable when Egyptology compares this with the little which it
knows about the Theban triad -- composed of Ammon, Mouth, (or Mout) and their
son Khonsoo. This triad was, when united, contained in the moon as their common
symbol; and when separated, it was Khonsoo who was the god, LUNUS, being thus
confounded with Thot and Phtah. His mother Mout(h) -- the name signifying
Mother, by the bye, not the moon, which was only her Symbol -- is called the
"Queen of Heaven"; the "Virgin," etc., etc., as she is an
aspect of Isis, Hathor, and other mother goddesses. She was less the wife than
the mother of Ammon, whose distinct title is "the husband of his
Mother." In a statuette at Boulaq, Cairo, this triad is represented
(Number 1981 Serapeum, Greek Period) as a mummy-god holding in his hand three
different sceptres, and bearing the lunar disc on his head, the characteristic
tress of hair showing the design of representing it as that of an infant god,
or "the Sun," in the triad. He was the god of Destinies in Thebes,
and appears under two aspects (1) as "Khonsoo, the Lunar god, and Lord of
Thebes, Nofir-hotpoo -- 'he who is in absolute repose'; and (2) as Khonsoo
Iri-sokhroo, or 'Khonsoo, who executes Destiny': the former preparing the
events and conceiving them for those born under his generative influence; the
latter putting them into action." (See Maspero's Definitions). Under
theogonic permutations Ammon becomes Horus, HOR-AMMON, and Mout(h)-Isis is seen
suckling him in a statuette of the Saitic period. (Abydos.) In his turn, in
this transformed triad, Khonsoo becomes Thot-Lunus, "he who operates
salvation." His brow is crowned with the head of an ibis decorated with
the lunar disc and the diadem called IO-tef.
Now
all these symbols are certainly found reflected in (some believe them identical
with) the Yave, or Jehovah of the Bible. This will be
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[[Vol.
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made
plain to any one who reads "The Source of Measures," or "Hebrew
Egyptian Mystery," and understands the undeniable, clear, and mathematical
proofs that the esoteric foundations, or the system used in the building of the
Great Pyramid, and the architectural measurements in the Temple of Solomon
(whether the latter be mythical or real), Noah's ark, and the ark of the Covenant,
are the same. If anything in the world can settle the dispute that the old, as
much as the later, Jews (post-Babylonian), and especially the former, built
their theogony and religion on the very same foundation as all Pagans did, it
is the work in question.
And
now it may be as well to remind the reader of that which was said of I A O, in
our work, "Isis Unveiled."
"No
other deity affords such a variety of etymologies as Jaho, nor is there any
name which can be so variously pronounced. It is only by associating it with
the Masoretic points that the later Rabbins succeeded in making Jehovah read
'Adonai' -- or Lord, as Philo Byblius spells it in Greek letters [[IEUO]] --
IEVO. Theodoret says that the Samaritans pronounced it Jahe (yahra), and the Jews
Yaho; which would make it as we have shown, I -- Ah -- O. Diodorus states that
'among the Jews they relate that Moses called the god Iao.' It is on the
authority of the Bible itself, therefore, that we maintain that before his
initiation by Jethro, his father-in-law, Moses had never known the word
Jaho."*
The
above receives corroboration in a private letter from a very learned Kabalist.
In STANZA IV. and elsewhere it is stated that exoterically Brahma (neuter), so
flippantly and so often confused by the Orientalists with Brahma -- the male,
is sometimes called Kala-hansa (Swan in the eternity), and the esoteric meaning
of A-ham-sa, is given. (I -- am -- he, so ham being equal to sah
"he," and aham "I" -- a mystic anagram and permutation). It
is also the "four-faced" Brahma, the Chatur mukha (the perfect cube)
forming itself within, and from the infinite circle; and again the use of the
1, 3, 5, and [[diagram]] = 14, as the esoteric hierarchy of the Dhyan Chohans
is explained. On this, the said correspondent comments in this way:--
"Of
the 1, 3, 5, and twice 7, intending and very especially 13,514, which on a
circle may be read as 31415 (or [[pi]] value), I think there cannot be a
possibility of doubting; and especially when considered with symbol marks on sacr,**
'Chakra,' or Circle of Vishnu.
"But
let me carry your description a step further:-- You say 'The One from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The student must be aware that Jethro is called the "father-in-law"
of Moses; not because Moses was really married to one of his seven daughters.
Moses was an Initiate, if he ever existed, and as such an ascetic, a nazar, and
could never be married. It is an allegory like everything else. Zipporah (the
shining) is one of the personified Occult Sciences given by Revel-Jethro, the
Midian priest Initiator, to Moses, his Egyptian pupil. The "well" by
which Moses sat down in his flight from the Pharaoh symbolizes the "well
of Knowledge."
**
In Hebrew the phallic symbol lingham and Yoni.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Egg, the six, and the five (See Stanza IV., Book I.) give the numbers 1065, the
value of the first born'. . . . . . If it be so, then in 1065 we have the
famous Jehovah's name, the Jve or Jave, or Jupiter, and by change of [[hebrew]]
to [[hebrew]] or h to n, then [[hebrew]] or the Latin Jun or Juno, the base of
the Chinese riddle, the key measuring numbers of Sni (Sinai) and Jehovah coming
down on that mount, which numbers (1,065) are but the use of our ratio of 113
to 355 because 1,065 = 355 x 3 which is circumference to a diameter of 113 x 3
= 339. Thus the first born of Brahma Prajapati (or any Demiurgos) indicates a
measuring use of a circular relation taken from the Chakra (or Vishnu) and, as
stated above, the Divine manifestation takes the form of life and the first
born."
"It
is a most singular thing: At the entrance passage to the King's chamber the
measurement from the surface of the Great Step* and the Grand Gallery to the
top of the said gallery, is by the very careful measures of Piazzi Smyth 339
inches.
[[diagram]]
Take
A as a centre and with this radius describe a circle; the diameter of that
circle will be 339 x 2 = 678, and these numbers are those of the expression and
the raven, in the 'Dove and raven' scenes or pictures of the Flood of Noah;
(the radius is taken to show division into two parts, which are 1,065 each) for
113 (man) x 6 = 678; and the diameter to a circumference of 1,065 x 2 -- so we
have here an indication of cosmic man on this high grade or step, at the
entrance of the King's Chamber (the Holy of Holies) -- which is the womb. Now
this passage is of such a height that a man to enter it must stoop. But a man
upright is 113, and broken, or stooping, he becomes 133 / 2 = 5.65 x 10,
[[over]] [[hebrew]] or Jehovah. That is, he personifies** him as entering the
Holy of Holies. But by Hebrew Esotericism the chief function of Jehovah was
child giving, etc., and that because, by the numbers of his name, he was the
measure of the lunar year, which cycle of time, because by its factor of 7
(seven) it ran so co-ordinately with the periods of the quickening, viability,
and gestation, was taken as the causative of the generative action and
therefore was worshipped and besought."
This
discovery connects Jehovah still more with all the other creative and
generative gods, solar and lunar, and especially with "King" Soma,
the Hindu Deus Lunus, the moon, because of the esoteric influence attributed to
this planet in Occultism. There are other corroborations of it, however, in
Hebrew tradition itself. Adam is spoken of in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is on that step that one arrives on the plane of the level or floor and open
entrance to the King's chamber, the Egyptian "Holy of Holies."
**
The candidate for initiation always personified the god of the temple he
belonged to, as the High Priest personified the god at all times; just as the
Pope now personates Peter and even Jesus Christ upon entering the inner altar
-- the Christian "Holy of Holies."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 467 THE ETYMOLOGY OF "SACRAMENT."
Maimonides
(More Nevochim, "The Guide of the Perplexed" -- truly!) in two
aspects; as a man, like all others born of a man and a woman, and -- as the
prophet of the Moon; the reason of which is now made apparent, and has to be
explained.
Adam,
as the supposed great "Progenitor of the human race," is, as Adam
Kadmon, made in the image of God -- a priapic image, therefore. The Hebrew
words sacr and n'cabvah are, literally translated, lingham (phallus) and yoni,
notwithstanding their translation in the Bible (Genesis i. v. 27.) "male
and female." As said there "God creates 'Man in his own image'. . . .
. in the image of God created he him, male and female created he them,"
the androgyne Adam-Kadmon. Now this Kabalistic name is not that of a living
man, nor even of a human or divine Being, but of the two sexes or organs of
procreation, called in Hebrew with that usual sincerity of language
pre-eminently Biblical, sacr and n'cabvah*; these two being, therefore, the
image under which the "Lord God" appeared usually to his chosen
people. That this is so, is now undeniably proven by almost all the
symbologists and Hebrew scholars as well as by the Kabala. Therefore Adam is in
one sense Jehovah. This makes plain another general tradition in the East
mentioned in Gregorie's "Notes and Observations upon several passages in
Scripture" (1684. Vol. 1 pp. 120-21) and quoted by Hargrave Jennings in
his Phallicism: "That Adam was commanded by God that his dead body should
be kept above ground till committed to the middle of the earth by a priest of
the most High God." Therefore, "Noah daily prayed in the ark before
the BODY OF ADAM," or before the Phallus in the ark, or Holy of Holies,
again. He who is a Kabalist and accustomed to the incessant permutation of
Biblical names, once they are interpreted numerically and symbolically, will
understand what is meant. Jehovah, from the two words of which his name is
composed, "makes up the original idea of male-female as birth-originator,
for the [[diagram]] was the membrum virile and Houak was Eve." So . . .
"the perfect one, as originator of measures, takes also the form of birth
origin, as hermaphrodite one; hence the phallic use of form."
("Source of Measures," 159). Besides the same author shows and demonstrates
numerically and geometrically that (a) Arets, earth, Adam, man, and H'Adam are
cognate with each other, and are personified in the Bible under one form, as
the Egyptian and Hebrew Mars, god of the generation; and (b) that Jehovah, or
Jah, is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Jehovah says to Moses "the Summation of my name is Sacr, the carrier of
the germ" -- phallus. "It is the vehicle of the annunciation, and the
sacr has passed down through ages to the sacr-factum of the Roman priest, and
the sacr-fice, and sacrament of the English speaking race." (Source of
Measures, p. 236) Thence marriage is a sacrament in the Greek and Roman
Churches.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 468 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Noah,
or Jehovah is Noah in Hebrew would be [[hebrew]], or literally in English,
Inch."
The
above affords, then, a key to the said traditions. Noah, a divine permutation,
the supposed saviour of Humanity, who carries in his ark or argha (the moon),
the germs of all living things, worships before the "body of Adam,"
which body is the image of, and a Creator itself. Hence Adam is called the
"Prophet of the Moon," the Argha or "Holy of Holies" of the
[[hebrew]] (Yodh). This also shows the origin of the Jewish popular belief that
the face of Moses is in the moon -- i.e., the spots in the Moon. For Moses and
Jehovah are once more permutations, as has been shown Kabalistically. Says the
author of the "Source of Measures" (p. 271): "There is one fact
in regard to Moses and his works too important to be omitted. When he is
instructed by the Lord as to his mission, the power name assumed by the Deity
is, I am that I am, the Hebrew words being:--
[[hebrew]]
a
various reading of [[hebrew]]. Now, Moses is [[hebrew]], and equals 345. Add
the values of the new form of the name Jehovah, 21 + 501 + 21 = 543, or, by a
reverse reading, 345; thus showing Moses to be a form of Jehovah in this
combination. 21 ÷ 2 = 10.5, or, reversed, 501, so that the asher or the that in
I am that I am is simply a guide to a use of 21 or 7 x 3; 501 [[squared]] = 251
+, a very valuable pyramid number, etc., etc.
For
a clearer explanation for the benefit of non-Kabalists we put it thus: "I
am that I am" is in Hebrew:--
Ahiye
Asher Ahiye
[[hebrew]]
[[hebrew]] [[hebrew]]
5,
10, 5, 1 200, 300, 1 5, 10, 5, 1
Add
the numbers of these separate words and you have:--
[[hebrew]]
[[hebrew]] [[hebrew]]
21
501 21
(which
relates to the process of descending in fire on the mount to make man, etc.,
etc.), and which is explained to be but a check and use of the numbers of the
mountains; for:-- on one side we have 10 + 5 + 6 = 21, down the middle 501, and
on the other side 6 + 5 + 10 = 21." (From the same author.) (Vide § XXII.,
"The Symbolism of the Mystery Name IAO.")
The
"Holy of Holies," both Kabalistic and Rabbinical, are thus shown as
an international symbol, and common property. Neither has originated with the
Hebrews; but owing to the too realistic handling of the half-initiated Levites,
the symbol has with them acquired a significance which it hardly has with any
other people to this day,
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[[Vol.
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and
which it was originally never meant to have by the true Kabalist. The Lingham
and Yoni of the modern average Hindu is, on the face of it, of course, no
better than the Rabbinical "Holy of Holies," -- but it is no worse;
and this is a point gained on the Christian traducers of the Asiatic religious
philosophies. For, in such religious myths, in the hidden symbolism of a creed
and philosophy, the spirit of the tenets propounded ought to decide their
relative value. And who will say, that, examined either way, this so-called
"Wisdom," applied solely to the uses and benefit of one little
nation, has ever developed in it anything like national ethics. The Prophets
are there, to show the walk in life, before, during, and after the days of
Moses, of the chosen but "stiff-necked" people. That they have had at
one time the Wisdom-Religion and use of the universal language and its symbols
at their disposal and in their possession, is proved by the same esotericism
existing to this day in India with regard to the "Holy of Holies."
This, as said, was and still is the passage through the "golden" cow
in the same stooping position as the one shown in the gallery of the pyramid,
which identified man with Jehovah in Hebrew esotericism. The whole difference
lies in the Spirit of Interpretation. With the Hindus as with the ancient
Egyptians that spirit was and is entirely metaphysical and psychological; with
the Hebrews it was realistic and physiological. It pointed to the first sexual
separation of the human race (Eve giving birth to Cain-Jehovah, as shown in the
"Source of Measures"); to the consummation of terrestrial
physiological union and conception (as in the allegory of Cain shedding Abel's
blood -- Habel, the feminine principle) and -- child-bearing; a process shown
to have begun in the Third Race, or with Adam's THIRD son, Seth, with whose son
Henoch, men began to call themselves Jehovah or Jah-hovah, the male Jod and
Havah or Eve -- to wit, male and female beings.* Thus the difference lies in
the religious and ethical feeling, but the two symbols are identical. There is
no doubt that, with the fully initiated Judaean Tanaim, the inner sense of the
symbolism was as holy in its abstraction as with the ancient Aryan Dwijas. The
worship of the "god in the ark" dates only from David; and for a
thousand years Israel knew of no phallic Jehovah. And now the old Kabala,
edited and re-edited, has become tainted with it.
With
the ancient Aryans the hidden meaning was grandiose, sublime, and poetical,
however much the external appearance of their symbol may now militate against
the claim. The ceremony of passing through
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the fourth chapter of Genesis, v. 26, it is mis-translated, " . . . And
he called his name Enos (man); then began men to call upon the name of the
Lord." -- which has no sense in it, since Adam and the others must have
done the same.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 470 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Holy of Holies (now symbolized by the cow), in the beginning through the temple
Hiranya gharba (the radiant Egg) -- in itself a symbol of Universal, abstract
nature -- meant spiritual conception and birth, or rather the re-birth of the
individual and his regeneration: the stooping man at the entrance of the
Sanctum Sanctorum, ready to pass through the matrix of mother nature, or the
physical creature ready to re-become the original spiritual Being, pre-natal
MAN. With the Semite, that stooping man meant the fall of Spirit into matter,
and that fall and degradation were apotheosized by him with the result of
dragging Deity down to the level of man. For the Aryan, the symbol represented
the divorce of Spirit from matter, its merging into and return to its primal
Source; for the Semite, the wedlock of spiritual man with material female
nature, the physiological being taking pre-eminence over the psychological and
the purely immaterial. The Aryan views of the symbolism were those of the whole
Pagan world; the Semite interpretations emanated from, and were pre-eminently
those of a small tribe, thus marking its national features and the
idiosyncratic defects that characterize many of the Jews to this day -- gross
realism, selfishness, and sensuality. They had made a bargain, through their
father Jacob, with their tribal deity, self-exalted above all others, and a
covenant that his "seed shall be as the dust of the earth"; and that
deity could have no better image henceforth than that of the symbol of
generation, and, as representation, a number and numbers.
Carlyle
has wise words for both these nations. With the Hindu Aryan -- the most
metaphysical and spiritual people on earth -- religion has ever been, in his words,
"an everlasting lode-star, that beams the brighter in the heavens the
darker here on earth grows the night around him." The religion of the
Hindu detaches him from this earth; therefore, even now, the cow-symbol is one
of the grandest and most philosophical among all others in its inner meaning.
To the "MASTERS" and "Lords" of European potencies -- the
Israelites -- certain words of Carlyle apply still more admirably; for them
"religion is a wise prudential feeling grounded on mere calculation"
-- and it was so from its beginnings. Having burdened themselves with it,
Christian nations feel bound to defend and poetise it, at the expense of all
other religions.
But
it was not so with the ancient nations. For them the passage entrance and the
sarcophagus in the King's chamber meant regeneration -- not generation. It was
the most solemn symbol, a Holy of Holies, indeed, wherein were created immortal
Hierophants and "Sons of God" -- never mortal men and Sons of lust
and flesh -- as now in the hidden sense of the Semite Kabalist. The reason for
the difference in the views of the two races is easy to account for. The Aryan
Hindu belongs to the oldest races now on earth; the Semite Hebrew to the
latest. One is nearly one
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 471]] THE CRAFT OF THE RABBINS.
million
years old; the other is a small sub-race some 8,000 years old and no more.*
But
Phallic worship has developed only with the gradual loss of the keys to the
inner meaning of religious symbols; and there was a day when the Israelites had
beliefs as pure as the Aryans have. But now Judaism, built solely on Phallic
worship, has become one of the latest creeds in Asia, and theologically a
religion of hate and malice toward everyone and everything outside themselves.
Philo Judaeus shows what was the genuine Hebrew faith. The sacred Writings, he
says, prescribe what we ought to do . . . commanding us to hate the heathen and
their laws and institutions. They did hate Baal or Bacchus worship publicly,
but left its worst features to be followed secretly; and it is with the
Talmudic Jews that the grand symbols of nature were the most profaned. With
them, as now shown by the discovery of the key to the correct Bible reading --
Geometry, the fifth divine Science ("fifth" -- because it is the
fifth key in the series of the Seven Keys to the Universal esoteric language
and symbology) was desecrated, and by them applied to conceal the most
terrestrial and grossly sexual mysteries, wherein both Deity and religion were
degraded.
We
are told that it is just the same with our Brahma-prajapati, with Osiris and
all other creative gods. Quite so, when their rites are judged exoterically and
externally; the reverse when their inner meaning is unveiled, as we see. The
Hindu Lingham is identical with "Jacob's Pillar" -- most undeniably.
But the difference, as said, seems to consist in that the esoteric significance
of the Lingham was too truly sacred and metaphysical to be revealed to the
profane and the vulgar; hence its superficial appearance was left to the
speculations of the mob. Nor would the Aryan Hierophant and Brahmin, in their
proud exclusiveness and the satisfaction of their knowledge, go to the trouble
of concealing its primeval nakedness under cunningly devised fables; whereas
the Rabbi, having interpreted the symbol to suit his own tendencies, had to
veil the crude significance; and this served a double purpose -- that of
keeping his secret to himself and of exalting himself
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Strictly speaking, the Jews are an artificial Aryan race, born in India, and
belonging to the Caucasian division. No one who is familiar with the Armenians
and the Parsis can fail to recognize in the three the same Aryan, Caucasian
type. From the seven primitive types of the Fifth Race there now remain on
Earth but three. As Prof. W. H. Flower aptly said in 1885, "I cannot
resist the conclusion so often arrived at by various anthropologists -- that
the primitive man, whatever he may have been, has in the course of ages
diverged into three extreme types, represented by the Caucasian of Europe, the
Mongolian of Asia, and the Ethiopian of Africa, and that all existing
individuals of the species can be ranged around these types. . . . " (The
President's address at the Anthrop. Inst. of Great Britain, etc.) Considering
that our Race has reached its Fifth Sub-race, how can it be otherwise?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
his supposed monotheism over the heathen, whom his Law commanded him to hate.*
A commandment now gladly accepted by the Christian too, in spite of another and
later commandment -- "love each other." Both India and Egypt had and
have their sacred lotuses, symbolic of the same "Holy of Holies" --
the Lotus growing in the water, a double feminine symbol -- the bearer of its
own seed and root of all. Viraj and Horus are both male symbols, emanating from
androgyne Nature, one from Brahma and his female counterpart Vach, the other,
from Osiris and Isis -- never from the One infinite God. In the
Judaeo-Christian systems it is different. Whereas the lotus, containing Brahma,
the Universe, is shown growing out of Vishnu's navel, the Central point in the
Waters of Infinite Space, and whereas Horus springs from the lotus of the
Celestial Nile -- all these abstract pantheistic ideas are dwarfed and made
terrestrially concrete in the Bible: one is almost inclined to say that in the
esoteric they are grosser and still more anthropomorphic, than in their
exoteric rendering. Take as an example the same symbol, even in its Christian
application; the lilies in the hand of the Archangel Gabriel (Luke i. 28). In
Hinduism -- the "Holy of Holies" is a universal abstraction, whose
dramatis personae are Infinite Spirit and Nature; in Christian Judaism, it is a
personal God, outside of that Nature, and the human Womb -- Eve, Sarah, etc.,
etc.; hence, an anthropomorphic phallic god, and his image -- man.
Thus
it is maintained, that with regard to the
of the Bible, one of two hypotheses has to be admitted. Either behind
the symbolic substitute -- Jehovah -- there was the unknown, incognizable
Deity, the Kabalistic Ain-Soph; or, the Jews have been from the beginning, no
better than the dead-letter Lingham-** worshippers of the India of to-day. We
say it was the former; and that, therefore, the secret or esoteric worship of
the Jews was the same Pantheism that the Vedantin philosophers are reproached
with to-day; Jehovah was a substitute for purposes of an exoteric national
faith, and had no importance or reality in the eyes of the erudite priests and
philosophers -- the Sadducees, the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Whenever such analogies between the Gentiles and the Jews, and later the
Christians, were pointed out, it was the invariable custom of the latter to say
that it was the work of the Devil who forced the Pagans to imitate the Jews for
the purpose of throwing a slur on the religion of the one, true living God. To
this Faber says very justly "Some have imagined that the Gentiles were
servile copyists of the Israelites, and that each point of similitude was
borrowed from the Mosaical Institutes. But this theory will by no means solve
the problem: both because we find the very same resemblance in the ceremonies
of nations far different from Palestine, as we do in the rites of those who are
in its immediate vicinity, and because it seems incredible that all should have
borrowed from one which was universally disliked and despised." (Pagan
Idol. I., 104.)
**
Their consecrated pillars (unhewn stones) erected by Abraham and Jacob were
LINGHI.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 473 THE ELOHISTIC AND JEHOVISTIC TEXTS.
most
refined as the most learned of all the Israelite sects, who stand as a living
proof with their contemptuous rejection of every belief, save the LAW. For how
could those who invented the stupendous scheme now known as the Bible, or their
successors who knew, as all Kabalists do, that it was so invented for a popular
blind -- how could they, we ask, feel reverence for such a phallic symbol and a
NUMBER, as Jehovah is shown most undeniably to be in the Kabalistic works? How
could anyone worthy of the name of a philosopher, and knowing the real secret
meaning of their "pillar of Jacob," their Bethel, oil-anointed
phalli, and their "Brazen Serpent," worship such a gross symbol, and
minister unto it, seeing in it their "Covenant" -- the Lord Himself!
Let the reader turn to Gemara Sanhedrin and judge. As various writers have
shown, and as brutally stated in Hargrave Jennings' Phallicism (p. 67) "We
know from the Jewish records that the Ark contained a table of stone. . . .
that stone was phallic, and yet identical with the sacred name Jehovah . . .
which written in unpointed Hebrew with four letters, is J-E-V-E or JHVH (the H
being merely an aspirate and the same as E). This process leaves us the two
letters I and V (in another form U); then if we place the I in the U we have
the 'Holy of Holies'; we also have the Lingha and Yoni and Argha of the Hindus,
the Isvara and 'supreme Lord'; and here we have the whole secret of its mystic and
arc-celestial import, confirmed in itself by being identical with the Linyoni
(?) of the Ark of the Covenant."
The
Biblical Jews of to-day do not date from Moses but from David -- even admitting
the identity of the old genuine with the later and remodelled Mosaic scrolls.
Before that time their nationality is lost in the mists of prehistoric
darkness, the veil from which is now withdrawn as much as we have space to do
so. It is only to the days of the Babylonian captivity that the Old Testament
may be referred by the most lenient criticism, as the approximately correct
views that were current about the days of Moses. Even such fanatical Christians
and worshippers of Jehovah as the Rev. Mr. Horne, have to admit the numerous
changes and alterations made by the later compilers of the "Book of
God," since it was found by Hilkiah (See "Introduction to the Old
Testament," and also Bishop Colenso's "Elohistic and Jehovistic
writers"); and that "the Pentateuch arose out of the primitive or
older documents, by means of a SUPPLEMENTARY One." The Elohistic texts
were re-written 500 years after the date of Moses; the Jehovistic 800, on the
authority of the Bible chronology itself. Hence, it is maintained that the
deity, represented as the organ of generation in his pillar form, and as a
symbol of the double-sexed organ in the numeral value of the letters of his
name, or [[hebrew]] the Yodh (phallus), and [[hebrew]] He (the opening, or
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 474 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Womb) according to Kabalistic authority -- is of a far later date than the
Elohim symbols and is borrowed from the Pagan exoteric rites; and Jehovah is
thus on a par with the Lingham and Yoni found on every road-side in India.
Just
as the IAO of the mysteries was distinct from Jehovah, so was the later Iao and
Abraxas of some Gnostic sects identical with the god of the Hebrews, who was
the same with the Egyptian Horus. This is undeniably proven on
"heathen" as on the Gnostic "Christian" gems. In Matter's
collection of such gems there is a "Horus" seated on the lotus,
inscribed [[ABRASAXIAO]] (Abraxas Iao) -- an address exactly parallel to the so
frequent [[EIS ZETS SARAPI]] (Eis zets sarapi) on the contemporary Heathen
gems; and therefore only to be translated by "Abraxas is the One
Jehovah" (King's Gnostics, p. 327). But who was Abraxas? As the same
author shows -- "the numerical or Kabalistic value of the name Abraxas
directly refer to the Persian title of the god 'Mithra,' Ruler of the year,
worshipped from the earliest times under the appellation of Iao." Thus,
the Sun, in one aspect, the moon or the Lunar genius, in another, that
generative deity whom the Gnostics saluted as "Thou that presidest over
the Mysteries of the Father and the Son, who shinest in the night-time, holding
the second rank, the first Lord of Death."
It
is only in his capacity of the genius of the moon, the latter being credited in
the old cosmogony with being the parent of our Earth, that Jehovah could ever
be regarded as the creator of our globe and its Heaven, namely, the Firmament.
The
knowledge of all this will be no proof, however, to the average bigot.
Missionaries will go on with the most virulent attacks on the religions of India,
and Christians read with the same benighted smile of satisfaction as ever these
preposterously unjust words of Coleridge, "It is highly worthy of
observation that the inspired writings received by Christians are
distinguishable from all other books PRETENDING TO INSPIRATION, from the
Scriptures of the Brahmins, and even from the Koran, in their strong and
frequent recommendation of TRUTH (! !). . . ."
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 475 NATURE, A STONE-COLD MOTHER.
§
XVIII.
ON
THE MYTH OF THE "FALLEN ANGEL," IN ITS VARIOUS ASPECTS.
-------
A.
THE
EVIL SPIRIT: WHO, AND WHAT?
OUR
present quarrel is exclusively with theology. The Church enforces belief in a
personal god and a personal devil, while Occultism shows the fallacy of such a
belief. And though for the Pantheists and Occultists, as much as for the
Pessimists, Nature is no better than "a comely mother, but stone
cold" -- this is true only so far as regards external physical nature. They
both agree that, to the superficial observer, she is no better than an immense
slaughter-house wherein butchers become victims, and victims executioners in
their turn. It is quite natural that the pessimistically inclined profane, once
convinced of Nature's numerous shortcomings and failures, and especially of her
autophagous propensities, should imagine this to be the best evidence that
there is no deity in abscondito within Nature, nor anything divine in her. Nor
is it less natural that the materialist and the physicist should imagine that
everything is due to blind force and chance, and to the survival of the
strongest, even more often than of the fittest. But the Occultists, who regard
physical nature as a bundle of most varied illusions on the plane of deceptive
perceptions; who recognise in every pain and suffering but the necessary pangs
of incessant procreation: a series of stages toward an ever-growing
perfectibility, which is visible in the silent influence of never-erring Karma,
or abstract nature -- the Occultists, we say, view the great Mother otherwise.
Woe to those who live without suffering. Stagnation and death is the future of
all that vegetates without a change. And how can there be any change for the
better without proportionate suffering during the preceding stage? Is it not
those only who have learnt the deceptive value of earthly hopes and the
illusive allurements of external nature who are destined to solve the great
problems of life, pain, and death?
If
our modern philosophers -- preceded by the medieval scholars -- have helped
themselves to more than one fundamental idea of antiquity, theologians have
built their God and his Archangels, their Satan and his Angels, along with the
Logos and his staff, entirely out of the dramatis personae of the old heathen
Pantheons. They would have been
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[[Vol.
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welcome
to these, had they not cunningly distorted the original characters, perverted
the philosophical meaning, and taking advantage of the ignorance of Christendom
-- the result of long ages of mental sleep, during which humanity was permitted
to think only by proxy -- tossed every symbol into the most inextricable
confusion. One of their most sinful achievements in this direction, was the
transformation of the divine alter ego into the grotesque Satan of their
theology.
As
the whole philosophy of the problem of evil hangs upon the correct comprehension
of the constitution of the inner being of nature and man, of the divine within
the animal, and hence also the correctness of the whole system as given in
these pages, with regard to the crown piece of evolution -- MAN -- we cannot
take sufficient precautions against theological subterfuges. When the good St.
Augustine and the fiery Tertullian called the Devil "the monkey of
God," this could be attributed to the ignorance of the age they lived in.
It is more difficult to excuse our modern writers on the same ground. The
translation of Mazdean literature has afforded to the Roman Catholic writers
the pretext for proving their point in the same direction once more. They have
taken advantage of the dual nature of Ahura Mazda in the Zend Avesta and the
Vendidad, and of his Amshaspends, to emphasize still further their wild
theories. Satan is the plagiarist and the copyist by anticipation of the
religion which came ages later. This was one of the master strokes of the Latin
Church, its best trump-card after the appearance of Spiritualism in Europe.
Though only a succes d'estime, in general, even among those who are not
interested in either Theosophy or Spiritualism, yet the weapon is often used by
the Christian (Roman Catholic) Kabalists against the Eastern Occultists.
Now
even the Materialists are quite harmless, and may be regarded as the friends of
Theosophy, when compared to some fanatical "Christian" (as they call
themselves, "Sectarian" as we call them) Kabalists, on the Continent.
These read the Zohar, not to find in it ancient Wisdom, but to discover in its
verses, by mangling the texts and meaning, Christian dogmas, where none could
ever have been meant; and, having fished them out with the collective help of
jesuitical casuistry and learning, the supposed "Kabalists" proceed
to write books and to mislead less far-sighted students of the Kabala.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Such a pseudo-Kabalist was the Marquis de Mirville in France, who, having
studied the Zohar and other old remnants of Jewish Wisdom under the
"Chevalier" Drach, an ancient Rabbi Kabalist converted to the Romish
Church -- wrote with his help half a dozen volumes full of slander and
calumnies against every prominent Spiritualist and Kabalist. From 1848 up to
1860 he persecuted unrelentingly the old Count d'Ourches, one of the earliest
Eastern Occultists in France, a man the scope of whose occult knowledge will
never be appreciated correctly by his survivors, because he screened his real beliefs
and knowledge under the mask of Spiritism.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 477 THE GENESIS OF THE DEVIL.
May
we not then be permitted to drag the deep rivers of the Past, and thus bring to
the surface the root idea that led to the transformation of the Wisdom-God, who
had first been regarded as the creator of everything that exists, into an Angel
of Evil -- a ridiculous horned biped, half goat and half monkey, with hoofs and
a tail? We need not go out of the way to compare the pagan demons of either
Egypt, India, or Chaldea with the devil of Christianity, for no such comparison
is possible. But we may stop to glance at the biography of the Christian Devil,
a piratical reprint from the Chaldeo-Judaean mythology:--
The
primitive origin of this personification rests upon the Akkadian conception of
the cosmic powers -- the Heavens and the Earth -- in eternal feud and struggle
with Chaos. Their Silik-Muludag, "the God amongst all the Gods," the
"merciful guardian of men on Earth," was the Son of Hea (or Ea) the
great God of Wisdom, called by the Babylonians Nebu. With both peoples -- as in
the case of the Hindu gods -- their deities were both beneficent and
maleficent. As Evil and punishment are the agents of Karma, in an absolutely
just retributive sense, so Evil was the servant of the good (Hibbert Lect.
1887, pp. 101-115). The reading of the Chaldeo-Assyrian tiles has now
demonstrated it beyond a shadow of doubt. We find the same idea in the Zohar.
Satan was a Son, and an Angel of God. With all the Semitic nations, the Spirit
of the Earth was as much the Creator in his own realm as the Spirit of the
Heavens. They were twin brothers and interchangeable in their functions, when
not two in one. Nothing of that which we find in Genesis is absent from the
Chaldeo-Assyrian religious beliefs, even in the little that has hitherto been
deciphered. The great "Face of the Deep" of Genesis is traced in the
Tohu-bohu, "Deep," "Primeval Space," or Chaos of the Babylonians.
Wisdom (the Great Unseen God) -- called in Genesis chap. i. the "Spirit of
God" -- lived, for the older Babylonians as for the Akkadians, in the Sea
of Space. Toward the days described by Berosus, this sea became the visible
waters on the face of the Earth -- the crystalline abode of the great mother,
the mother of Ea and all the gods, which became, still later, the great Dragon
Tiamat, the Sea Serpent. Its last stage of development was the great struggle
of Bel with the Dragon -- the Devil!
Whence
the Christian idea that God cursed the Devil? The God of the Jews, whomsoever
he was, forbids cursing Satan. Philo Judaeus and Josephus both state that the
Law (the Pentateuch and the Talmud) undeviatingly forbid one to curse the
adversary, as also the gods of the gentiles. "Thou shalt not revile the
gods," quoth the god of Moses (Exodus xxii. 28), for it is God who
"hath divided (them) unto all nations" (Deut. iv. 19); and those who
speak evil of
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[[Vol.
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"Dignities"
(gods) are called "filthy dreamers" by Jude (8). For even Michael the
Archangel durst not bring against him (the devil) a railing accusation, but
said: "The Lord rebuke thee" (ibid 9). Finally the same is repeated
in the Talmud.* "Satan appeared one day to a man who used to curse him
daily, and said to him: 'Why dost thou this?' Consider that God himself would
not curse me, but merely said: 'The Lord rebuke thee, Satan.' "**
This
bit of Talmudic information shows plainly two things: (a) that St. Michael is
called "God" in the Talmud, and somebody else "the Lord";
and (b) that Satan is a God, of whom even the "Lord" is in fear. All
we read in the Zohar and other Kabalistic works on Satan shows plainly that
this "personage" is simply the personification of the abstract evil,
which is the weapon of Karmic law and KARMA. It is our human nature and man
himself, as it is said that "Satan is always near and inextricably interwoven
with man." It is only a question of that Power being latent or active in
us.
It
is a well-known fact -- to learned Symbologists at all events -- that in every
great religion of antiquity, it is the Logos Demiurge (the second logos), or
the first emanation from the mind (Mahat), who is made to strike, so to say,
the key-note of that which may be called the correlation of individuality and
personality in the subsequent scheme of evolution. The Logos it is, who is
shown in the mystic symbolism of cosmogony, theogony, and anthropogony, playing
two parts in the drama of Creation and Being, i.e., that of the purely human
personality and the divine impersonality of the so-called Avatars, or divine
incarnations, and of the universal Spirit, called Christos by the Gnostics, and
the Farvarshi (or Ferouer) of Ahura Mazda in the Mazdean philosophy. On the
lower rungs of theogony the celestial Beings of lower Hierarchies had each a
Farvarshi, or a celestial "Double." It is the same, only a still more
mystic, reassertion of the Kabalistic axiom, "Deus est Demon
inversus"; the word "demon," however, as in the case of
Socrates, and in the spirit of the meaning given to it by the whole of
antiquity, standing for the guardian Spirit, an "Angel," not a devil
of Satanic descent, as theology will have it. The Roman Catholic Church shows
its usual logic and consistency by accepting, as the ferouer of Christ, St.
Michael, who was "his Angel Guardian," as proved by St. Thomas,***
while he calls the prototypes of Michael and his synonyms, such as Mercury, for
example, devils
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., 487, et seq.
**
Treat. Kiddusheem, 81. But see the Qabbala by Mr. I. Myer, pp. 92, 94, and the
Zohar, quoted in his Volume.
***
In the work of Marangone "Delle grandezze del Archangelo Sancto
Mikaele," the author exclaims: "O Star, the greatest of those that
follow the Sun who is Christ! . . . [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 479 GOD AND DEVIL, BOTH METATRONS.
The
Church accepts positively the tenet that Christ has his Ferouer as any other
god or mortal has. Writes de Mirville: "Here we have the two heroes of the
Old Testament, the Verbum (?), or the second Jehovah, and his face ('Presence,'
as the Protestants translate) forming both but one, and yet being two, a
mystery which seemed to us unsolvable before we had studied the doctrine of the
Mazdean ferouers, and learnt that the ferouer was the spiritual potency, at
once image, face, and the guardian of the Soul which finally assimilates the
ferouer." (Memoires a l'Academie, Vol. v., p. 516.) This is almost
correct.
Among
other absurdities, the Kabalists maintain that the word metatron being divided
into [[meta, thronon]], means near the throne. It means quite the reverse, as
meta means "beyond" and not "near." This is of great
importance in our argument. St. Michael, then, the quis ut Deus, is the
translator, so to speak, of the invisible world into the visible and the
objective.
They
maintain, furthermore, along with the Roman Catholic Church, that in the
Biblical and Christian theology there does not exist a "higher celestial
personality, after the Trinity, than that of the Archangel or the Seraphim,
Michael." According to them, the conqueror of the Dragon is "the
archisatrap of the sacred militia, the guardian of the planets, the King of the
Stars, the slayer of Satan and the most powerful Rector." In the mystic
astronomy of these gentlemen, he is "the conqueror of Ahriman, who having
upset the sidereal throne of the usurper, bathes in his stead in the solar
fires"; and, defender of the Christ-Sun, he approaches so near his Master,
"that he seems to become one with him . . . . Owing to this fusion with
the WORD (Verbum) the Protestants, and among them Calvin, ended by losing sight
entirely of the duality, and saw no Michael but only his Master," writes
the Abbe Caron. The Roman Catholics, and especially their Kabalists, know better;
and it is they who explain to the world this duality, which affords to them the
means of glorifying the chosen ones of the Church, and of rejecting and
anathematizing all those Gods who may be in the way of their dogmas.
Thus
the same titles and the same names are given in turn to God and the Archangel.
Both are called Metatron, "both have the name of Jehovah applied to them
when they speak one in the other" (sic) as, according to the Zohar, the
term signifies equally "the Master and the Ambassador." Both are the
Angel of the Face, because, as we are informed, if, on the one hand, the
"Word" is called "the face (or the Presence) and the image of
the substance of God," on the other, "when
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] O living image of Divinity! O great
thaumaturgist of the old Testament! O invisible Vicar of Christ within his
Church! . . ." etc., etc. The work is in great honour in the Latin Church.
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[[Vol.
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speaking
of the Saviour to the Israelites, Isaiah (?) tells them that "the angel of
his presence saved them in their affliction" -- "so he was their
Saviour."* Elsewhere he (Michael) is called very plainly "the Prince
of the Faces of the Lord, the glory of the Lord." Both (Jehovah and
Michael) are "the guides of Israel** . . . chiefs of the armies of the
Lord, Supreme Judges of the souls and even Seraphs."***
The
whole of the above is given on the authority of various works by Roman
Catholics, and must, therefore, be orthodox. Some expressions are translated to
show what subtle theologians and casuists mean by the term Ferouer,**** a word
borrowed by some French writers from the Zend Avesta, as said, and utilized in
Roman Catholicism for a purpose Zoroaster was very far from anticipating. In
Fargard XIX. of the Vendidad it is said (verse 14), "Invoke, O
Zarathustra! my Farvarshi, who am Ahura Mazda, the greatest, the best, the
fairest of all beings, the most solid, the most intelligent, . . . . and whose
soul is the Holy Word" (Mathra Spenta). The French Orientalists translate
Farvarshi by "Ferouer."
Now
what is a Ferouer, or Farvarshi? In some Mazdean works (e.g., Ormazd Ahriman,
§§ 112, 113), it is plainly implied that Farvarshi is the inner, immortal man
(or that Ego which reincarnates); that it existed before its physical body and
survives all such it happens to be clothed in. "Not only man was endowed
with the Farvarshi, but gods too, and the sky, fire, waters, and plants."
(Introduction to the Vendidad, by J. Darmesteter). This shows as plainly as can
be shown that the ferouer is the "spiritual counterpart" of whether
god, animal, plant, or even element, i.e., the refined and the purer part of
the grosser creation, the soul of the body, whatever the body may happen to be.
Therefore does Ahura Mazda recommend Zarathustra to invoke his Farvarshi and
not himself (Ahura-Mazda); that is to say, the impersonal and true Essence of
Deity, one with Zoroaster's own Atman (or Christos), not the false and personal
appearance. This is quite clear.
Now
it is on this divine and ethereal prototype that the Roman Catholics seized so as
to build up the supposed difference between their god and angels, and the deity
and its aspects, or the gods of the old religions. Thus, while calling Mercury,
Venus, Jupiter (whether as gods or planets) DEVILS, they yet make of the same
Mercury the ferouer of their Christ. This fact is undeniable. Vossius (De
Idol., II., 373)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Isaiah, lxiii. 8-9.
**
Metator and [[hegemon]].
***
"La Face et le Representant du Verbe," p. 18, de Mirville.
****
That which is called in the Vendidad "Farvarshi," the immortal part
of an individual, that which outlives man -- the Higher Ego, say the
Occultists, or the divine Double.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 481 FRAUDULENT TRANSLATION OF THE BIBLE.
proves
that Michael is the Mercury of the pagans, and Maury and other French writers
corroborate him, and add that "according to great theologians Mercury and
the Sun are one," (?) and no wonder, they think, since "Mercury being
so near the Wisdom of the Verbum (the Sun), must be absorbed by and confounded
with him."
This
"pagan" view was accepted from the first century of our era, as shown
in the ORIGINAL Acts of the Apostles (the English translation being worthless).
So much is Michael the Mercury of the Greeks and other nations, that when the
inhabitants of Lystra mistook Paul and Barnabas for Mercury and Jupiter --
"the gods have come down to us in the likeness of men," -- verse 12
(xiv.) adds: "And they called Barnabas Zeus, and Paul, Hermes (or
Mercury), because he was the leader of the WORD (Verbum)," and not
"the chief speaker," as erroneously translated in the authorised, and
repeated even in the revised, English Bible. Michael is the angel in the
Vision, the Son of God, "who was like unto a Son of Man." It is the
Hermes-Christos of the Gnostics, the Anubis-Syrius of the Egyptians, the
Counsellor of Osiris in Amenti, the Michael leontoid [[ophiomorphos]] of the
Ophites, who wears on certain Gnostic jewels a lion head, like his father
Ildabaoth. (See King's Gnostics.)
Now
to all this the Roman Catholic Church consents tacitly, many of her writers
avowing it publicly. And, unable to deny the flagrant "borrowing" of
their Church, who "spoilt" the symbols of her seniors, as the Jews
had "spoilt" the Egyptians of their jewels of silver and gold, they
explain the fact quite coolly and as seriously. Thus the writers who were
hitherto timid enough to see, in this repetition by Christian dogmas of old Pagan
ideas, "a legendary plagiarism perpetrated by man," are gravely
assured that, far from such a simple solution of the almost perfect
resemblance, it has to be attributed to quite another cause: "to a
prehistorical plagiarism, of a superhuman origin."
If
the reader would know how, he must kindly turn to the same fifth volume of de
Mirville's work. Please note that this author was the official and recognised
defender of the Roman Church, and was helped by the learning of all the
Jesuits. On page 518 we read:--
"We
have pointed out several demi-gods, and also very historical heroes of the
pagans, who were predestined from the moment of their birth, to ape while
dishonouring it, the nativity of the hero, who was quite God, before whom the
whole earth had to bow; we traced them being born as he was, from an immaculate
mother; we saw them strangling serpents in their cradles, fighting against
demons, performing miracles, dying as martyrs, descending to the nether world
and rising again from the dead. And we have bitterly deplored that timid and
shy Christians should feel compelled to explain all such identities on the
ground of
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 482 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
coincidence
of myth and symbol. They forgot apparently these words of the Saviour: 'ALL
THAT CAME BEFORE ME ARE THIEVES AND ROBBERS,' a word which explains all without
any absurd negation and which I commented in these words 'The Evangel is a
sublime drama, parodied and played before its appointed time by ruffians.'
"
The
"ruffians" (les droles), are of course demons whose manager is Satan.
Now this is the easiest and the most sublime and simple way of getting out of
the difficulty! The Rev. Dr. Lundy, a Protestant de Mirville, followed the
happy suggestion in his "Monumental Christianity," and so did Dr.
Sepp of Munich in his works written to prove the divinity of Jesus and the
Satanic origin of all other Saviours. So much greater the pity that a systematic
and collective plagiarism, which went on for several centuries on the most
gigantic scale, should be explained by another plagiarism, this time in the
fourth Gospel. For the sentence quoted from it, "All that ever came before
me, etc.," is a verbatim repetition of words written in the "Book of
Enoch" lxxxix. In the Introduction to Archbishop Lawrence's translation of
it from an Ethiopic MS. in the Bodleian Library, the editor, author of the
"Evolution of Christianity," remarks:--
"In
revising the proof-sheets of the Book of Enoch . . . . . the parable of the
sheep, rescued by the good Shepherd from hireling guardians and ferocious
wolves, is obviously borrowed by the fourth Evangelist from Enoch, lxxxix., in
which the author depicts the shepherds as killing . . . the sheep before the
advent of their Lord, and thus discloses the true meaning of that hitherto
mysterious passage in the Johannine parable -- 'All that ever came before me
are thieves and robbers' -- language in which we now detect an obvious
reference to the allegorical shepherds of Enoch."
It
is too late in the day to claim that it is Enoch who borrowed from the New
Testament, instead of vice versa. Jude (14-15) quotes verbatim from Enoch a
long passage about the coming of the Lord with his 10,000 saints, and naming
specifically the prophet, acknowledges the source. This "parallelism
between prophet and apostle, have placed beyond controversy that, in the eyes
of the author of an Epistle accepted as divine revelation, the Book of Enoch
was the inspired production of an antediluvian patriarch . . . " and
further " . . . the cumulative coincidence of language and ideas in Enoch
and the authors of N.T. Scripture, . . . clearly indicates that the work of the
Semitic Milton was the inexhaustible source from which Evangelists and
Apostles, or the men who wrote in their names, borrowed their conceptions of
the resurrection, judgment, immortality, perdition, and of the universal reign
of righteousness under the eternal dominion of the Son of Man. This Evangelical
plagiarism culminates in the Revelation of John, which adapts the visions
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[[Vol.
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of
Enoch to Christianity, with modifications in which we miss the sublime
simplicity of the great Master of apocalyptic prediction, who prophesied in the
name of the antediluvian Patriarch." (INT. xxxv.)
"Antediluvian,"
truly; but if the phraseology of the text dates hardly a few centuries or even
millenniums before the historical era, then it is no more the original
prediction of the events to come, but, in its turn, a copy of some scripture of
a prehistoric religion. . . . . "In the Krita age, Vishnu, in the form of
Kapila and other (inspired sages) . . . imparts to the world true wisdom as
Enoch did. In the Treta age he restrains the wicked, in the form of a universal
monarch (the Chakravartin or the 'Everlasting King' of Enoch*) and protects the
three worlds (or races). In the Dwapara age, in the person of Veda-Vyasa, he
divides the one Veda into four, and distributes it into hundreds (Sata) of
branches." Truly so; the Veda of the earliest Aryans, before it was
written, went forth into every nation of the Atlanto-Lemurians, and sowed the
first seeds of all the now existing old religions. The off-shoots of the never
dying tree of wisdom have scattered their dead leaves even on
Judaeo-Christianity. And at the end of the Kali, our present age, Vishnu, or
the "Everlasting King" will appear as Kalki, and re-establish righteousness
upon earth. The minds of those who live at that time shall be awakened, and
become as pellucid as crystal. "The men who are thus changed by virtue of
that peculiar time (the sixth race) shall be as the seeds of other human
beings, and shall give birth to a race who shall follow the laws of the Krita
age of purity"; i.e., it shall be the seventh race, the race of
"Buddhas," the "Sons of God," born of immaculate parents.
-------
B.
THE
GODS OF LIGHT PROCEED FROM THE GODS OF DARKNESS.
Thus
it is pretty well established that Christ, the Logos, or the God in Space and
the Saviour on Earth, is but one of the echoes of the same antediluvian and
sorely misunderstood Wisdom. The history begins by the descent on Earth of the
"Gods" who incarnate in mankind, and this is the FALL. Whether Brahma
hurled down on Earth in the allegory by Bhagavant, or Jupiter by Kronos, all
are the symbols of the human races. Once landed on, and having touched this
planet of dense matter, no snow-white wings of the highest angel can remain
immaculate, or the Avatar (or incarnation) be perfect, as every such Avatar is
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Saith Uriel (chap. xxvi. v. 3), in the "Book of Enoch" "all
those who have received mercy shall for ever bless God the everlasting
King," who will reign over them.
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[[Vol.
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the
fall of a God into generation. Nowhere is the metaphysical truth more clear,
when explained esoterically, or more hidden from the average comprehension of
those who instead of appreciating the sublimity of the idea can only degrade,
than in the Upanishads, the esoteric glossaries of the Vedas. The Rig-Veda, as
Guignault characterized it, "is the most sublime conception of the great
highways of Humanity." The Vedas are, and will remain for ever, in the
esotericism of the Vedanta and the Upanishads, "the mirror of the eternal
Wisdom."
For
over sixteen centuries the new masks, forced on the faces of the old gods, have
screened them from public curiosity, but they have finally proved a misfit. Yet
the metaphorical FALL, and as metaphorical atonement and crucifixion, led
Western Humanity through roads knee-deep in blood. Worse than all, they led it
to believe in the dogma of the evil spirit distinct from the spirit of all
good, whereas the former lives in all matter and pre-eminently in man. Finally
it created the God-slandering dogma of Hell and eternal perdition; it spread a
thick film between the higher intuitions of man and divine verities; and, most
pernicious result of all, it made people remain ignorant of the fact that there
were no fiends, no dark demons in the Universe before man's own appearance on
this, and probably on other earths. Henceforth the people were led to accept,
as the problematical consolation for this world's sorrows, the thought of
original sin.
The
philosophy of that law in Nature, which implants in man as well as in every
beast a passionate, inherent, and instinctive desire for freedom and
self-guidance, pertains to psychology and cannot be touched on now. To show the
feeling in higher Intelligences, to analyse and give a natural reason for it,
would necessitate, moreover, an endless philosophical explanation for which
there is no room here. Perhaps, the best synthesis of this feeling is found in
three lines of Milton's Paradise Lost. Says the "Fallen One":--
"Here
we may reign secure; and in my choice,
To
reign is worth ambition, though in hell!
Better
to reign in hell than serve in heaven . . . ."
Better
be man, the crown of terrestrial production and king over its opus operatum,
than be lost among the will-less spiritual Hosts in Heaven.
We
have said elsewhere that the dogma of the first Fall rested on a few verses in
Revelation; these verses being now shown a plagiarism from Enoch by some
scholars. These grew into endless theories and speculations, which gradually
acquired the importance of dogma and inspired tradition. Every one wanted to
explain the verse about the seven-headed dragon with his ten horns and seven
crowns, whose tail
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[[Vol.
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"drew
the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth,"
and whose place, with that of his angels, "was found no more in
heaven." What the seven heads of the Dragon (cycle) mean, and its five
wicked kings also, may be learned in the Addenda which close Part III. of this
Volume.
From
Newton to Bossuet speculations were incessantly evolved in Christian brains
with regard to these obscure verses. . . . . "The star that falls, is the
heresiarch Theodosius" . . . . explains Bossuet. "The clouds of
smoke, are the heresies of the Montanists. . . . . The third part of the stars,
are the martyrs, and especially the doctors of divinity. . . . ."
Bossuet
ought to have known, however, that the events described in Revelation were not
original, and may, as shown, be found in other and pagan traditions. There were
no scholastics nor Montanists during Vedic times, nor yet far later in China.
But Christian theology had to be protected and saved.
This
was only natural. But why should truth be sacrificed in order to protect from
destruction the lucubrations of Christian theologians?
The
princeps aeris hujus, the "prince of the air" of St. Paul, is not the
devil, but the effects of the astral light, as Eliphas Levi correctly explains.
The Devil is not "the God of this period," as he says, for it is the
deity of every age and period, since man appeared on earth, and matter, in its
countless forms and states, had to fight for its evanescent existence against
other disintegrating Forces.
The
"Dragon" is simply the symbol of the cycle and of the "Sons of
Manvantaric Eternity," who had descended on earth during a certain epoch
of its formative period. The "clouds of smoke" are a geological
phenomenon. The "third part of the stars of heaven" cast down to the
earth -- refers to the divine Monads, (the Spirits of the Stars in Astrology)
that circumambulate our globe; i.e., the human Egos destined to perform the
whole cycle of incarnations. This sentence, qui circumambulat terram, however,
is again referred to the DEVIL in theology, the mythical father of Evil being
said to "fall like lightning." Unfortunately for this interpretation,
the "Son of Man," or Christ, is expected, on the personal testimony
of Jesus, to descend on earth likewise, "As the lightning cometh out of
the East,"* just in the same shape and under the same symbol as Satan, who
is seen "as lightning to fall from heaven."** All these metaphors and
figures of speech, pre-eminently Oriental in their character, must have their
origin searched for in the East. In all the ancient cosmogonies light comes
from darkness. In Egypt, as elsewhere, darkness was "the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Matthew xxiv. 27.
**
Luke x. 18.
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[[Vol.
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principle
of all things." Hence Pymander, the "Thought divine," issues as
light from DARKNESS. Behemoth* is the principle of Darkness, or Satan, in Roman
Catholic Theology, and yet Job says of him that "Behemoth is the chief
(principle) of the ways of God" (xl. 19) -- "Principium viarum Domini
Behemoth!"
Consistency
does not seem to be a favourite virtue in any portion of divine Revelation, so-called
-- not as interpreted by theologians, at any rate.
The
Egyptians and the Chaldeans referred the birth of their divine Dynasties to
that period when creative Earth was in her last final throes, in giving birth
to her prehistoric mountain ranges, which have since disappeared, her seas and
her continents. Her face was covered with "deep Darkness and in that
(Secondary) Chaos was the principle of all things" that developed on the
globe later on. And our geologists have ascertained that there was such a
terrestrial conflagration in the early geological periods, several hundred
millions of years ago.** As to the tradition itself, every country and nation
had it, each under its respective national form.
It
is not alone Egypt, Greece, Scandinavia or Mexico, that had their Typhon,
Python, Loki and its "falling" Demon, but China, also. The Celestials
have a whole literature upon the subject. In King, it is said that in
consequence of a rebellion against Ti of a proud Spirit who said he was Ti himself,
seven choirs of celestial spirits were exiled upon earth, which "brought a
change in all nature, heaven itself bending down and uniting with earth."
And
in the "Y-King," one reads: "The flying Dragon, superb and
rebellious, suffers now, and his pride is punished; he thought he would reign
in heaven, he reigns only on the earth."
Again,
the Tchoon-Tsieoo says allegorically: "one night the stars ceased shining
in darkness, and deserted it, falling down like rain upon the earth, where they
are now hidden." These stars are the Monads.
Chinese
cosmogonies have their "Lord of the Flame" and their "Celestial
Virgin," with little "Spirits to help and minister to her; and big
Spirits to fight those who are the enemies of other gods." But all this
does not prove that the said allegories are presentments or prophetic writings
which all refer to Christian theology.
The
best proof one can offer to Christian Theologians that the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Protestant Bible defines Behemoth innocently -- "The elephant as some
think" (See marginal note in Job xl. 19) in the authorised versions.
**
Astronomy, however, knows nothing of stars that have disappeared unless from visibility,
never from existence, since the Science of Astronomy became known. Temporary
stars are only variable stars, and it is believed even that the new stars of
Kepler and Tycho Brahe may still be seen.
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[[Vol.
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esoteric
meaning in the Bible -- in both Testaments -- was the assertion of the same
idea as in our Archaic teachings -- to wit, that the "Fall of the
Angels" referred simply to the incarnation of angels "who had broken
through the Seven Circles" -- is found in the Zohar. Now the Kabala of
Simeon Ben Iochai is the soul and essence of its allegory, as the later
Christian Kabala is the "dark cloaked" Mosaic Pentateuch. And it says
(in the Agrippa MSS.):
"The
wisdom of the Kabala rests in the science of the equilibrium and Harmony."
"Forces
that manifest without having been first equilibrized perish in space"
("equilibrized" meaning differentiated).
"Thus
perished the first Kings (the Divine Dynasties) of the ancient world, the
self-produced Princes of giants. They fell like rootless trees, and were seen
no more: for they were the Shadow of the Shadow"; to wit, the chhaya of
the Shadowy Pitris. (Vide about the "Kings of Edom.")
"But
those that came after them, who shooting down like falling stars were enshrined
in the shadows -- prevailed and to this day": Dhyanis, who by incarnating
in those "empty shadows," inaugurated the era of mankind.
Every
sentence in the ancient cosmogonies, unfolds to him who can read between the
lines the identity of the ideas, though under different garbs.
The
first lesson taught in Esoteric philosophy is, that the incognizable Cause does
not put forth evolution, whether consciously or unconsciously, but only
exhibits periodically different aspects of itself to the perception of finite
Minds. Now the collective Mind -- the Universal -- composed of various and
numberless Hosts of Creative Powers, however infinite in manifested Time, is
still finite when contrasted with the unborn and undecaying Space in its
supreme essential aspect. That which is finite cannot be perfect. Therefore
there are inferior Beings among those Hosts, but there never were any devils or
"disobedient Angels," for the simple reason that they are all
governed by Law. The Asuras who incarnated (call them by any other name),
followed in this a law as implacable as any other. They had manifested prior to
the Pitris, and as time (in Space) proceeds in Cycles, their turn had come --
hence the numerous allegories (Vide "Demon est Deus inversus," Part
II., Vol. I.). The name of Asura was first given by the Brahmans
indiscriminately to those who opposed their mummeries and sacrifices, as the
great Asura called "Asurendra" did. It is to those ages, probably,
that the origin of the idea of the demon, as opposer and adversary, has to be
traced.
The
Hebrew Elohim, called in the translations "God," and who create
"light," are identical with the Aryan Asuras. They are also
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referred
to as the "Sons of Darkness" as a philosophical and logical contrast
to light immutable and eternal. The earliest Zoroastrians did not believe in
Evil or Darkness being co-eternal with Good or Light, and they give the same
interpretation. Ahriman is the manifested shadow of AHURA-MAZDA (Asura-mazda),
himself issued from Zeruana Akerne "boundless (circle of) Time" or
the Unknown Cause. "Its glory," they say of the latter, "is too
exalted, its light too resplendent for either human intellect or mortal eye to
grasp and see." Its primal emanation is eternal light, which, from having
been previously concealed in DARKNESS was called to manifest itself and thus
was formed Ormazd, the "King of Life." He is the
"first-born" in BOUNDLESS TIME, but, like his own antitype
(pre-existing Spiritual idea), has lived within darkness from all eternity. The
six Amshaspends (seven with himself, chief of all), the primitive Spiritual Angels
and Men are collectively his Logos. The Zoroastrian Amshaspends create the
world in six days or periods also, and rest on the Seventh; whereas that
Seventh is the first period or "day," in esoteric philosophy,
(Primary creation in the Aryan cosmogony). It is that intermediate AEon which
is the Prologue to creation, and which stands on the borderland between the
uncreated eternal Causation and the produced finite effects; a state of nascent
activity and energy as the first aspect of the eternal immutable Quiescence. In
Genesis, on which no metaphysical energy has been spent, but only an
extraordinary acuteness and ingenuity to veil the esoteric Truth,
"Creation" begins at the third stage of manifestation.
"God" or the Elohim are the "Seven Regents" of Pymander.
They are identical with all the other Creators.
But
even in Genesis that period is hinted at by the abruptness of the picture, and
the "darkness" that was on the face of the deep. The Alahim are shown
to "create" -- that is to say, to build or to produce the two or
"double heaven" (not Heaven and Earth); which means, in so many
words, that they separated the upper manifested (angelic) heaven, or plane of
consciousness, from the lower or terrestrial plane; the (to us) eternal and
immutable AEons from those periods that are in space, time and duration; Heaven
from Earth, the unknown from the KNOWN -- to the profane. Such is the meaning
of the sentence in Pymander, which says that: "THOUGHT, the divine, which
is LIGHT and LIFE (Zeruana Akerne) produced through its WORD, or first
aspect," the other, operating THOUGHT, which being the god of Spirit and
Fire, constructed seven Regents enclosing within their circle the world of
Senses, named "fatal destiny." The latter refers to Karma; the
"seven circles" are the seven planets and planes, as also the seven
invisible Spirits, in the angelic spheres, whose visible symbols are the seven
planets,* the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Another proof, if any were needed, that the ancient Initiates knew of more than
seven planets is to be found in the Vishnu Purana, Book II., ch. xii., where,
describing [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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seven
Rishis of the great Bear and other glyphs. As said of the Adityas by Roth:
"they are neither sun, nor moon, nor stars, nor dawn, but the eternal
sustainers of this luminous life which exists as it were behind all these
phenomena."
It
is they -- the "Seven Hosts" -- who, having "considered in their
Father (divine Thought) the plan of the operator," as says Pymander,
desired to operate (or build the world with its creatures) likewise; for,
having been born "within the sphere of operation" -- the manifesting
Universe -- such is the Manvantaric LAW. And now comes the second portion of
the passage, or rather of two passages merged into one to conceal the full
meaning. Those who were born within the sphere of operation were "the
brothers who loved him well." The latter -- the "him" -- were
the primordial angels: the Asuras, the Ahriman, the Elohim -- or "Sons of
God," of whom Satan was one -- all those spiritual beings who were called
the "Angels of Darkness," because that darkness is absolute light, a
fact now neglected if not entirely forgotten in theology. Nevertheless, the
spirituality of those much abused "Sons of Light" which is Darkness,
must be evidently as great in comparison with that of the Angels next in order,
as the ethereality of the latter would be, when contrasted with the density of
the human body. The former are the "First-born"; therefore so near to
the confines of pure quiescent Spirit as to be merely the "PRIVATIONS"
-- in the Aristotelian sense -- the ferouers or the ideal types of those who
followed. They could not create material, corporeal things; and, therefore,
were said in process of time to have refused to create, as commanded by
"God" -- otherwise, TO HAVE REBELLED.
Perchance,
this is justified on that principle of the Scientific theory which teaches us
about light and sound and the effect of two waves of equal length meeting.
"If the two sounds be of the same intensity, their coincidence produces a
sound four times the intensity of either, while their interference produces
absolute silence."
Explaining
some of the "heresies" of his day, Justin Martyr shows the identity
of all the world religions at their starting points. The first beginning opens
invariably with the unknown and PASSIVE deity, from which emanates a certain
active power or virtue, the Mystery that is sometimes called WISDOM, sometimes
the SON, very often God, Angel, Lord, and LOGOS.* The latter is sometimes
applied to the very first emanation, but in several systems it proceeds from
the first androgyne or double ray produced at the beginning by the unseen.
Philo depicts this wisdom as male and female. But though its first
manifestation
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] the chariots attached to Dhruva (the pole star),
Parasara speaks of "the chariots of the NINE planets," which are
attached by aerial cords.
*
Justin: "Cum. Trypho," p. 284.
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[[Vol.
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had
a beginning, for it proceeded from Oulom* (Aion, time), the highest of the
AEons when emitted from the Father, it had remained with him before all
creations, for it is part of him.** Therefore, Philo Judaeus calls Adam Kadmon
"mind" (the Ennoia of Bythos in the Gnostic system). "The mind,
let it be named Adam.***
As
the old Magian books explain it, the whole event becomes clear. A thing can
only exist through its opposite -- Hegel teaches us, and only a little
philosophy and spirituality are needed to comprehend the origin of the later
dogma, which is so truly satanic and infernal in its cold and cruel wickedness.
The Magians accounted for the origin of evil in their exoteric teachings in
this way. "Light can produce nothing but light, and can never be the
origin of evil"; how then was the evil produced, since there was nothing
co-equal or like the Light in its production? Light, say they, produced several
Beings, all of them spiritual, luminous, and powerful. But a GREAT ONE (the
"Great Asura," Ahriman, Lucifer, etc., etc.) had an evil thought,
contrary to the Light. He doubted, and by that doubt he became dark.
This
is a little nearer to the truth, but still wide of the mark. There was no
"EVIL thought" that originated the opposing Power, but simply THOUGHT
per se; something which, being cogitative, and containing design and purpose,
is therefore finite, and must thus find itself naturally in opposition to pure
quiescence, the as natural state of absolute Spirituality and Perfection. It
was simply the law of Evolution that asserted itself; the progress of mental
unfolding, differentiated from spirit, involved and entangled already with
matter, into which it is irresistibly drawn. Ideas, in their very nature and
essence, as conceptions bearing relation to objects, whether true or imaginary,
are opposed to absolute THOUGHT, that unknowable ALL of whose mysterious operations
Mr. Spencer predicates that nothing can be said, but that "it has no
kinship of nature with Evolution" (Principles of Psychology,**** 474) --
which it certainly has not.
The
Zohar gives it very suggestively. When the "Holy One" (the Logos)
desired to create man, he called the highest host of Angels and said to them
what he wanted, but they doubted the wisdom of this desire and answered:
"Man will not continue one night in his glory" -- for
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A division indicative of time.
**
Sanchoniathon calls time the oldest AEon, Protogonos, the
"first-born."
***
Philo Judaeus: "Cain and his Birth," p. xvii.
****
It is suggestive of that spirit of paradoxical negation so conspicuous in our
day, that while the evolution hypothesis has won its rights of citizenship in
science as taught by Darwin and Haeckel, yet both the eternity of the Universe
and the pre-existence of a universal consciousness, are rejected by the modern
psychologists. "Should the Idealist be right, the doctrine of evolution is
a dream," says Mr. Herbert Spencer. (See foot note, pp. 1 and 2, Book II.)
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[[Vol.
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which
they were burnt (annihilated?), by the "Holy" Lord. Then he called
another, lower Host, and said the same. And they contradicted the "Holy
One": "What is the good of Man?" they argued. Still Elohim
created man, and when man sinned there came the hosts of Uzza and Azael, and
twitted God: "Here is the Son of Man that thou hast made," they said.
"Behold, he sinned!" Then the Holy One replied: "If you had been
among them (men) you would have been worse than they." And he threw them
from their exalted position in Heaven even down on the Earth; and "they
were changed (into men) and sinned after the women of the earth"; (Zohar,
9, b.). This is quite plain. No mention is made in Genesis of these "Sons
of God" (chap. vi.) having been punished for it. The only reference to it
in the Bible is in Jude (6). "And the angels which kept not their first
estate but left their habitation, he hath reserved in everlasting chains under
darkness unto the judgment of the great day." And this means simply that
the "Angels," doomed to incarnation, are in the chains of flesh and
matter, under the darkness of ignorance, till the "Great Day," which
will come as always after the seventh round, after the expiration of the
"Week," on the SEVENTH SABBATH, or in the post-Manvantaric Nirvana.
How
truly esoteric and consonant with the Secret Doctrine is "PYMANDER the
Thought Divine" of Hermes, may be inferred from its original and primitive
translations in Latin and Greek only. On the other hand how disfigured it has
been later on by Christians in Europe, is seen from the remarks and unconscious
confessions made by de St. Marc, in his Preface and letter to the Bishop of
Ayre, in 1578. Therein, the whole cycle of transformations from a Pantheistic
and Egyptian into a mystic Roman Catholic treatise is given, and we see how
PYMANDER has become what it is now. Still, even in St. Marc's translation,
traces are found of the real PYMANDER -- the "Universal Thought" or
"MIND." This is the verbatim translation from the old French translation,
the original being given in the foot-note* in its quaint old French:--
"Seven
men (principles) were generated in Man." "The nature of the harmony
of the Seven of the Father and of the Spirit. Nature . . . .
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"SECTION 16 (chap. i., Mercure Trismegiste -- PIMANDRE . . . . "
"Oh, ma pensee, que s'ensuit il? car je desire grandement ce propos.
Pimandre dict, ceci est un mystere cele, jusques a ce jour d'hui. Car nature,
soit mestant avec l'home, a produit le miracle tres merveilleux, aiant celluy
qui ie t'ay dict, la nature de l'harmonie des sept du pere, et de l'esprit.
Nature ne s'arresta pas la, mais incontinent a produict sept homes, selon les
natures des sept gouverneurs en puissance des deux sexes et esleuez. . . . La
generation de ces sept s'est donnee en ceste maniere . . . ."
And
a gap is made in the translation, which can be filled partially by resorting to
the Latin text of Apuleius. The commentator, the Bishop, says: "Nature
produced in him (man) seven men" (seven principles).
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[[Vol.
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produced
seven men in accordance with the seven natures of the Seven Spirits"
"having in them, potentially, the two sexes."
Metaphysically,
the Father and the Son are the "Universal Mind" and the
"periodical Universe"; the "Angel" and the "Man."
It is the SON and the FATHER at one and the same time; in Pymander, the active
IDEA and the passive THOUGHT that generates it; the radical key-note in Nature
which gives birth to the seven notes -- the septenary scale of the creative
Forces, and to the seven prismatic aspects of colour, all born from the one
white ray, or LIGHT -- itself generated in DARKNESS.
------
C.
THE
MANY MEANINGS OF THE "WAR IN HEAVEN."
The
Secret Doctrine points out, as a self-evident fact, that Mankind, collectively
and individually, is, with all manifested nature, the vehicle (a) of the breath
of One Universal Principle, in its primal differentiation; and (b) of the
countless "breaths" proceeding from that One BREATH in its secondary
and further differentiations, as Nature with its many mankinds proceeds
downwards toward the planes that are ever increasing in materiality. The
primary Breath informs the higher Hierarchies; the secondary -- the lower, on
the constantly descending planes.
Now
there are many passages in the Bible which prove on their face, exoterically,
that this belief was at one time Universal; and the most convincing are the two
chapters Ezekiel xxviii. and Isaiah xiv. Christian theologians are welcome to
interpret both as referring to the great War before Creation, the Epos of
Satan's rebellion, etc., if they so choose, but the absurdity of the idea is
too apparent. Ezekiel addresses his lamentations and reproofs to the King of
Tyre; Isaiah -- to King Ahaz, who indulged in the worship of idols, as did the
rest of the nation, with the exception of a few Initiates (the Prophets, so
called), who tried to arrest it on its way to exotericism, or idolatry, which
is the same thing. Let the student judge.
In
Ezekiel xxviii. it is said, "Son of Man, say unto the prince of Tyrus,
thus saith the Lord God (as we understand it, the "god" KARMA):
Because thine heart is lifted up, and thou hast said I am a God . . . . and yet
thou art a man . . . . behold I shall bring strangers upon thee . . . . and
they shall draw their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom . . . . and they
shall bring thee down to the pit . . . ." or Earth-life.
The
origin of the "prince of Tyrus" is to be traced to, and sought in
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[[Vol.
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the
"divine Dynasties" of the iniquitous Atlanteans, the Great Sorcerers
(See last Comments, on Stanza XII., verses 47-49). There is no metaphor in the
words of Ezekiel, but actual history, this time. For the voice in the prophet,
the voice of the "Lord," his own Spirit, which spake unto him,
says:-- "Because thou hast said, 'I am a God, I sit in the seat of God(s)
-- (divine Dynasties), in the midst of the seas,' yet thou art a man. . . . .
Behold thou art wiser than Daniel; there is no secret that they can hide from
thee: with thy wisdom . . . thou hast increased thy riches, and thine heart is
lifted up because of thy riches. Behold therefore . . . strangers shall draw
their swords against the beauty of thy wisdom . . . they shall bring thee down
. . . and thou shalt die the deaths of them that are slain in the midst of the
seas." (Verses 3-8.) All such imprecations are not prophecy, but simply
reminders of the fate of the Atlanteans, the "Giants on Earth."
What
can be the meaning of this last sentence if it is not a narrative of the fate
of the Atlanteans? Verse 17 saying, "thine heart was lifted up because of
thy beauty," may refer to the "Heavenly Man" in Pymander, or to
the Fallen Angels, who are accused of having fallen through pride on account of
the great beauty and wisdom which became their lot. There is no metaphor here,
except in the preconceived ideas of our theologians, perhaps. These verses
relate to the Past and belong more to the Knowledge acquired at the mysteries
of Initiation than to retrospective clairvoyance! Says the voice, again:--
"Thou
hast been in Eden, the garden of God (in the Satya Yuga) every precious stone
was thy covering . . . . the workmanship of thy tabrets and thy pipes was
prepared in thee in the day thou was created. . . Thou art the anointed cherub
. . . thou hast walked up and down in the midst of the stones of fire . . .
thou wast perfect in thy ways from the day that thou wast created, till
iniquity was found in thee. Therefore I will cast thee out of the mountain of
God and destroy thee. . . . "
The
"Mountain of God" means the "Mountain of the Gods" or Meru,
whose representative in the Fourth Race was Mount Atlas, the last form of one
of the divine Titans, so high in those days that the ancients believed that the
heavens rested on its top. Did not Atlas assist the giants in their war against
the gods? (Hyginus). Another version shows the fable as arising from the
fondness of Atlas, son of Iapetus and Clymene, for astronomy, and from his
dwelling for that reason on the highest mountain peaks. The truth is that
Atlas, "the mountain of the gods," and also the hero of that name,
are the esoteric symbols of the Fourth Race, and his seven daughters, the
Atlantides, are the symbols of its Seven Sub-races. Mount Atlas, according to
all the legends, was three times as high as it is now; having sunk at two
different times. It is of a volcanic origin, and therefore the voice
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[[Vol.
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within
Ezekiel says: "I will bring forth a fire from the midst of thee, it shall
devour thee," etc. (v. 18). Surely it does not mean, as seems to be the
case from the translated texts, that this fire was to be brought from the midst
of the Prince of Tyrus, or his people, but from Mount Atlas, symbolising the
proud race, learned in magic and high in arts and civilization, whose last
remnant was destroyed almost at the foot of the range of those once gigantic
mountains.
Truly,
"thou shalt be a terror, and never shalt thou be any more"; as the
very name of the race and its fate is now annihilated from man's memory. Bear
in mind, that almost every ancient King and priest was an initiate; that from
toward the close of the Fourth Race there had been a feud between the Initiates
of the Right and those of the Left Path; finally, that the garden of Eden is
referred to by other personages than the Jews of the Adamic race, since even
Pharaoh is compared to the fairest tree of Eden by this same Ezekiel, who shows
"all the trees of Eden, the choicest and best of Lebanon, . . . comforted
in the nether parts of the earth . . .," for "they also went down
into hell with him" (Pharaoh)* unto the nether parts, which are in fact
the bottom of the ocean, whose floor gaped wide to devour the lands of the Atlanteans
and themselves. If one bears all this in mind and compares the various
accounts, then one will find out that the whole of chapters xxviii. and xxxi.
of Ezekiel relate neither to Babylon, Assyria, nor yet Egypt, since none of
these have been so destroyed, but simply fell into ruins on the surface, not
beneath the earth -- but indeed to Atlantis and most of its nations. And he
will see that the "garden of Eden" of the Initiates was no myth, but
a locality now submerged. Light will dawn upon him, and he will appreciate such
sentences as these at their true esoteric value: "Thou hast been in Eden;
. . . thou wast upon the holy mountain of God" -- for every nation had and
many still have holy mountains: some, Himalayan Peaks, others, Parnassus, and
Sinai. They were all places of initiation and the abodes of the chiefs of the
communities of ancient and even modern adepts. And again: "Behold, the
Assyrian (why not Atlantean, Initiate?) was a cedar in Lebanon; . . . his
height was exalted above all the trees; . . . . the cedars in the garden of God
could not hide him, . . . so that all the trees of Eden . . . . envied
him" (Ezekiel xxxi. 3-9).
Throughout
all Asia Minor, the Initiates were called the "trees of
Righteousness," and the cedars of Lebanon, as also were some kings of
Israel. So were the great adepts in India, but only the adepts of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The only Pharaoh whom the Bible shows going down into the Red Sea was the king
who pursued the Israelites, and who remained unnamed, for very good reasons,
perhaps. The story was surely made up from the Atlantean legend.
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[[Vol.
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left
hand. When Vishnu Purana narrates that "the world was overrun with
trees," while the Prachetasas -- who "passed 10,000 years of
austerity in the vast ocean" -- were absorbed in their devotions, the
allegory relates to the Atlanteans and the adepts of the early Fifth Race --
the Aryans. Other "trees (adept Sorcerers) spread, and overshadowed the
unprotected earth; and the people perished . . . unable to labour for ten
thousand years." Then the sages, the Rishis of the Aryan race, called
Prachetasas, are shown "coming forth from the deep,"* and destroying
by the wind and flame issuing from their mouths, the iniquitous
"trees" and the whole vegetable kingdom; until Soma (the moon), the
sovereign of the vegetable world, pacifies them by making alliance with the
adepts of the Right Path, to whom he offers as bride Marisha, "the
offspring of the trees."** This means that which is given in the Stanzas
and Commentaries, and what is also given in Part II. of Vol. I., "The
Sacred Island." It hints at the great struggle between the "Sons of
God" and the Sons of the Dark Wisdom -- our forefathers; or the Atlantean
and the Aryan Adepts.
The
whole History of that period is allegorized in the Ramayana, which is the
mystic narrative in epic form of the struggle between Rama -- the first king of
the divine dynasty of the early Aryans -- and Ravana, the symbolical
personation of the Atlantean (Lanka) race. The former were the incarnations of
the Solar Gods; the latter, of the lunar Devas. This was the great battle
between Good and Evil, between white and black magic, for the supremacy of the
divine forces, or of the lower terrestrial or cosmic powers. If the student
would understand better the last statement, let him turn to the Anugita episode
of the Mahabharata, chapter v., where the Brahmana tells his wife, "I have
perceived by means of the Self the seat abiding in the Self -- (the seat) where
dwells the Brahman free from the pairs of opposites and the moon, together with
the fire (or the sun), upholding (all) beings (as), the mover of the
intellectual principle." The moon is the deity of the mind (Manas) but
only on the lower plane. "Manas is dual -- lunar in the lower, solar in
its upper portion," says a commentary. That is to say, it is attracted in
its higher aspect towards Buddhi, and in its
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vishnu Purana, Book I., ch. xv.
**
This is pure allegory. The waters are a symbol of wisdom and of occult
learning. Hermes represented the sacred Science under the symbol of fire; the
Northern Initiates, under that of water. The latter is the production of Nara,
the "Spirit of God," or rather Paramatman, the "Supreme
Soul," says Kulluka Bhatta, Narayana, meaning "he who abides in the
deep" or plunged in the Waters of Wisdom -- "water being the body of
Nara" (Vayu). Hence arises the statement that for 10,000 years they
remained in austerity "in the vast Ocean"; and are shown emerging
from it. Ea, the God of Wisdom, is the "Sublime Fish," and Dagon or
Oannes is the Chaldean man-fish, who emerges from the waters to teach wisdom.
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[[Vol.
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lower
descends into, and listens to the voice of its animal soul full of selfish and
sensual desires; and herein is contained the mystery of an adept's as of a
profane man's life, as also that of the post-mortem separation of the divine
from the animal man. The Ramayana -- every line of which has to be read
esoterically -- discloses in magnificent symbolism and allegory the
tribulations of both man and soul. "Within the body, in the midst of all
these life-winds (? principles), which move about in the body, and swallow up
one another,* blazes the Vaishvana fire** sevenfold, of which 'I' am the
goal," says the Brahmana.***
But
the chief "Soul" is Manas or mind; hence, Soma, the moon, is shown as
making an alliance with the solar portion in it, personified as the Prachetasas.
But of the seven keys that open the seven aspects of the Ramayana, as of every
other Scripture, this is only one -- the metaphysical.
The
symbol of the "Tree" standing for various Initiates was almost
universal. Jesus is called "the tree of Life," as also all the adepts
of the good Law, while those of the left Path are referred to as the
"withering trees." John the Baptist speaks of "the axe"
which "is laid to the root of the trees" (Matth. iii. 10); and the
King of Assyria's armies are called trees (Isaiah x. 19).
The
true meaning of the Garden of Eden was sufficiently given in "Isis
Unveiled."
The
writer has more than once heard surprise expressed that Isis should contain so
few of the doctrines now taught. This is quite erroneous. For the allusions to
such teachings are plentiful, even if the teachings themselves were still
withheld. The time had not arrived then, as the hour has not struck now to say
all. "No Atlanteans, or the Fourth Race which preceded our Fifth Race, are
mentioned in 'Isis Unveiled,' " a critic on "Esoteric Buddhism"
wrote one day. I, who wrote Isis Unveiled, maintain that the Atlanteans are
mentioned as our predecessors, namely, in Volume I., p. 133, when speaking of
the Book of Job. For what can be plainer than this: "In the original text,
instead of 'dead things,' it is written dead Rephaim, giants, or mighty
primitive men, from whom 'Evolution' may one day trace our present race."
It is invited to do so now, now that this hint is explained quite openly; but
Evolutionists are as sure to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is explained by the able translator of Anugita in a foot-note (p. 258) in
these words: "The sense appears to be this; the course of worldly life is
due to the operations of the life-winds which are attached to the SELF, and
lead to its manifestations as individual souls.
**
"Vaisvanara (or Vaishvanara) is a word often used to denote the Self"
-- explains Nilakantha. *** Translated by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A.,
Bombay.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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decline
nowadays as they did ten years ago. Science and theology are against us:
therefore we question both, and have to do so in self-defence. On the strength
of hazy metaphors scattered throughout the prophets, and in St. John's
Revelation, a grand but re-edited version of the Book of Enoch, on these
insecure grounds Christian theology built its dogmatic Epos of the War in
Heaven. It did more: it used the symbolical visions, intelligible only to the
Initiates, as pillars upon which to support the whole bulky edifice of its
religion; and now the pillars have been found very weak reeds, and the cunning
structure is foundering. The entire Christian scheme rests upon these Jakin and
Boaz -- the two contrary forces of good and evil, Christ and Satan the
[[agathai kai kakai dunameis]]. Take away from Christianity its main prop of
the Fallen Angels, and the Eden Bower vanishes with its Adam and Eve into thin
air; and Christ, in the exclusive character of the One God and Saviour, and the
victim of Atonement for the Sin of animal-man, becomes forthwith a useless,
meaningless myth.
In
an old number of the Revue Archaeologique for the year 1845 (p. 41), a French
writer, M. Maury, remarks:-- "This universal strife between good and bad
spirits seems to be only the reproduction of another more ancient and more
terrible strife, that, according to an ancient myth, took place before the creation
of the universe, between the faithful and the rebellious legions."
Once
more, it is a simple question of priority. Had John's Revelation been written
during the Vedic period, and were not one sure now of its being simply another
version of the Book of Enoch and the Dragon legends of pagan antiquity -- the
grandeur and the beauty of the imagery might have biased the critics' opinion
in favour of the Christian interpretation of that first war, whose battle field
was starry Heaven, and the first slaughterers -- the Angels. As the matter
stands now, however, one has to trace Revelation, event by event, to other and
far older visions. For the better comprehension of the Apocalyptic allegories
and of the esoteric epos we ask the reader to turn to Revelation, and to read
chapter xii., from verse 1 to verse 7.
This
has several meanings, most of which have been found out with regard to the
astronomical and numerical keys of this universal myth. That which may be given
now, is a fragment, a few hints as to its secret meaning, as embodying the
record of a real war, the struggle between the Initiates of the two schools.
Many and various are the still existing allegories built on that same
foundation stone. The true narrative, that which gives the full esoteric meaning,
is in the Secret books, but the writer has had no access to these.
In
the exoteric works, however, the episode of the Taraka war, and some esoteric
commentaries, may offer a clue perhaps. In every Purana
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
event is described with more or less variations, which show its allegorical
character.
In
the Mythology of the earliest Vedic Aryans as in the later Puranic narratives,
mention is made of Budha, the "Wise"; one "learned in the Secret
Wisdom," and who is the planet Mercury in his euhemerization. The Hindu
Classical Dictionary credits Budha with being the author of a hymn in the Rig
Veda. Therefore, he can by no means be "a later fiction of the
Brahmins," but is a very old personation indeed.
It
is by inquiring into his genealogy, or theogony, rather, that the following
facts are disclosed. As a myth, he is the son of Tara, the wife of Brihaspati
the "gold coloured," and of "Soma" the (male) Moon, who,
Paris-like, carries this new Helen of the Hindu sidereal Kingdom away from her
husband, which causes a great strife and war in Swarga (Heaven). The episode
brings on a battle between the gods and the Asuras: King Soma, finds allies in
Usanas (Venus), the leader of the Danavas; and the gods are led by Indra and
Rudra, who side with Brihaspati. The latter is helped by Sankara (Siva), who,
having had for his guru Brihaspati's father, Angiras, befriends his son. Indra
is here the Indian prototype of Michael, the Archistrategus and the slayer of
the "Dragon's" angels -- since one of his names is Jishnu
"leader of the (celestial) Host." Both fight, as some Titans did
against other Titans in defence of revengeful gods, one -- of Jupiter tonans
(in India, Brihaspati is the planet Jupiter, which is a curious coincidence);
the other, in support of the ever-thundering Rudra Sankara. During this war, he
is deserted by his body-guard, the storm-gods (Maruts). The story is very
suggestive in some of its details.
Let
us examine some of them, and seek to discover their meaning.
The
presiding genius, or "regent" of the planet Jupiter is Brihaspati,
the wronged husband. He is the instructor or spiritual guru of the gods, who
are the representatives of the procreative powers. In the Rig Veda, he is
called Brahmanaspati, a name meaning "the deity in whom the action of the
worshipped upon the gods is personified." Hence Brahmanaspati represents
the materialization of the divine grace, so to say, by means of ritual and
ceremonies, or the exoteric worship.
"TARA"*
-- his wife -- is on the other hand the personification of the powers of one
initiated into Gupta Vidya (secret knowledge), as will be shown.
SOMA
is the moon astronomically; but in mystical phraseology, it is also the name of
the sacred beverage drunk by the Brahmins and the Initiates during their
mysteries and sacrificial rites. The "Soma" plant is the asclepias
acida, which yields a juice from which that mystic beverage,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Dowson's Classical Dictionary.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 499 ALLEGORIES ON THE "WAR IN HEAVEN."
the
Soma drink, is made. Alone the descendants of the Rishis, the Agnihotri (the
fire priests) of the great mysteries knew all its powers. But the real property
of the true Soma was (and is) to make a new man of the Initiate, after he is
reborn, namely once that he begins to live in his astral body (See "The
Elixir of Life"*); for, his spiritual nature overcoming the physical, he
would soon snap it off and part even from that etherealized form.**
Soma
was never given in days of old to the non-initiated Brahman -- the simple
Grihasta, or priest of the exoteric ritual. Thus Brihaspati -- "guru of
the gods" though he was -- still represented the dead-letter form of
worship. It is Tara his wife -- the symbol of one who, though wedded to
dogmatic worship, longs for true wisdom -- who is shown as initiated into his
mysteries by King Soma, the giver of that Wisdom. Soma is thus made in the
allegory to carry her away. The result of this is the birth of Budha -- esoteric
Wisdom -- (Mercury, or Hermes in Greece and Egypt). He is represented as
"so beautiful," that even the husband, though well aware that Budha
is not the progeny of his dead-letter worship -- claims the
"new-born" as his Son, the fruit of his ritualistic and meaningless
forms.*** Such is, in brief, one of the meanings of the allegory.
War
in Heaven refers to several events of that kind on various and different planes
of being. The first is a purely astronomical and cosmical fact pertaining to
cosmogony. Mr. John Bentley thought that with the Hindus war in Heaven is only
a figure referring to their calculations of time periods (see Bentley's Hindu
Astronomy).****
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See "Five Years of Theosophy."
**
The partaker of Soma finds himself both linked to his external body, and yet
away from it in his spiritual form. The latter, freed from the former, soars
for the time being in the ethereal higher regions, becoming virtually "as
one of the gods," and yet preserving in his physical brain the memory of
what he sees and learns. Plainly speaking, Soma is the fruit of the Tree of
Knowledge forbidden by the jealous Elohim to Adam and Eve or Yah-ve, "lest
Man should become as one of us."
***
We see the same in the modern exoteric religions.
****
"Historical Views of Hindu Astronomy." Quoting from the work in
reference to Aryachatta, who is said to give a near approach to the true
relation among the various values for the computations of the value of [[pi]],
the author of the "Source of Measures" reproduces a curious
statement. Mr. Bentley, it is said, "was greatly familiar with the Hindu
astronomical and mathematical knowledge . . . this statement of his then may be
taken as authentic: the same remarkable trait, among so many Eastern and
ancient nations of sedulously concealing the arcana of this kind of knowledge,
is a marked one among the Hindus. That which was given out to be popularly
taught and to be exposed to public inspection, was but the approximate of a
more exact but hidden knowledge. And this very formulation of Mr. Bentley will
strangely exemplify the assertion; and explained, will show that it (the Hindu
exoteric astronomy and sciences) was derived from a system exact beyond the
European one, in which Mr. Bentley himself, of [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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This
served as a prototype, he thinks, for the Western nations to build their war of
the Titans upon. The author is not quite wrong, but neither is he quite right.
If the sidereal prototype refers indeed to a pre-manvantaric period, and rests
entirely on the Knowledge claimed by the Aryan Initiates of the whole programme
and progress of cosmogony,* the war of the Titans is but a legendary and
deified copy of the real war that took place in the Himalayan Kailasa (heaven)
instead of in the depths of Cosmic interplanetary Space. It is the record of
the terrible strife between the "Sons of God" and the "Sons of
the Shadow" of the Fourth and the Fifth Races. It is on these two events,
blended together by legends borrowed from the exoteric account of the war waged
by the Asuras against the gods, that every subsequent national tradition on the
subject has been built.
Esoterically,
the Asuras, transformed subsequently into evil Spirits and lower gods, who are
eternally at war with the great deities -- are the gods of the Secret Wisdom.
In the oldest portions of the Rig Veda, they are the spiritual and the divine,
the term Asura being used for the Supreme Spirit and being the same as the
great Ahura of the Zoroastrians. (See Darmesteter's VENDIDAD). There was a time
when the gods Indra, Agni, and Varuna themselves belonged to the Asuras.
In
the Aitareya Brahmana, the breath (asu) of Brahma-Prajapati became alive, and
from that breath he created the Asuras. Later on, after the war, the Asuras are
called the enemies of the gods, hence -- "A-suras," the initial
"A" being a negative prefix -- or "no-gods" -- the
"gods" being referred to as "Suras." This then connects the
Asuras and their "Hosts," enumerated further on, with the
"Fallen Angels" of the Christian Churches, a hierarchy of spiritual
Beings to be found in every Pantheon of ancient and even modern nations -- from
the Zoroastrian down to that of the Chinaman. They are the sons of the primeval
Creative Breath at the beginning of every new Maha Kalpa, or Manvantara; in the
same rank as the Angels who had remained "faithful." These were the
allies of Soma (the parent of the Esoteric Wisdom) as against Brihaspati
(representing ritualistic or ceremonial
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] course, trusted as far in advance of the Hindu
Knowledge, at any time, in any generation."
Which
is Mr. Bentley's misfortune, and does not take away from the glory of the
ancient Hindu astronomers, who were all Initiates.
*
The Secret Doctrine teaches that every event of universal importance, such as
geological cataclysms at the end of one race and the beginning of a new one,
involving a great change each time in mankind, spiritual, moral and physical --
is pre-cogitated and preconcerted, so to say, in the sidereal regions of our
planetary system. Astrology is built wholly upon this mystic and intimate
connection between the heavenly bodies and mankind; and it is one of the great
secrets of Initiation and Occult mysteries.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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worship).
Evidently they have been degraded in Space and Time into opposing powers or
demons by the ceremonialists, on account of their rebellion against hypocrisy,
sham-worship, and the dead-letter form.
Now
what is the real character of all those who fought along with them? They are
(1) the Usanas, or the "host" of the planet Venus, become now in
Roman Catholicism -- Lucifer, the genius of the "morning star" (see
Isaiah xiv., 12), the tsaba, or army of "Satan." (2) The Daityas and
Danavas are the Titans, the demons and giants whom we find in the Bible (Gen.
vi.) -- the progeny of the "Sons of God" and the "Daughters of
Men." Their generic name shows their alleged character, and discloses at
the same time the secret animus of the Brahmins: for they are the Krati-dwishas
-- the "enemies of the sacrifices" or exoteric shams. These are the
"hosts" that fought against Brihaspati, the representative of
exoteric popular and national religions; and Indra -- the god of the visible
heaven, the firmament, who, in the early Veda, is the highest god of Cosmic
heaven, the fit habitation for an extra-Cosmic and personal God, higher than
whom no exoteric worship can ever soar.
(3)
Then come the Nagas,* the Sarpa (serpents or Seraphs). These, again, show their
character by the hidden meaning of their glyph. In Mythology they are
semi-divine beings with a human face and the tail of a Dragon. They are therefore,
undeniably, the Jewish seraphim (from Serapis and Sarpa, Serpent); the plural
being saraph, "burning, fiery" (See Isaiah, vi. 23). Christian and
Jewish angelology distinguishes between the Seraphim and the Cherubim or
Cherubs, who come second in order; esoterically, and Kabalistically, they are
identical; the cherubim being simply the name for the images or likenesses of
any of the divisions of the celestial hosts. Now, as said before, the Dragons
and Nagas were the names given to the Initiates-hermits, on account of their
great Wisdom and Spirituality and their living in caves. Thus, when Ezekiel
applies the adjective of Cherub to the King of Tyre, and tells him that by his
wisdom and his understanding there is no secret that can be hidden from him (v.
3, 4, xxviii.), he shows to an Occultist that it is a "prophet,"
perhaps, still a follower of exoteric worship, who fulminates against an
Initiate of another school and not against an imaginary Lucifer, a fallen
cherub from the stars, and then from the garden of Eden. Thus the so-called
"war" is, in one of its many meanings, also an allegorical record of
the strife between the two classes of adepts -- of the right and of the left
path. There were three classes of Rishis in India, who were
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Nagas are described by the Orientalists as a mysterious people whose
landmarks are found abundantly in India to this day, and who lived in Naga
dwipa one of the Seven continents or divisions of Bharatavarsha (old India),
the town of Nagpur being one of the most ancient cities in the country.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
earliest adepts known; the royal, or Rajarshis, kings and princes, who adopted
the ascetic life; the Devarshis, divine, or the sons of Dharma or Yoga; and
Brahmarshis, descendants of those Rishis who were the founders of gotras of
Brahmans, or caste-races. Now, leaving the mythical and astronomical keys for
one moment aside, the secret teachings show many Atlanteans who belonged to
these divisions; and there were strifes and wars between them, de facto and de
jure. Narada, one of the greatest Rishis, was a Devarishi; and he is shown in
constant and everlasting feud with Brahma, Daksha, and other gods and sages.
Therefore we may safely maintain that whatever the astronomical meaning of this
universally accepted legend, its human phase is based on real and historical
events, disfigured into a theological dogma only to suit ecclesiastical
purposes. As above so below. Sidereal phenomena, and the behaviour of the
celestial bodies in the heavens, were taken as a model, and the plan was
carried out below, on earth. Thus, space, in its abstract sense, was called
"the realm of divine knowledge," and by the Chaldees or Initiates Ab
Soo, the habitat (or Father, i.e., the source) of knowledge, because it is in
space that dwell the intelligent Powers which invisibly rule the Universe.*
In
the same manner and on the plan of the Zodiac in the upper Ocean or the
heavens, a certain realm on Earth, an inland sea, was consecrated and called
"the Abyss of Learning"; twelve centres on it in the shape of twelve
small islands representing the Zodiacal signs -- two of which remained for ages
the "mystery signs"** and were the abodes of twelve Hierophants and
masters of wisdom. This "sea of knowledge" or learning*** remained
for ages there, where now stretches the Shamo, or Gobi desert. It existed until
the last great glacial period, when a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Not less suggestive are the qualities attributed to Rudra Siva, the great Yogi,
the forefather of all the Adepts -- in Esotericism one of the greatest Kings of
the Divine Dynasties. Called "the Earliest" and the "Last,"
he is the patron of the Third, Fourth, and the Fifth Root-Races. For, in his
earliest character, he is the ascetic Dig-ambara, "clothed with the
Elements," Trilochana, "the three-eyed"; Pancha-anana, "the
five-faced," an allusion to the past four and the present fifth race, for,
though five-faced, he is only "four-armed," as the fifth race is
still alive. He is the "God of Time," Saturn-Kronos, as his damaru
(drum), in the shape of an hour-glass, shows; and if he is accused of having
cut off Brahma's fifth head, and left him with only four, it is again an
allusion to a certain degree in initiation, and also to the Races.
**
G. Seiffarth's idea that the signs of the Zodiac were in ancient times only ten
is erroneous. Ten only were known to the profane; the initiates, however, knew
them all, from the time of the separation of mankind into sexes, whence arose
the separation of Virgo-Scorpio into two; which, owing to a secret sign added
and the Libra invented by the Greeks, instead of the secret name which was not
given, made 12. (Vide Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 456.)
***
The above is, perhaps, a key to the Dalai-Lama's symbolical name -- the
"Ocean" lama, meaning the Wisdom Ocean. Abbe Huc speaks of it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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local
cataclysm, which swept the waters south and west and so formed the present
great desolate desert, left only a certain oasis, with a lake and one island in
the midst of it, as a relic of the Zodiacal Ring on Earth. For ages the watery
abyss -- which, with the nations that preceded the later Babylonians, was the
abode of the "great mother" (the terrestrial post-type of the
"great mother chaos" in heaven), the parent of Ea (Wisdom), himself
the early prototype of Oannes, the man-Fish of the Babylonians -- for ages,
then, the "Abyss" or Chaos was the abode of wisdom and not of evil.
The struggle of Bel and then of Merodach, the Sun-god, with Tiamat, the Sea and
its Dragon, a "war" which ended in the defeat of the latter, has a
purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as an historical one. It is a
page torn out of the History of the Secret and Sacred Sciences, their evolution,
growth and DEATH -- for the profane masses. It relates (a) to the systematic
and gradual drying up of immense territories by the fierce Sun at a certain
pre-historic period; one of the terrible droughts which ended by a gradual
transformation of once fertile lands abundantly watered into the sandy deserts
which they are now; and (b) to the as systematic persecution of the Prophets of
the Right Path by those of the Left. The latter, having inaugurated the birth
and evolution of the sacerdotal castes, have finally led the world into all
these exoteric religions, invented to satisfy the depraved tastes of the
"hoi polloi" and the ignorant for ritualistic pomp and the
materialization of the ever-immaterial and Unknowable Principle.
This
was a certain improvement on the Atlantean sorcery, the memory of which lingers
in the remembrances of all the literary and Sanskrit-speaking portion of India,
as well as in the popular legends. Still it was a parody on, and the
desecration of the Sacred Mysteries and their science. The rapid progress of
anthropomorphism and idolatry led the early Fifth, as it had already led the
Fourth Race, into sorcery once more, though on a smaller scale. Finally, even
the four "Adams" (symbolizing under other names the four preceding
races) were forgotten; and passing from one generation into another, each
loaded with some additional myths, got at last drowned in that ocean of popular
symbolism called the Pantheons. Yet they exist to this day in the oldest Jewish
traditions, as the Tzelem, "the Shadow-Adam" (the Chhayas of our
doctrine); the "model" Adam, the copy of the first, and the
"male and female" of the exoteric genesis (chap. i.); the third, the
"earthly Adam" before the Fall, an androgyne; and the Fourth -- the
Adam after his fall, i.e., separated into sexes, or the pure Atlantean. The
Adam of the garden of Eden, or the forefather of our race -- the fifth -- is an
ingenious compound of the above four. As stated in Zohar (iii., fol. 4, col.
14, Cremona Ed.) Adam, the FIRST man, is not found
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[[Vol.
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now
on earth, he "is not found in all, below." Because, "where does
the lower earth come from? From the chain of the Earth, and heaven above,"
i.e., from the superior globes, those which precede and are above our Earth.
"And there came out from it (the chain) creatures of all kinds. Some of
them in (solid) skins, some in shells (Klippoth) . . . some in red shells, some
in black, some in white, and some of other colours . . . " (See Qabbalah).
As
in the Chaldean Cosmogony of Berosus and the Stanzas just given, some treatises
on the Kabala speak of creatures with two faces, some with four, and some with
one face: for "the highest Adam did not come down in all the countries, or
produce progeny and have many wives," but is a Mystery.
So
is the Dragon a mystery. Truly, says Rabbi Simeon Ben-Iochai, that to
understand the meaning of the Dragon is not given to the "Companions"
(students, or chelas), but only to "the little ones," i.e., the
perfect Initiates.* "The work of the beginning the companions understand;
but it is only the little ones who understand the parable on the work in the
Principium by the mystery of the serpent of the Great Sea."** And those
Christians, who may happen to read this, will also understand by the light of
the above sentence who their "Christ" was. For Jesus states
repeatedly that he who "shall not receive the Kingdom of God as a little
child, he shall not enter therein"; and if some of his sayings have been
meant to apply to children without any metaphor, most of what relates to the
"little ones" in the Gospels, related to the Initiates, of whom Jesus
was one. Paul (Saul) is referred to in the Talmud as "the little
one."
That
"Mystery of the Serpent" was this: Our Earth, or rather terrestrial
life, is often referred to in the Secret Teachings as the great Sea, "the
sea of life" having remained to this day a favourite metaphor. The Siphrah
Dzeniouta speaks of primeval chaos and the evolution of the Universe after a
destruction (pralaya), comparing it to an uncoiling serpent:-- "Extending
hither and thither, its tail in its mouth, the head twisting on its neck, it is
enraged and angry. . . It watches and conceals itself. Every thousand Days it
is manifested." (I., § 16).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Such was the name given in ancient Judea to the Initiates, called also the
"Innocents" and the "Infants," i.e., once more reborn. This
key opens a vista into one of the New Testament mysteries; the slaughter by
Herod of the 40,000 "Innocents." There is a legend to this effect,
and the event which took place almost a century B.C., shows the origin of the
tradition blended at the same time with that of Krishna and his uncle Kansa. In
the case of the N. T., Herod stands for Alexander Janneus (of Lyda), whose
persecution and murder of hundreds and thousands of Initiates led to the
adoption of the Bible story.
**
Zohar ii., 34.
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[[Vol.
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A
commentary on the Puranas says: "Ananta-Sesha is a form of Vishnu, the
Holy Spirit of Preservation, and a symbol of the Universe, on which it is supposed
to sleep during the intervals of the Days of Brahma. The seven heads of Sesha
support the Universe. . . . "
So
the Spirit of God "sleeps," is "breathing" (meracha'
pheth') over the Chaos of undifferentiated matter, before each new
"Creation." (Siphrah Dzeniouta). Now one "Day" of Brahma is
composed, as already explained, of one thousand Mahayugas; and as each
"Night" or period of rest is equal in duration to this
"day," it is easy to see to what this sentence in Siphrah Dzeniouta
refers, viz.:-- that the serpent manifests "once in a thousand days."
Nor is it more difficult to see whither the initiated writer of the Siphrah is
leading us, when he says: "Its head is broken in the waters of the great
sea, as it is written: 'Thou dividest the sea by thy strength, thou brakest the
heads of the dragons in the waters' " (lxxiv. 13). It refers to the trials
of the Initiates in this physical life, the "sea of sorrow," if read
with one key; it hints at the successive destruction of the seven spheres of a
chain of worlds in the great sea of space, when read with another key: for
every sidereal globe or sphere, every world, star, or group of stars, is called
in symbolism "the Dragon's head." But however it may read, the Dragon
was never regarded as Evil, nor was the Serpent either -- in antiquity. In the
metaphors, whether astronomical, cosmical, theogonical or simply physiological,
i.e., phallic -- the Serpent was always regarded as a divine symbol. When it is
said "The (Cosmic) Serpent which runs with 370 leaps" (Siphrah
Dzeniouta, § 33) it means the cyclic periods of the great Tropical year (25,868
years), divided in the esoteric calculation into 370 periods or cycles, as one
solar year is divided into 365 days. And if Michael was regarded by the Christians
as the Conqueror of Satan, the Dragon, it is because in the Talmud this
fighting personage is represented as the Prince of Waters, who had seven
subordinate Spirits under him -- a good reason why the Latin Church made him
the patron Saint of every promontory in Europe. In the Kabala (Siph. Dzen.) the
creative Force "makes sketches and spiral lines of his creation in the
shape of a Serpent." It "holds its tail in its mouth," because
it is the symbol of endless eternity and of cyclic periods. Its meanings, however,
would require a volume, and we must end.
Thus
the reader may now see for himself what are the several meanings of the
"War in Heaven," and of the "great dragon." The most solemn
and dreaded of church dogmas, the alpha and omega of Christian faith, and the
pillar of its FALL and ATONEMENT, dwindles down to a pagan symbol, in the many
allegories about those prehistoric struggles.
-------
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[[Vol.
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§
XIX.
IS
PLEROMA SATAN'S LAIR?
THE
subject is not yet exhausted, and has to be examined from still other aspects.
Whether
Milton's grandiose description of the three Days' Battle of the Angels of Light
against those of Darkness justifies the suspicion that he must have heard of
the corresponding Eastern tradition -- it is impossible to say. Nevertheless,
if not himself in connection with some Mystic, then it must have been through
some one who had obtained access to the secret works of the Vatican. Among
these there is a tradition of the "Beni Shamash" -- the
"children of the Sun" -- concerning the Eastern allegory, with far
more minute details in its triple version, than one can get either from the
Book of Enoch, or the far more recent Revelation of St. John about the
"Old Dragon" and his various Slayers, as just shown.
It
seems inexplicable to find, to this day, authors belonging to Mystical
Societies who yet continue in their preconceived doubts as to the
"alleged" antiquity of the "Book of Enoch." Thus, while the
author of the "Sacred Mysteries among the Mayas and Quiches" is
inclined to see in Enoch an Initiate converted to Christianity (! !) (vide p.
16), the English compiler of Eliphas Levi's works -- "The Mysteries of
Magic" -- is also of a like opinion. He remarks that: "Outside the
erudition of Dr. Kenealy, no modern scholarship attributes any more remote
antiquity to the latter work (the 'Book of Enoch') than the fourth century
B.C." (Biograph. and Critical Essay, p. xxxviii.). Modern scholarship has
been guilty of worse errors than this one. It seems but yesterday that the
greatest literary critics in Europe denied the very authenticity of that work,
together with the Orphic Hymns, and even the Book of Hermes or Thot, until
whole verses from the latter were discovered on Egyptian monuments and tombs of
the earliest dynasties. The opinion of Archbishop Laurence is quoted elsewhere.
The
"Old Dragon" and Satan, now become singly and collectively the symbol
of, and the theological term for, the "Fallen Angel," is not so
described either in the original Kabala (the Chaldean "Book of
Numbers") or in the modern. For the most learned, if not the greatest of
modern Kabalists, namely Eliphas Levi, describes Satan in the following glowing
terms:-- "It is that Angel who was proud enough to believe himself God;
brave enough to buy his independence at the price of eternal suffering and
torture; beautiful enough to have adored
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[[Vol.
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himself
in full divine light; strong enough to reign in darkness amidst agony, and to
have built himself a throne on his inextinguishable pyre. It is the Satan of
the Republican and heretical Milton. . . . . the prince of anarchy, served by a
hierarchy of pure Spirits (! ! ) . . . . "(Histoire de la Magie, 16-17)
This description -- one which reconciles so cunningly theological dogma and the
Kabalistic allegory, and even contrives to include a political compliment in its
phraseology -- is, when read in the right spirit, quite correct.
Yes,
indeed; it is this grandest of ideals, this ever-living symbol -- nay
apotheosis -- of self-sacrifice for the intellectual independence of humanity;
this ever active Energy protesting against Static Inertia -- the principle to
which Self-assertion is a crime, and Thought and the Light of Knowledge odious.
It is -- as Eliphas says with unparalleled justice and irony -- "this
pretended hero of tenebrous eternities, who, slanderously charged with
ugliness, is decorated with horns and claws, which would fit far better his
implacable tormentor -- it is he who has been finally transformed into a
serpent -- the red Dragon." But Eliphas Levi was yet too subservient to
his Roman Catholic authorities; one may add, too jesuitical, to confess that
this devil was mankind, and never had any existence on earth outside of that
mankind.*
In
this, Christian theology, although following slavishly in the steps of Paganism,
was only true to its own time-honoured policy. It had to isolate itself, and to
assert its authority. Hence it could not do better than turn every pagan deity
into a devil. Every bright sun-god of antiquity -- a glorious deity by day, and
its own opponent and adversary by night, named the Dragon of Wisdom, because it
was supposed to contain the germs of night and day -- has now been turned into
the antithetical shadow of God, and has become Satan on the sole and
unsupported authority of despotic human dogma. After which all these producers
of light and shadow, all the Sun and the Moon Gods, were cursed, and thus the
one God chosen out of the many, and Satan, were both anthropomorphised. But
theology seems to have lost sight of the human capacity for discriminating and
finally analysing all that is artificially forced upon its reverence. History
shows in every race and even tribe, especially in the Semitic nations, the
natural impulse to exalt its own tribal deity above all others to the hegemony
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
What devil could be possessed of more cunning, craft and cruelty than the
"Whitechapel murderer" "Jack the Ripper" of 1888, whose
unparalleled blood-thirsty and cool wickedness led him to slaughter and
mutilate in cold blood seven unfortunate and otherwise innocent women! One has
but to read the daily papers to find in those wife and child-beating, drunken
brutes (husbands and fathers!), a small percentage of whom is daily brought
before the courts, the complete personifications of the devils of Christian
Hell!
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[[Vol.
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of
the gods; and proves that the God of the Israelites was such a tribal God, and
no more, even though the Christian Church, following the lead of the
"chosen" people, is pleased to enforce the worship of that one
particular deity, and to anathematize all the others. Whether originally a
conscious or an unconscious blunder, nevertheless, it was one. Jehovah has ever
been in antiquity only "a god among other Gods," (lxxxii. Psalm). The
Lord appears to Abraham, and while saying, "I am the Almighty God,"
yet adds, "I will establish my covenant to be a God unto thee"
(Abraham), and unto his seed after him (Gen. xvii. 7) -- not unto Aryan
Europeans.
But
then, there was the grandiose and ideal figure of Jesus of Nazareth to be set
off against a dark background, to gain in radiance by the contrast; and a
darker one the Church could hardly invent. Lacking the Old Testament symbology,
ignorant of the real connotation of the name of Jehovah -- the rabbinical
secret substitute for the ineffable and unpronounceable name -- the Church
mistook the cunningly fabricated shadow for the reality, the anthropomorphized
generative symbol for the one Secondless Reality, the ever unknowable cause of
all. As a logical sequence the Church, for purposes of duality, had to invent
an anthropomorphic Devil -- created, as taught by her, by God himself. Satan
has now turned out to be the monster fabricated by the
"Jehovah-Frankenstein," -- his father's curse and a thorn in the
divine side -- a monster, than whom no earthly Frankenstein could have
fabricated a more ridiculous bogey.
The
author of "New Aspects of Life" describes the Jewish God very
correctly from the Kabalistic stand-point as "the Spirit of the Earth,
which had revealed itself to the Jew as Jehovah" (p. 209). "It was
that Spirit again who, after the death of Jesus, assumed his form and personated
him as the risen Christ" -- the doctrine of Cerinthius and several Gnostic
sects with slight variation, as one can see. But the author's explanations and
deductions are remarkable: "None knew . . . better than Moses . . . and so
well as he how great was the power of those (gods of Egypt) with whose priests
he had contended," he says . . . "the gods of which Jehovah is
claimed to be the God" (by the Jews only). "What were these gods,
these Achar of which Jehovah, the Achad, is claimed to be the God . . . by
overcoming them?" the author asks; to which our Occultism answers:
"those whom the Church now calls the Fallen Angels and collectively Satan,
the Dragon, overcome, if we have to accept her dictum, by Michael and the Host,
that Michael being simply Jehovah himself, one of the subordinate Spirits at
best." Therefore, the author is again right in saying: "The Greeks
believed in the existence of . . . daimons. But . . . they were anticipated by
the Hebrews, who held that
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[[Vol.
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there
was a class of personating spirits which they designated demons, 'personators.'
Admitting with Jehovah, who expressly asserts it, the existence of other gods,
which were personators of the One God, were these other gods simply a higher
class of personating spirits, which had acquired and exercised greater powers?
And is not personation the Key to the mystery of the Spirit state? But once
granting this position, how are we to know that Jehovah was not a personating
Spirit, a Spirit which arrogated to itself that it was, and thus became, the
personator of the one unknown and unknowable God? Nay, how do we know that the
Spirit calling itself Jehovah, in arrogating to itself his attributes did not
thus cause its own designation to be imputed to the One who is in reality as
nameless as incognizable?" (pp. 144-145.)
Then
the author shows "that the Spirit Jehovah is a personator" on its own
admission. It acknowledged to Moses "that it had appeared to the
patriarchs as the God Shaddai" . . . . and "the god Helion" . .
. . With the same breath it assumed the name of Jehovah; and it is on the faith
of the assertion of this personator that the names El, Eloah, Elohim, and Shaddai,
have been read and interpreted in juxtaposition with Jehovah as "the Lord
God Almighty." Then when the name Jehovah became ineffable . . . . the
designation Adonai, "Lord" was substituted for it, and" . . . .
it was owing to this substitution that the 'Lord' passed from the Jewish to the
Christian 'Word' and 'World' as a designation of God" (p. 146). And how
are we to know, the author may add, that Jehovah was not many spirits
personating even that seemingly one -- Jod or Jod-He?
But
if the Christian Church was the first to make the existence of Satan a dogma,
it was because, as shown in Isis, the Devil -- the powerful enemy of God (? !
!) had to become the corner stone of the pillar of the Church. For, as a
Theosophist, M. Jules Baissac, truly observes in his "Satan ou le
Diable" (p. 9): "Il fallait eviter de paraitre autoriser le dogme du
double principe en faisant de ce Satan createur une puissance reelle, et pour
expliquer le mal originel, on profere contre Manes l'hypothese d'une permission
de l'unique tout Puissant."* The choice and policy were unfortunate,
anyhow. Either the personator of the lower god of Abraham and Jacob ought to
have been made entirely distinct from the mystic "Father" of Jesus,
or -- the "Fallen" Angels should have been left unslandered by
further fictions.
Every
god of the Gentiles is connected with, and closely related to,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
After the polymorphic Pantheism of some Gnostics came the esoteric dualism of
Manes, who was accused of personifying Evil and creating of the Devil a God --
rival of God himself. We do not see that the Christian Church has so much
improved on that exoteric idea of the Manicheans, for she calls God her King of
Light, and Satan, the King of Darkness, to this day.
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[[Vol.
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Jehovah
-- the Elohim; for they are all One Host, whose units differ only in name in the
esoteric teachings. Between the "Obedient" and the "Fallen"
Angels there is no difference whatever, except in their respective functions,
or rather in the inertia of some, and the activity of others among those
"Dhyan Chohans" or Elohim who were "commissioned to
create," i.e., to fabricate the manifested world out of the eternal
material.
The
Kabbalists say that the true name of Satan is that of Jehovah placed upside
down, for "Satan is not a black god but the negation of the white
deity," or the light of Truth. God is light and Satan is the necessary
darkness or shadow to set it off, without which pure light would be invisible
and incomprehensible.* "For the initiates," says Eliphas Levi,
"the devil is not a person but a creative Force, for Good as for
Evil." They (the Initiates) represented this Force, which presides at
physical generation, under the mysterious form of God Pan -- or Nature: whence
the horns and hoofs of that mythical and symbolic figure, as also the Christian
"goat of the Witches' Sabbath." With regard to this too, Christians
have imprudently forgotten that the goat was also the victim selected for the
atonement of all the sins of Israel, that the scape-goat was indeed the
sacrificial martyr, the symbol of the greatest mystery on earth -- the Fall
into generation. Only the Jews have long forgotten the real meaning of their
(to the non-initiated) ridiculous hero, selected from the drama of life in the
great mysteries enacted by them in the desert; and the Christians never knew
it.
Eliphas
Levi seeks to explain the dogma of his Church by paradoxes and metaphors, but
succeeds very poorly in the face of the many volumes written by pious Roman
Catholic demonologists under the approbation and auspices of Rome, in this
nineteenth century of ours. For the true Roman Catholic, the devil or Satan is
a reality; the drama enacted in the sidereal light according to the seer of
Patmos -- who desired, perhaps, to improve upon the narrative in the "Book
of Enoch" -- is as real, and as historical a fact as any other allegory
and symbolical event in the Bible. But the Initiates give an explanation
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To quote in this relation Mr. Laing in his admirable work "Modern Science
and Modern Thought" (p. 222, 3rd Ed.): "From this dilemma (existence
of evil in the world) there is no escape, unless we give up altogether the idea
of an anthropomorphic deity, and adopt frankly the Scientific idea of a First
Cause, inscrutable and past finding out; and of a universe whose laws we can
trace, but of whose real essence we know nothing, and can only suspect, or
faintly discern a fundamental law which may make the polarity of good and evil
a necessary condition of existence." Were Science to know "the real
essence," instead of knowing nothing of it, the faint suspicion would turn
into the certitude of the existence of such a law, and the knowledge that this
law is connected with Karma.
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[[Vol.
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which
differs from that given by Eliphas Levi, whose genius and crafty intellect had
to submit to a certain compromise dictated to him from Rome.
Thus,
the true and uncompromising Kabalists admit that, for all purposes of Science
and philosophy, it is enough that the profane should know that the great magic
agent called by the followers of the Marquis de St. Martin -- the Martinists --
astral light, by the mediaeval Kabalists and Alchemists the Sidereal Virgin and
the Mysterium Magnum, and by the Eastern Occultists AEther, the reflection of
Akasa -- is that which the Church calls Lucifer. That the Latin scholastics
have succeeded in transforming the universal soul and Pleroma, the vehicle of
Light and the receptacle of all the forms, a force spread throughout the whole
Universe, with its direct and indirect effects, into Satan and his works, is no
news to any one. But now they are prepared to give out to the above-mentioned
profane even the secrets hinted at by Eliphas Levi without adequate
explanation; for the latter's policy of veiled revelations could only lead to
further superstition and misunderstanding. What, indeed, can a student of
Occultism, a beginner, gather from the following highly poetical sentences of
Eliphas Levi, as apocalyptic as the writings of any of the Alchemists?
"Lucifer,
the Astral Light . . . . is an intermediate force existing in all creation, it
serves to create and to destroy, and the Fall of Adam was an erotic
intoxication which has rendered his generation a slave to this fatal light . .
. every sexual passion that overpowers our senses is a whirlwind of that light
which seeks to drag us towards the abyss of death, Folly. Hallucinations,
visions, ecstasies are all forms of a very dangerous excitation due to this
interior phosphorus (?). Thus light, finally, is of the nature of fire, the
intelligent use of which warms and vivifies, and the excess of which, on the
contrary, dissolves and annihilates. Thus man is called upon to assume a
sovereign empire over that (astral) light and conquer thereby his immortality,
and is threatened at the same time with being intoxicated, absorbed, and
eternally destroyed by it. This light, therefore, inasmuch as it is devouring,
revengeful, and fatal, would thus really be hell-fire, the serpent of the
legend; the tormented errors of which it is full, the tears and the gnashing of
teeth of the abortive beings it devours, the phantom of life that escapes them,
and seems to mock and insult their agony, all this would be the devil or Satan
indeed." (Histoire de la Magie, p. 197).
There
is no wrong statement in all this; nothing save a superabundance of ill-applied
metaphors, as in the application of Adam -- a myth -- to the illustration of
the astral effects. Akasa -- the astral light* -- can be defined in a few
words; it is the universal Soul, the Matrix of the Universe, the
"Mysterium Magnum" from which all that exists is born by separation
or differentiation. It is the cause of existence; it
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Akasa is not the Ether of Science, as some Orientalists translate it.
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[[Vol.
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fills
all the infinite Space; is Space itself, in one sense, or both its Sixth and
Seventh principles.* But as the finite in the Infinite, as regards
manifestation, this light must have its shadowy side -- as already remarked.
And as the infinite can never be manifested, hence the finite world has to be
satisfied with the shadow alone, which its actions draw upon humanity and which
men attract and force to activity. Hence, while it is the universal Cause in
its unmanifested unity and infinity, the Astral light becomes, with regard to
Mankind, simply the effects of the causes produced by men in their sinful
lives. It is not its bright denizens --- whether they are called Spirits of
Light or Darkness -- that produce Good or Evil, but mankind itself that
determines the unavoidable action and reaction in the great magic agent. It is
mankind which has become the "Serpent of Genesis," and thus causes
daily and hourly the Fall and sin of the "Celestial Virgin" -- which
thus becomes the Mother of gods and devils at one and the same time; for she is
the ever-loving, beneficent deity to all those who stir her Soul and heart,
instead of attracting to themselves her shadowy manifested essence, called by
Eliphas Levi -- "the fatal light" which kills and destroys. Humanity,
in its units, can overpower and master its effects; but only by the holiness of
their lives and by producing good causes. It has power only on the manifested
lower principles -- the shadow of the Unknown and Incognizable Deity in Space.
But in antiquity and reality, Lucifer, or Luciferus, is the name of the angelic
Entity presiding over the light of truth as over the light of the day. In the
great Valentinian gospel Pistis Sophia (§ 361) it is taught that of the three
Powers emanating from the Holy names of the Three [[Tridunameis]], that of
Sophia (the Holy Ghost according to these gnostics -- the most cultured of
all), resides in the planet Venus or Lucifer.
Thus
to the profane, the Astral Light may be God and Devil at once --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says Johannes Tritheim, the Abbot of Spanheim, the greatest astrologer and
Kabalist of his day:-- "The art of divine magic consists in the ability to
perceive the essence of things in the light of nature (astral light), and by
using the soul-powers of the spirit to produce material things from the unseen
universe, and in such operations the Above and the Below must be brought
together and made to act harmoniously. The spirit of Nature (astral light) is a
unity, creating and forming everything, and acting through the instrumentality
of man it may produce wonderful things. Such are accomplished, if you learn to
know yourself. You will know it by the power of the spirit that is in yourself,
and accomplish it by mixing your spirit with the essence that comes out of
yourself. If you wish to succeed in such a work you must know how to separate
Spirit and Life in Nature, and, moreover, to separate the astral soul in
yourself and to make it tangible, and then the substance of the soul will
appear visibly and tangibly rendered objective by the power of the
spirit." -- (Quoted in Dr. Hartman's "Paracelsus.")
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[[Vol.
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Demon
est Deus inversus: that is to say, through every point of Infinite Space thrill
the magnetic and electrical currents of animate Nature, the life-giving and
death-giving waves, for death on earth becomes life on another plane. Lucifer
is divine and terrestrial light, the "Holy Ghost" and
"Satan," at one and the same time, visible Space being truly filled
with the differentiated Breath invisibly; and the Astral Light, the manifested
effects of the two who are one, guided and attracted by ourselves, is the Karma
of humanity, both a personal and impersonal entity: personal, because it is the
mystic name given by St. Martin to the Host of divine Creators, guides and
rulers of this planet; impersonal, as the Cause and effect of universal Life
and Death.
The
Fall was the result of man's knowledge, for his "eyes were opened."
Indeed, he was taught Wisdom and the hidden knowledge by the "Fallen
Angel," for the latter had become from that day his Manas, Mind and
Self-consciousness. In each of us that golden thread of continuous life --
periodically broken into active and passive cycles of sensuous existence on
Earth, and super-sensuous in Devachan -- is from the beginning of our
appearance upon this earth. It is the Sutratma, the luminous thread of immortal
impersonal monadship, on which our earthly lives or evanescent Egos are strung
as so many beads -- according to the beautiful expression of Vedantic
philosophy.
And
now it stands proven that Satan, or the Red Fiery Dragon, the "Lord of
Phosphorus" (brimstone was a theological improvement), and Lucifer, or
"Light-Bearer," is in us: it is our Mind -- our tempter and Redeemer,
our intelligent liberator and Saviour from pure animalism. Without this
principle -- the emanation of the very essence of the pure divine principle
Mahat (Intelligence), which radiates direct from the Divine mind -- we would be
surely no better than animals. The first man Adam was made only a living soul
(nephesh), the last Adam was made a quickening Spirit*:-- says Paul, his words
referring to the building or Creation of man. Without this quickening spirit,
or human Mind or soul, there would be no difference between man and beast; as
there is none, in fact, between animals with respect to their actions. The
tiger and the donkey, the hawk and the dove, are each one as pure and as
innocent as the other, because irresponsible. Each follows its instinct, the
tiger and the hawk killing with the same unconcern as the donkey eats a
thistle, or the dove pecks at a grain of corn. If the Fall had the significance
given to it by theology; if that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The real original text of I Corinthians, rendered Kabalistically and
esoterically would read (in Chap. xv., verses 44 and 45): "It is sown a soul
body (not 'natural' body), it is raised a spirit body." St. Paul was an
Initiate, and his words have quite a different meaning when read esoterically.
The body "is sown in weakness (passivity); it is raised in power"
(43) -- or in spirituality and intellect.
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[[Vol.
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fall
occurred as a result of an act never intended by nature, -- a sin, how about
the animals? If we are told that they procreate their species in consequence of
that same "original sin," for which God cursed the earth -- hence
everything living on it -- we will put another question. We are told by
theology, as by Science, that the animal was on earth far earlier than man? We
ask the former: How did it procreate its species, before the fruit of the Tree
of Knowledge, of the Good and the Evil, had been plucked off? As said:
"The Christians -- far less clear-sighted than the great Mystic and
Liberator whose name they have assumed, whose doctrines they have misunderstood
and travestied, and whose memory they have blackened by their deeds -- took the
Jewish Jehovah as he was, and of course strove vainly to reconcile the Gospel
of Light and Liberty with the Deity of Darkness and Submission."
("War in Heaven.")*
But,
it is sufficiently proven now that all the soi-disant evil Spirits who are
credited with having made war on the gods, are identical as personalities;
moreover, that all the ancient religions taught the same tenet save the final conclusion,
which latter differs from the Christian. The seven primeval gods had all a dual
state, one essential, the other accidental. In their essential state they were
all the "Builders" or Fashioners, the Preservers and the rulers of
this world, and in the accidental state, clothing themselves in visible
corporeality, they descended on the earth and reigned on it as Kings and
Instructors of the lower Hosts, who had incarnated once more upon it as men.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
By Godolphin Mitford, later in life, Murad Ali Bey. Born in India, the son of a
Missionary, G. Mitford was converted to Islam, and died a Mahomedan in 1884. He
was a most extraordinary Mystic, of a great learning and remarkable intelligence.
But he left the Right Path and forthwith fell under Karmic retribution. As well
shown by the author of the article quoted "The followers of the defeated
Elohim, first massacred by the victorious Jews (the Jehovites), and then
persuaded by the victorious Christians and Mohamedans, continued nevertheless.
. . Some of these scattered sects have lost even the tradition of the true
rationale of their belief -- to worship in secrecy and mystery the Principle of
Fire, Light, and Liberty. Why do the Sabean Bedouins (avowedly Monotheists when
dwelling in the Mohamedan cities) in the solitude of the desert night yet
invoke the starry 'Host of Heaven'? Why do the Yezidis, the 'Devil
Worshippers,' worship the 'Muluk-Taoos' -- The 'Lord Peacock' -- the emblem of
pride and of hundred-eyed intelligence (and of Initiation also), which was
expelled from heaven with Satan, according to an old Oriental tradition? Why do
the Gholaites and their kindred Mesopotamo-Iranian Mohamedan Sects believe in
the 'Noor Illahee' -- the Light of the Elohim -- transmitted in anastasis
through a hundred Prophet Leaders? It is because they have continued in
ignorant superstition the traditional religion of the 'Light Deities whom
Jahveh overthrew' (is said to have overthrown rather); for by overthrowing them
he would have overthrown himself. The'Muluk-Taoos' -- is Maluk -- 'Ruler' as is
shown in the foot-note. It is only a new form of Moloch, Melek, Molech,
MaIayak, and Malachim" -- Messengers, Angels, etc.
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[[Vol.
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Thus,
esoteric philosophy shows that man is truly the manifested deity in both its
aspects -- good and evil, but theology cannot admit this philosophical truth.
Teaching the dogma of the Fallen Angels in its dead-letter meaning, and having
made of Satan the corner-stone and pillar of the dogma of redemption -- to do
so would be suicidal. Having once shown the rebellious angels distinct from God
and the Logos in their personalities, the admission that the downfall of the
disobedient Spirits meant simply their fall into generation and matter, would
be equivalent to saying that God and Satan were identical. For since the LOGOS
(or God) is the aggregate of that once divine Host accused of having fallen, it
would follow that the Logos and Satan are one.
Yet
such was the real philosophical view of the now disfigured tenet in antiquity.
The Verbum, or the "Son," was shown in a dual aspect by the Pagan
Gnostics -- in fact, he was a duality in full unity. Hence, the endless and
various national versions. The Greeks had Jupiter, the son of Chronos, the
Father, who hurls him down into the depths of Kosmos. The Aryans had Brahma (in
later theology) precipitated by Siva into the Abyss of Darkness, etc., etc. But
the fall of all these Logoi and Demiurgi from their primitive exalted position,
had in all cases one and the same esoteric signification in it; the curse -- in
its philosophical meaning -- of being incarnated on this earth; an unavoidable
rung on the ladder of cosmic evolution, a highly philosophical and fitting
Karmic law, without which the presence of Evil on Earth would have to remain
for ever a closed mystery to the understanding of true philosophy. To say, as
the author of the Esprits Tombes des Paiens (p. 347) does, that since
"Christianity is made to rest on two pillars, that of evil ([[ponerou]]),
and of good [[Iagathou]]; on two forces, in short, [[Iagathau kai kakai
dunomeis]]: hence, if we suppress the punishment of the evil forces, the
protecting mission of the good Powers will have neither value nor sense"
-- is to utter the most unphilosophical absurdity. If it fits in with, and
explains Christian dogma, it obscures the facts and truths of the primitive
wisdom of the ages. The cautious hints of Paul have all the true esoteric
meaning, and it took centuries of scholastic casuistry to give them the present
false colouring in their interpretation. The verbum and Lucifer are one in
their dual aspect; and the "Prince of the Air" (princeps aeris hujus)
is not the "God of that period," but an everlasting principle. If the
latter was said to be ever circling around the world -- qui circumambulat
terram -- the great Apostle referred simply to the never-ceasing cycles of
human incarnations, in which evil will ever predominate unto the day when
Humanity is redeemed by the true divine Enlightenment which gives the correct
perception of things.
It
is easy to disfigure vague expressions written in dead and long-
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[[Vol.
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forgotten
languages, and palm them off as truths and revealed facts on the ignorant
masses. The identity of thought and meaning is the one thing that strikes the
student in all the religions which mention the tradition of the fallen Spirits,
and in those great religions there is not one that fails to mention and
describe it in one or another form. Thus, Hoang-Ty, the great Spirit, sees his
Sons, who had acquired active wisdom, falling into the valley of Pain. Their
leader, the FLYING DRAGON, having drunk of the forbidden ambrosia, fell to the
Earth with his Host (Kings). In the Zend Avesta, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman),
surrounding himself with fire (the "Flames" -- vide supra) seeks to
conquer the Heavens,* when Ahura Mazda, descending from the solid Heaven he
inhabits, to the help of the Heavens that revolve (in time and space, the
manifested worlds of cycles including those of incarnation), and the
Amshaspends, "the seven bright Sravah," accompanied by their stars,
fight Ahriman, and the vanquished Devas fall to the Earth along with him.
(Acad. des Inscrip., Vol. xxxix., p. 690; see Vendidad, Farg. xix., iii.) In
the Vendidad the Daevas are called "evil-doing," and shown to rush
away "into the depths of the world of hell," or matter. (47.) This is
an allegory showing the Devas compelled to incarnate, once that they have
separated themselves from their parent essence, or, in other words, after the
unit had become a multiple, after differentiation and manifestation.
Typhon
the Egyptian, Python, the Titans, the Suras and the Asuras, all belong to the
same legend of Spirits peopling the Earth. They are not "demons
commissioned to create and organize this visible universe," but fashioners
(the "architects") of the worlds, and the progenitors of man. They
are the Fallen angels, metaphorically -- "the true mirrors of the Eternal
Wisdom."
What
is the absolute and complete truth as well as the esoteric meaning about this
universal myth? The whole essence of truth cannot be transmitted from mouth to
ear. Nor can any pen describe it, not even that of the recording Angel, unless
man finds the answer in the sanctuary of his own heart, in the innermost depths
of his divine intuitions. It is the great SEVENTH MYSTERY of Creation, the
first and the last; and those who read St. John's Apocalypse may find its
shadow lurking under the seventh seal. . . . It can be represented only in its
apparent, objective form, like the eternal riddle of the Sphinx. If the latter
threw herself into the sea and perished, it is not because OEdipus had
unriddled the secret of the ages, but because, by anthropomorphizing the
ever-spiritual and the subjective, he had
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So does every Yogi and even Christian: one must take the Kingdom of heaven by
violence -- we are taught. Why should such a desire make of any one a devil?
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[[Vol.
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dishonoured
the great truth for ever. Therefore, we can give it only from its philosophical
and intellectual planes, unlocked with three keys respectively -- for the last
four keys of the seven that throw wide open the portals to the mysteries of
Nature are in the hands of the highest Initiates, and cannot be divulged to the
masses at large -- not in this, our century, at any rate.
The
dead letter is everywhere the same. The dualism in the Mazdean religion, was
born from exoteric interpretation. The holy "Airyaman," "the
bestower of weal," invoked in the prayer called Airyama-ishyo, is the
divine aspect of Ahriman, "the deadly, the Dae of the Daevas" (Farg.
xx., 43), and Angra Mainyu is the dark material aspect of the former.
"Keep us from the Hater, O Mazda and Armaita Spenta" (Vendidad
Sadah), has, as a prayer and invocation, an identical meaning with "Lead
us not into temptation," and is addressed by man to the terrible Spirit of
duality in man himself. For (Ahura) Mazda is the spiritual, divine, and
purified man, and Armaita Spenta, the Spirit of the Earth or materiality, is
the same as Ahriman or Angra Mainyu in one sense.
The
whole of the Magian or Mazdean literature -- or what remains of it -- is
magical, occult, hence allegorical and symbolical -- even its "mystery of
the law" (see the Gatha in Yasna XLIV.). Now the Mobed and the Parsi keep
their eye on the Baresma during the sacrifice, the divine twig off Ormazd's
"tree" having been transformed into a bunch of metallic rods; and
wonder why neither the Amesha-Spentas, nor "the high and beautiful golden
Haomas, nor even their Vohu-Mano (good thoughts), nor their Rata (sacrificial
offering)," help them much. Let them meditate on the "tree of
Wisdom," and study, assimilating one by one, the fruits thereof. The way
to the tree of eternal life, the white Homa, the Gaokerena, is through one end
of the earth to the other; and Haoma is in heaven as it is on earth. But to
become once more a priest of it, and a healer, man must heal himself before he
can heal others.
This
proves once more that the so-called "myths," in order to be at least
approximately dealt with in any degree of justice, have to be closely examined
from all their aspects. In truth, every one of the seven Keys has to be used in
its right place, and never mixed with the others, if we would unveil the entire
cycle of mysteries. In our day of dreary soul-killing materialism, the ancient
priest Initiates have become, in the opinion of our learned generations, the
synonyms of clever impostors, kindling the fires of superstition in order to
obtain an easier sway over the minds of men. This is an unfounded calumny,
generated by scepticism and uncharitable thoughts. No one believed more in Gods
-- or, we may call them, the Spiritual and now invisible Powers, or Spirits,
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[[Vol.
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the
noumena of the phenomena -- than they did; and they believed just because they
knew. If, initiated into the Mysteries of Nature, they were forced to withhold
their knowledge from the profane, who would have surely abused it, such secrecy
was undeniably less dangerous than the policy of their usurpers and successors.
The former taught only that which they well knew. The latter, teaching what
they do not know, have invented, as a secure haven for their ignorance, a
jealous and cruel Deity, who forbids man to pry into his mysteries under the
penalty of damnation. As well they may, for his mysteries can at best be only
hinted at in polite ears, never described. Turn to King's Gnostics,
"Description of the Plates" (Plate H), and see for yourself what was
the primitive Ark of the Covenant, according to the author, who says:
"There is a Rabbinical tradition that the cherubin placed over it were
represented as male and female, in the act of copulation, in order to express
the grand doctrine of the Essence of Form and Matter, the two principles of all
things. When the Chaldeans broke into the sanctuary and beheld this most
astounding emblem, they naturally enough exclaimed, 'Is this your God, of whom
you boast that He is such a lover of purity?' " (p. 441.)
King
thinks that this tradition "savours too much of Alexandrian philosophy to
demand any credit," to which we demur. The shape and form of the wings of
the two cherubim standing on the right and left sides of the Ark, these wings
meeting over the "Holy of Holies," are an emblem quite eloquent in
itself, besides the "holy" Jod within the ark! The Mystery of
Agathadaemon, whose legend states, "I am Chnumis, Sun of the Universe,
700," can alone solve the mystery of Jesus, the number of whose name is
888." It is not the key of St. Peter, or the Church dogma, but the narthex
-- the wand of the candidate for initiation -- that has to be wrenched from the
grasp of the long-silent Sphinx of the ages. Meanwhile ----
The
augurs, who, upon meeting each other, have to thrust their tongues into their
cheeks to suppress a fit of laughter, may be more numerous in our own age than
they ever were in the day of Sylla.
-------
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[[Vol.
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§
XX.
PROMETHEUS,
THE TITAN.
HIS
ORIGIN IN ANCIENT INDIA.
IN
our modern day there does not exist the slightest doubt in the minds of the
best European symbologists that the name Prometheus possessed the greatest and
most mysterious significance in antiquity. While giving the history of Deukalion,
whom the Boeotians regarded as the ancestor of the human races, and who was the
Son of Prometheus, according to the significant legend, the author of the
Mythologie de la Grece Antique remarks: "Thus Prometheus is something more
than the archetype of humanity; he is its generator. In the same way that we
saw Hephaestus moulding the first woman (Pandora) and endowing her with life,
so Prometheus kneads the moist clay, of which he fashions the body of the first
man whom he will endow with the soul-spark" (Apollodorus, I., 7, 1). After
the Flood of Deukalion, Zeus, it was taught, had commanded Prometheus and
Athena to call forth a new race of men from the mire left by the waters of the
deluge (Ovid, Metam. 1, 81. Etym. M. v. [[Prometheus]]); and in the day of
Pausanias the slime which the hero had used for this purpose was still shown in
Phocea (Paus. x, 4, 4). "On several archaic monuments one still sees
Prometheus modelling a human body, either alone or with Athena's help"
(Myth. Grece Ant. 246).
The
same authors remind the world of another equally mysterious personage, though
one less generally known than Prometheus, whose legend offers remarkable
analogies with that of the Titan. The name of this second ancestor and
generator is Phoroneus, the hero of an ancient poem, now unfortunately no
longer extant -- the Phoronidae. His legend was localized in Argolis, where a
perpetual flame was preserved on his altar as a reminder that he was the
bringer of fire upon earth (Pausanias, 11, 19, 5; Cf. 20, 3.) A benefactor of
men as Prometheus was, he had made them participators of every bliss on earth.
Plato (Timaeus, p. 22), and Clemens Alexandrinus (Strom. 1, p. 380) say that
Phoroneus was the first man, or "the father of mortals." His
genealogy, which assigns to him as his father Inachos, the river, reminds one
of that of Prometheus, which makes that Titan the son of the Oceanid Clymene.
But the mother of Phoroneus was the nymph Melia; a significant descent which
distinguishes him from Prometheus.
Melia,
Decharme thinks, is the personification of the ash-tree, whence,
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[[Vol.
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according
to Hesiod, issued the race of the age of Bronze* (Opera et Dies, 142-145); and
which with the Greeks is the celestial tree common to every Aryan mythology.
This ash is the Yggdrasil of the Norse antiquity, which the Norns sprinkle
daily with the waters from the fountain of Urd, that it may not wither. It
remains verdant till the last days of the Golden Age. Then the Norns -- the
three sisters who gaze respectively into the Past, the Present, and the Future
-- make known the decree of Fate (Karma, Orlog), but men are conscious only of
the Present. But when Gultweig comes (the golden ore) "the bewitching
enchantress who, thrice cast into the fire, arises each time more beautiful,
and fills the souls of gods and men with unapproachable longing, then the Norns
. . . enter into being, and the blessed peace of childhood's dreams passes
away, and Sin comes into existence with all its evil consequences . . ."
and KARMA (See "Asgard and the Gods," p. 10-12). The thrice purified
Gold is -- Manas, the Conscious Soul.
With
the Greeks, the "ash-tree" represented the same idea. Its luxuriant
boughs are the sidereal heaven, golden by day and studded with stars by night
-- the fruits of Melia and Yggdrasil, under whose protecting shadow humanity
lived during the Golden Age without desire as without any fear . . . .
"That tree had a fruit, or an inflamed bough, which was lightning,"
Decharme guesses.
And
here steps in the killing materialism of the age; that peculiar twist in the
modern mind, which, like a Northern blast, bends all on its way, and freezes
every intuition, allowing it no hand in the physical speculations of the day.
After having seen in Prometheus no better than fire by friction, the learned
author of the "Mythologie de la Grece Antique" perceives in this
"fruit" a trifle more than an allusion to terrestrial fire and its
discovery. It is no longer fire, owing to the fall of lightning setting some
dry fuel in a blaze, and thus revealing all its priceless benefits to
Palaeolithic men; -- but something more mysterious this time, though still as
earthly. . . . "A divine bird, nestled in the boughs of the celestial
ash-tree, stole that bough (or the fruit) and carried it down on the earth in
its bill. Now the Greek word [[Phoroneus]] is the rigid equivalent of the
Sanskrit word bhuranyu ('the rapid') an epithet of Agni, considered as the
carrier of the divine spark. Phoroneus, son of Melia or of the celestial ash,
thus corresponds to a conception far more ancient, probably, than that one
which transformed the pramantha (of the old Aryan Hindus) into the Greek
Prometheus. Phoroneus is the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
According to the Occult teaching, three yugas passed away during the time of
the Third Root-Race, i.e., the Satya, the Treta, and the Dvapara yuga,
answering to the golden age of its early innocence: to the silver -- when it
reached its maturity: and to the Bronze age, when, separating into sexes, they
became the mighty demi-gods of old.
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[[Vol.
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(personified)
bird, that brings the heavenly lightning to the Earth. Traditions relating to
the birth and origin of the race of Bronze, and those which made of Phoroneus
the father of the Argians, are an evidence to us that this thunderbolt (or
lightning), as in the legends of Hephaestus or Prometheus, was the origin of
the human race" (266).
This
still affords us no more than the external meaning of the symbols and the
allegory. It is now supposed that the name of Prometheus has been unriddled,
and the modern mythologists and Orientalists see in it no longer what their
fathers saw on the authority of the whole of classical antiquity. They only
find therein something far more appropriate to the spirit of the age, namely, a
phallic element. But the name of Phoroneus, as well as that of Prometheus,
bears not one, nor even two, but a series of esoteric meanings. Both relate to
the seven celestial fires; to Agni Abhimanin, his three sons, and their
forty-five sons, constituting the forty-nine fires. Do all these numbers relate
only to the terrestrial mode of fire and to the flame of sexual passion? Did
the Hindu Aryan mind never soar above such purely sensual conceptions? that
mind which is declared by Prof. Max Muller to be the most spiritual and
mystically inclined on the whole globe? The number of those fires alone ought
to have suggested an inkling of the truth.
We
are told that one is no longer permitted, in this age of rational thought, to
explain the name of Prometheus as the old Greeks did. The latter, it seems,
"basing themselves on the false analogy of [[prometheus]] with the verb
[[Promanthanein]], saw in him the type of the 'foreseeing' man, to whom, for
the sake of symmetry, a brother was added -- Epimetheus, or 'he who takes
counsel after the event.' " But now the Orientalists have decided
otherwise. They know the real meaning of the two names better than those who
invented them.
The
legend is based upon an event of universal importance. It was built "to commemorate
a great event which must have strongly impressed itself upon the imagination of
the first witnesses to it, and its remembrance has never since faded out from
popular memory." What is it? Laying aside every poetical fiction, all
those dreams of the golden age, let us imagine -- argue the modern scholars --
in all its gross realism, the first miserable state of humanity, the striking
picture of which was traced for us after AEschylus by Lucretius, and the exact
truth of which is now confirmed by science; and then one may understand better
that a new life really began for man, on that day when he saw the first spark
produced by the friction of two pieces of wood, or from the veins of a flint.
How could man help feeling gratitude to that mysterious and marvellous being
which they were henceforth enabled to create at their will, and which was no
sooner born, than it grew and expanded, developing with singular power.
"This terrestrial flame,
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[[Vol.
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was
it not analogous in nature to that one which they received from above, or that
other which frightened them in the thunderbolt?"
"Was
it not derived from the same source? And if its origin was in heaven, it must
have been brought down some day on earth. If so, who was the powerful being,
the beneficent being, god or man, who had conquered it? Such are the questions
which the curiosity of the Aryans offered in the early days of their existence,
and which found their answer in the myth of Prometheus"; (Mythologie de la
Grece Antique, p. 258).
The
philosophy of Occult Science finds two weak points in the above reflections,
and points them out. The miserable state of Humanity described by AEschylus and
Prometheus was no more wretched then, in the early days of the Aryans, than it
is now. That "state" was limited to the savage tribes; and the
now-existing savages are not a whit more happy or unhappy than their
forefathers were a million years ago.
It
is an accepted fact in Science that "rude implements, exactly resembling
those in use among existing savages," are found in river-gravels and caves
geologically "implying an enormous antiquity." So great is that
resemblance that, as the author of "The Modern Zoroastrian" tells us:
"If the collection in the Colonial Exhibition of stone celts and
arrow-heads used now by the Bushmen of South Africa were placed side by side
with one from the British Museum of similar objects from Kent's Cavern or the Caves
of Dordogne, no one but an expert could distinguish between them" (p.
145). And if there are Bushmen existing now, in our age of the highest
civilization, who are no higher intellectually than the race of men which
inhabited Devonshire and Southern France during the Palaeolithic age, why could
not the latter have lived simultaneously with, and have been the contemporary
of, other races as highly civilized for their day as we are for ours? That the
sum of knowledge increases daily in mankind, "but that intellectual
capacity does not increase with it," is shown when the intellect, if not
the physical knowledge, of the Euclids, Pythagorases, Paninis, Kapilas, Platos,
and Socrates, is compared with that of the Newtons, Kants, and the modern
Huxleys and Haeckels. On comparing the results obtained by Dr. J. Barnard
Davis, the Craniologist, worked out in 1868 (Trans. of the Royal Society of
London), with regard to the internal capacity of the skull -- its volume being
taken as the standard and test for judging of the intellectual capacities --
Dr. Pfaff finds that this capacity among the French (certainly in the highest
rank of mankind) is 88.4 cubic inches, being thus "perceptibly smaller
than that of the Polynesians generally, which, even among many Papuans and Alfuras
of the lowest grade, amounts to 89 and 89.7 cubic inches"; which shows
that it is the quality and not the quantity of the brain that is the cause of
intellectual capacity. The
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[[Vol.
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average
index of skulls among various races having been now recognized to be "one
of the most characteristic marks of difference between different races,"
the following comparison is suggestive: "The index of breadth among the
Scandinavians (is) at 75: among the English at 76; among Holsteiners at 77; in
Bresgau at 80; Schiller's skull shows an index of breadth even of 82 . . . the
Madurese also 82!" Finally, the same comparison between the oldest skulls
known and the European, brings to light the startling fact "that most of
these old skulls, belonging to the stone period, are above rather than below
the average of the brain of the now living man in volume." Calculating the
measures for the height, breadth, and length in inches from the average
measurements of several skulls, the following sums are obtained:--
1.
Old Northern skulls of the stone age . . . . . . . . . . . . 18.877 ins.
2.
Average of 48 skulls of the same period from England . . . . 18.858 "
3.
Average of 7 skulls of the same period from Wales . . . . . 18.649 "
4.
Average of 36 skulls of the stone age from France . . . . . 18.220 "
The
average of the now living Europeans is 18.579 inches; of Hottentots, 17.795
inches!
Which
figures show plainly "that the size of the brain of the oldest populations
known to us is not such as to place them on a lower level than that of the now
living inhabitants of the Earth" ("The Age and Origin of Man").
Besides which, they show the "missing link" vanishing into thin air.
Of these, however, more anon: we must return to our direct subject.
The
race which Jupiter so ardently desired "to quench, and plant a new one in
its stead" (AEsch.* 241), suffered mental, not physical misery. The first
boon Prometheus gave to mortals, as he tells the "Chorus," was to
hinder them "from foreseeing death" (256); he "saved the mortal
race from sinking blasted down to Hades' gloom" (244); and then only,
"besides" that, he gave them fire (260). This shows plainly the dual
character, at any rate of the Promethean myth, if Orientalists will not accept
the existence of the seven keys taught in Occultism. This relates to the first
opening of man's spiritual perceptions, not to his first seeing or discovering
fire. For fire was never "discovered," but existed on earth since its
beginning. It existed in the seismic activity of the early ages, volcanic
eruptions being as frequent and constant in those periods as fog is in England
now. And if we are told that men appeared so late on Earth that nearly all the
volcanoes, with the exception of a few, were already extinct, and that
geological disturbances had made room for a more settled state of things, we
answer: Let a new race of men -- whether evolved from angel or gorilla --
appear now on any uninhabited
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Prometheus Vinctus.
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[[Vol.
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spot
of the globe, with the exception perhaps of the Sahara, and a thousand to one
it would not be a year or two old before discovering fire, through the fall of
lightning setting in flames grass or something else. This assumption, that
primitive man lived ages on earth before he was made acquainted with fire, is
one of the most painfully illogical of all. But old AEschylus was an initiate,
and knew well what he was giving out.*
No
occultist acquainted with symbology and the fact that Wisdom came to us from
the East, will deny for a moment that the myth of Prometheus has reached Europe
from Aryavarta. Nor is he likely to deny that in one sense Prometheus
represents fire by friction. Therefore, he admires the sagacity of M. F.
Baudry, who shows in his Les Mythes du feu et breuvage celeste (Revue
germanique, 1861 p. 356)** one of the aspects of Prometheus and his origin from
India. He shows the reader the supposed primitive process to obtain fire, still
in use to-day in India to light the sacrificial flame. This is what he says:--
"This
process, such as it is minutely described in the Vedic Sutras, consists in
rapidly turning a stick in a socket made in the centre of a piece of wood. The
friction develops intense heat and ends by setting on fire the particles of wood
in contact. The motion of the stick is not a continuous rotation, but a series
of motions in contrary senses, by means of a cord fixed to the stick in its
middle: the operator holds one of the ends in each hand and pulls them
alternately. . . . The full process is designated in Sanskrit by the verb
manthami, mathnani; which means 'to rub, agitate, shake and obtain by rubbing,'
and is especially applied to rotatory friction, as proved by its derivation
from mandala, which signifies a circle. . . . The pieces of wood serving for
the production of fire have each their name in Sanskrit. The stick which turns
is called pramantha; the discus which receives it is called arani and aranî:
"the two aranis" designating the ensemble of the instrument" (p.
358 et seq.).***
It
remains to be seen what the Brahmins will say to this. But supposing Prometheus
has been conceived in one of the aspects of his
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The modern attempt of some Greek scholars (poor and pseudo scholars, they would
have appeared in the day of the old Greek writers!) to explain the real meaning
of the ideas of AEschylus, which, being an ignorant ancient Greek, he could not
express so well himself, is absurdly ludicrous!
**
See also his Memoires de la Societe de la Linguistique following the "Fire
Myths," (Vol. I, p. 337, et seq.)
***
There is the upper and nether piece of timber used to produce this sacred fire
by attrition at sacrifices, and it is the aranî which contains the socket. This
is proven by an allegory in the Vayu Purana and others, which tell us that
Nemi, the son of Ikshwaku, had left no successor, and that the Rishis, fearing
to leave the earth without a ruler, introduced the king's body into the socket
of an aranî -- like an upper aranî --
and produced from it a prince named Janaka. "It was by reason of the
peculiar way in which he was engendered that he was called Janaka." (But
see Goldstucker's Sanskrit Dictionary at the word Arani.) Devaki, Krishna's
mother, in prayer addressed to her, is called "the aranî whose attrition
engenders fire."
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[[Vol.
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myth
as the producer of fire by means of pramantha, or as an animate and divine
pramantha, would this imply that the symbolism had no other than the phallic
meaning attributed to it by the modern symbologists? Decharme, at any rate,
seems to have a correct glimmering of the truth; for he unconsciously
corroborates by his remarks all that the Occult sciences teach with regard to
the Manasa Devas, who have endowed man with the consciousness of his immortal
soul: that consciousness which hinders man "from foreseeing death,"
and makes him know he is immortal.* "How has Prometheus got into the
possession of the (divine) spark?" he asks. "Fire having its abode in
heaven, it is there he must have gone to find it before he could carry it down
to men, and, to approach the gods, he must have been a god himself." The
Greeks held that he was of the divine race; the Hindus, that he was a Deva.
Hence "with the Greeks he was the son of the Titan lapetos,"
[[Iapetonides]] (Theog. 528) . . . . "But celestial fire belonged in the
beginning to the gods alone; it was a treasure they reserved for themselves . .
. over which they jealously watched . . . 'The prudent son of Iapetus,' says
Hesiod, 'deceived Jupiter by stealing and concealing in the cavity of a
narthex, the indefatigable fire of the resplendent glow' (Theog. 565) . . .
Thus the gift made by Prometheus to men was a conquest made from heaven. . .
" "Now according to Greek ideas," (identical in this with those
of the Occultists) "this possession forced from Jupiter, this human
trespassing upon the property of the gods, had to be followed by an expiation.
. . . Prometheus, moreover, belongs to that race of Titans who had rebelled**
against the gods, and whom the master of Olympus had hurled down into Tartarus;
like them, he is the genius of Evil, doomed to cruel suffering, etc., etc."
That
which is revolting in the explanations that follow, is the one-sided view taken
of this grandest of all the myths. The most intuitional among modern writers
cannot or will not rise in their conceptions above the level of the Earth and
Cosmic phenomena. It is not denied that the moral idea in the myth, as
presented in the Theogony of Hesiod, plays a certain part in the primitive
Greek conception. The Titan is more than a thief of the celestial fire. He is
the representation of humanity -- active, industrious, intelligent, but at the
same time ambitious, which aims at equalling divine powers. Therefore it is
humanity punished in the person of Prometheus, but it is only so with the
Greeks. With the latter, Prometheus is not a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The monad of the animal is as immortal as that of man, yet the brute knows
nothing of this; it lives an animal life of sensation just as the first human
would have lived, when attaining physical development in the Third Race, had it
not been for the Agnishwatta and the Manasa Pitris.
**
The fallen angels, therefore; the Asuras of the Indian Pantheon.
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[[Vol.
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criminal,
save in the eyes of the gods. In his relation with the Earth, he is, on the
contrary, a god himself, a friend of mankind ([[philanthropos]]), which he has
raised to civilization and initiated into the knowledge of all the arts; a conception
which found its most poetical expounder in AEschylus. But with all other
nations Prometheus is -- what? The fallen Angel, Satan, as the Church would
have it? Not at all. He is simply the image of the pernicious and dreaded
effects of lightning. He is the "evil fire" (mal feu) and the symbol
of the divine reproductive male organ. "Reduced to its simple expression,
the myth we are trying to explain is then simply a (Cosmic) genius of
fire" (p. 261). It is the former idea (the phallic) which was pre-eminently
Aryan, if we believe Ad. Kuhn (in his Herabkunft des Feuers und des
Gottertranks) and Baudry. For --
"The
fire used by man being the result of the action of pramantha in the arani, the
Aryas must have ascribed (?) the same origin to celestial fire, and they must*
have imagined (?) that a god armed with pramantha, or a divine pramantha,
exercised in the bosom of the clouds a violent friction, which gave birth to
lightning and thunderbolts. . . . . This idea is supported by the fact that,
according to Plutarch's testimony (Philosoph. Plant., iii. 3), the Stoics
thought that thunder was the result of the struggle of storm-clouds and
lightning -- a conflagration due to friction; while Aristotle saw in the
thunderbolt only the action of clouds which clashed with each other. What was
this theory, if not the scientific translation of the production of fire by
friction? . . . . . . Everything leads us to think that, from the highest
antiquity, and before the dispersion of the Aryans, it was believed that the pramantha
lighted fire in the storm cloud as well as in the aranis." (Revue
Germanique, p. 368.)
Thus,
suppositions and idle hypotheses are made to stand for discovered truths.
Defenders of the Bible dead-letter could never help the writers of missionary tracts
more effectually, than do materialistic Symbologists in thus taking for granted
that the ancient Aryans based their religious conceptions on no higher thought
than the physiological.
But
it is not so, and the very spirit of Vedic philosophy is against such an
interpretation. And if, as Decharme himself confesses, "this idea of the
creative power of fire is explained at once by the ancient assimilation of the
human soul to a celestial spark," as shown by the imagery often made use
of in the Vedas when speaking of Arani, it would mean something higher than
simply a gross sexual conception. A hymn to Agni in the Veda is cited as
example:-- "Here is the pramantha, the generator is ready. Bring the
mistress of the race (the female Arani). Let us produce Agni by attrition,
according
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The italics are ours; they show how assumptions are raised to laws in our day.
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[[Vol.
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to
ancient custom" -- which means no worse than an abstract idea expressed in
the tongue of mortals. The "female Arani," the mistress of the race,
is Aditi, the mother of the gods, or Shekinah, eternal light -- in the world of
Spirit, the "Great Deep" and CHAOS; or primordial Substance in its
first remove from the UNKNOWN, in the manifested Kosmos. If, ages later, the
same epithet is applied to Devaki, the mother of Krishna, or the incarnated
LOGOS; and if the symbol, owing to the gradual and irrepressible spread of
exoteric religions, may already be regarded as having a sexual significance,
this in no way mars the original purity of the image. The subjective had been
transformed into the objective; Spirit had fallen into matter. The universal
kosmic polarity of Spirit-Substance had become, in human thought, the mystic,
but still sexual union of Spirit and Matter, and had thus acquired an
anthropomorphic colouring which it had never had in the beginning. Between the
Vedas and the Puranas there is an abyss of which both are the poles, like the
seventh (atmic) and the first or lowest principle (the physical body) in the
Septenary constitution of man. The primitive, purely spiritual language of the
Vedas, conceived many decades of millenniums earlier, had found its purely
human expression for the purpose of describing events taking place 5,000 years
ago, the date of Krishna's death (from which day the Kali Yuga, or Black-Age,
began for mankind).
As
Aditi is called Surarani (the matrix or "mother" of the sura gods),
so Kunti, the mother of the Pandavas, is called in Mahabharata Pandavarani --
which term is already physiologized. But Devaki, the antetype of the Roman
Catholic Madonna, is a later anthropomorphized form of Aditi. The latter is the
goddess mother, the "Deva-matri" of Seven Sons (the six and the seven
Adityas of early Vedic times); the mother of Krishna, Devaki, has six embryos
conveyed into her womb by Jagaddhatri (the "nurse of the world"), the
seventh (Krishna, the Logos,) being transferred to that Rohini. Mary, the
mother of Jesus, is the mother of seven children, of five sons and two
daughters, (a later transformation of sex) in Matthew's Gospel (xiii. 55-56).
No one of the worshippers of the Roman Catholic Virgin would object to reciting
in her honour the prayer addressed by the gods to Devaki. Let the reader judge.
"Thou
art that Prakriti (essence), infinite and subtile, which bore Brahma in its womb.
Thou eternal being, comprising in thy substance the essence of all created
things, wast identical with creation; thou wast the parent of the triform
sacrifice, becoming the germ of all. . . . Thou art sacrifice, whence all fruit
proceeds; thou art the arani whose attrition engenders fire" . . . .
("Womb of Light," "holy Vessel," are the epithets of the
Virgin). "As Aditi, thou art the parent of the gods. . . . Thou art
Jyotsna (the morning twilight)." The Virgin
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[[Vol.
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is
often addressed as the "morning Star" and the "star of
Salvation" -- the light whence day is begotten. "Thou art Samnati
(humility, a daughter of Daksha), the mother of Wisdom; thou art Niti, the
parent of harmony (Naya); thou art modesty, the progenitrix of affection
(Prasraya or vinaya); thou art desire, of whom love is born. . . . Thou art the
mother of knowledge (Avabodha); patience (Dhriti), the parent of fortitude
(Dhairya) . . . . etc., etc."
Thus
arani is shown here as the Roman Catholic "vase of election" and no
worse. As to its primitive meaning, it was purely metaphysical. No unclean
thought traversed these conceptions in the ancient mind. Even in the Zohar --
far less metaphysical than any other symbolism -- the idea is an abstraction
and nothing more. Thus, when the Zohar (iii., 290) says: "All that which
exists, all that which has been formed by the ancient, whose name is holy, can
only exist through a male and female principle," it means no more than
this: "The divine Spirit of Life is ever coalescing with matter." It
is the WILL of the Deity that acts; and the idea is purely Schopenhauerian.
"When Atteekah Kaddosha, the ancient and the concealed of the concealed, desired
to form all things, it formed all things like male and female. This wisdom
cornprises ALL when it goeth forth." Hence Chochmah (male wisdom) and
Binah (female consciousness or Intellect) are said to create all between the
two -- the active and the passive principles. As the eye of the expert jeweller
discerns under the rough and uncouth oyster shell the pure immaculate pearl,
enshrined within its bosom, his hand dealing with the former but to get at its,
so the eye of the true philosopher reads between the lines of the Puranas the
sublime Vedic truths, and corrects the form with the help of the Vedantic
wisdom. Our Orientalists, however, never perceive the pearl under the thick
coating of the shell, and -- act accordingly.
From
all that has been said in this section, one sees clearly that, between the
Serpent of Eden and the Devil of Christianity, there is an abyss. Alone the
sledge hammer of ancient philosophy can kill this dogma.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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§
XXI.
ENOICHION-HENOCH.
THE
history of the evolution of the Satanic myth would not be complete if we
omitted to notice the character of the mysterious and Cosmopolitan Enoch,
variously called Enos, Hanoch, and finally Enoichion by the Greeks. It is from
his Book that the first notions of the Fallen Angels were taken by the early
Christian writers.
The
"Book of Enoch" is declared apocryphal. But what is an Apocrypha? The
very etymology of the term shows that it is simply a secret book, i.e., one
that belonged to the catalogue of temple libraries under the guardianship of
the Hierophants and initiated priests, and was never meant for the profane.
Apocrypha comes from the verb Crypto, [[krupto]], "to hide." For ages
the Enoichion (the Book of the SEER) was preserved in the "city of
letters" and secret works -- the ancient Kirjath-Sepher, later on, Debir
(see Joshua xv., 15).
Some
of the writers interested in the subject -- especially Masons -- have tried to
identify Enoch with Thoth of Memphis, the Greek Hermes, and even with the Latin
Mercury. As individuals, all these are distinct one from the other;
professionally -- if one may use this word, now so limited in its sense -- they
belong one and all to the same category of sacred writers, of Initiators and
Recorders of Occult and ancient Wisdom. Those who in the Quran (see Surat XIX.)
are generically termed the Edris, or the "Learned" (the Initiated),
bore in Egypt the name of "Thoth," the inventor of arts, sciences,
writing or letters, of music and astronomy. Among the Jews the Edris became
"Enoch," who, according to Bar-Hebraeus, "was the first inventor
of writing," books, arts, and sciences, the first who reduced to a system
the progress of the planets. In Greece he was called Orpheus, and thus changed
his name with every nation. The number Seven being attached to, and connected
with, each of those primitive Initiators,* as well as the number 365, of the
days in the year, astronomically, it identifies the mission, character, and the
sacred office of all those men, but certainly not their personalities. Enoch is
the seventh Patriarch; Orpheus is the possessor of the phorminx, the 7-stringed
lyre, which is the seven-fold mystery of initiation. Thoth, with the
seven-rayed Solar Discus on his head, travels in the Solar boat, the 365
degrees, jumping out every fourth (leap) year for one day. Finally, Thoth-Lunus
is the septenary
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Khanoch, or Hanoch, or Enoch means the "Initiator" and
"teacher," as well as the "Son of Man," Enos (vide Genesis
iv., 26), esoterically.
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[[Vol.
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god
of the seven days, or the week. Esoterically and spiritually, Enoichion means
the "Seer of the Open Eye."
The
story about Enoch, told by Josephus, namely, that he had concealed under the
pillars of Mercury or Seth his precious rolls or books, is the same as that
told of Hermes, "the father of Wisdom," who concealed his books of
Wisdom under a pillar, and then, finding the two pillars of stone, found the
science written thereon. Yet Josephus, notwithstanding his constant efforts in
the direction of Israel's unmerited glorification, and though he does attribute
that science (of Wisdom) to the Jewish Enoch -- writes history. He shows those
pillars as still existing during his own time. He tells us that they were built
by Seth; and so they may have been, only neither by the Patriarch of that name,
the fabled son of Adam, nor by the Egyptian god of Wisdom -- Teth, Set, Thoth,
Tat, Sat (the later Sat-an), or Hermes, who are all one, -- but by the
"sons of the Serpent-god," or "Sons of the Dragon," the
name under which the Hierophants of Egypt and Babylon were known before the
Deluge, as were their forefathers, the Atlanteans.
What
Josephus tells us, therefore, must be allegorically true, with the exception of
the application made of it. According to his version the two famous pillars
were entirely covered with hieroglyphics, which, after the discovery, were
copied and reproduced in the most secret corners of the inner temples of Egypt,
and have thus become the source of its Wisdom and exceptional learning. These two
"pillars," however, are the prototypes of the two "tables of
stones" hewn by Moses at the command of the "Lord." Hence, in
saying that all the great adepts and mystics of antiquity -- like Orpheus,
Hesiod, Pythagoras and Plato -- got the elements of their theology from those
hieroglyphics, he is right in one sense, and wrong in another; for he errs in
accuracy. The Secret Doctrine teaches us that the arts, sciences, theology, and
especially the philosophy of every nation which preceded the last universally
known, but not universal Deluge, had been recorded ideographically from the
primitive oral records of the Fourth Race, and that these were the inheritance
of the latter from the early Third Root-Race before the allegorical Fall.
Hence, also, the Egyptian pillars, the tablets, and even the "white
Oriental porphyry stone" of the Masonic legend -- which Enoch, fearing
that the real and precious secrets would be lost, concealed before the Deluge
in the bowels of the Earth -- were simply the more or less symbolical and
allegorical copies from the primitive Records. The "Book of Enoch" is
one of such copies and is a Chaldean, now very incomplete compendium. As
already said, Enoichion means in Greek the "inner eye," or the Seer;
in Hebrew, and with the help of Masoretic points it means the initiator and
instructor, [[hebrew]]. It is a generic title; besides which his legend is
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[[Vol.
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that
of several other prophets, Jewish and heathen, with changes of made-up details,
the root-form being the same. Elijah is also taken up into Heaven alive; and
the astrologer, at the court of Isdubar, the Chaldean Hea-bani, is likewise
raised to heaven by the god Hea, who was his patron, as Jehovah was of Elijah
(whose name means in Hebrew "God-Jah," Jehovah, [[hebrew]]), and
again of Elihu, which has the same meaning. This kind of easy death, or
euthanasia, has an esoteric meaning. It symbolises the death of any adept who
has reached the power and degree, as also the purification, which enable him to
die only in the physical body and still live and lead a conscious life in his
astral body. The variations on this theme are endless, but the secret meaning
is ever the same. The Pauline expression (Hebrews xi. 5) "that he should
not see death" -- ut non videret mortem -- has thus an esoteric meaning,
but nothing supernatural in it. The mangled interpretation given of some
Biblical hints to the effect that Enoch, "whose years will equal those of
the world," (of the Solar year, 365 days,) will share with Christ and the
prophet Elijah the honours and bliss of the last advent and of the destruction
of Antichrist -- signify, esoterically, that some of the great adepts will return
in the Seventh Race, when all Error will be made away with, and the advent of
TRUTH will be heralded by those Sishta, the holy "Sons of Light."
The
Latin church is not always logical, nor prudent either. She declares the
"Book of Enoch" an apocrypha, and has gone so far as to claim,
through Cardinal Cajetan and other luminaries of the Church, the rejection from
the Canon of even the Book of Jude, who, though an inspired apostle, quotes
from and thus sanctifies the Book of Enoch, which is alleged to be an apocryphal
work. Fortunately, some of the dogmatics perceived the peril in time. Had they
accepted Cajetan's resolution, they would have been forced to reject likewise
the fourth Gospel; as St. John borrows literally from Enoch, and places in the
mouth of Jesus, a whole sentence! (Vide supra, § XVIII., sub-sect. A, about the
sheep and the robbers.)
Ludolph,
the "father of Ethiopic literature," commissioned to investigate the
various Enochian MSS. presented by Pereisc, the traveller, to the Mazarine
Library, declared that "no book of Enoch could exist among the
Abyssinians"! Further researches and discoveries worsted his too dogmatic
assertion, as all know. Bruce and Ruppel found and brought that same work from
Abyssinia some years later, and Bishop Laurence translated it. But Bruce
despised it, and scoffed at its; as did all the rest of the Scientists. He
declared it "a Gnostic work," in which "the age of giants who
devour " men -- is given . . . hence it is another "Apocalypsis."
Giants! another fairy-tale.
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[[Vol.
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Such,
however, was not the opinion of all the best critics. Dr. Hanneberg places the
Book of Enoch along with the Third Book of the Maccabees, at the head of the
list of those whose authority stands the nearest to that of the canonical
works.
Verily,
"where doctors disagree . . ."
As
usual, however, they were all right and all wrong. To accept Enoch as a
Biblical character, a single living man, is like accepting Adam as the first
one. Enoch was a generic title, applied to, and borne by, scores of
individuals, at all times and ages, and in every race and nation. This may be
easily inferred from the fact that the ancient Talmudists and the teachers of
Midrashim are not agreed generally in their views about Hanokh, the Son of
Yered. . . . Some say Enoch was a great Saint, beloved by God, and taken alive
to heaven (i.e., one who reached Mukti or Nirvana, on earth, as Buddha did and
others still do); and others maintain that he was a sorcerer, a wicked
magician. This shows only that Enoch, or its equivalent, was a term, even
during the days of the later Talmudists, which meant "Seer,"
"Adept in the Secret Wisdom," etc., without any specification as to
the character of the title-bearer. When Josephus, speaking of Elijah and Enoch
(Antiquities, ix., 2), remarks that "it is written in the sacred books
they (Elijah and Enoch) disappeared, but so that nobody knew that they
died," it means simply that they had died in their personalities, as Yogis
die to this day in India, or even some Christian monks to the world. They
disappear from the sight of men and die -- on the terrestrial plane -- even for
themselves. A seemingly figurative way of speaking, yet literally true.
"Hanokh
transmitted the science of (astronomical) calculation and of computing the
seasons to Noah," says the Midrash Pirkah R. Eliezar (cap. viii.),
referring to Henoch that which others did to Hermes Trismegistus, because the
two are identical in their esoteric meaning. "Hanokh" in this case,
and his "Wisdom," belong to the cycle of the Fourth Atlantean Race,*
and Noah to that of the Fifth.** In this case both represent the Root-Races,
the present one and the one that preceded it. In another sense, Enoch
disappeared, "he walked with God, and he was not, for God took him,"
the allegory referring to the disappearance of the Sacred and Secret knowledge
from among men; for "God" (or Java Aleim -- the high hierophants, the
heads of the colleges of initiated priests***) took him; in other words, the
Enochs or the Enoichions, the Seers and their knowledge and wisdom, became
strictly
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Says the Zohar, "Hanokh had a book which was one with the book of the
generations of Adam; this is the Mystery of Wisdom."
**
Noah is heir to the Wisdom of Enoch; in other words, the Fifth is heir to the
Fourth Race.
***
Vide Isis Unveiled, Vol. I, p. 575, et seq.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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confined
to the Secret Colleges of the Prophets, with the Jews, and to the temples with
the Gentiles.
Interpreted
with the help of merely the symbolical key, Enoch is the type of the dual
nature of man -- spiritual and physical. Hence he occupies the centre of the
astronomical cross (given by Eliphas Levi from a secret work), which is a
six-pointed star, "the Adonai." In the upper triangle is the Eagle;
in the left lower triangle stands the lion; in the right, the bull: while
between the bull and the lion, over them and under the eagle, is the face of
Enoch or man. (Vide illustrated diagram in Isis Unveiled, Vol. II., p. 452).
Now the figures on the upper triangle represent the Four Races, leaving out the
first -- the Chhayas or Shadows -- and the "Son of Man," Enos or
Enoch, is in the centre, because he stands between the two (the Fourth and the
Fifth) Races, as he represents the Secret Wisdom of both. These are the four
animals of Ezekiel and of the Revelation. The same double triangle which in
Isis, Vol. II, (p. 453), faces the Hindu Adanari, is by far the best. For
there, only the three (for us) historical races are symbolized: the third, the
androgynous, by Ada-nari; the fourth, symbolized by the strong, powerful lion;
and the fifth -- the Aryan -- by that which is its most sacred symbol to this
day, the bull (and the cow).
A
man of great erudition -- a French savant -- M. de Sacy, finds several most
singular statements in the Book of Enoch, "worthy of the most serious
examination," he says. For instance, "the author (Enoch) makes the
solar year consist of 364 days, and seems to know periods of three, of five,
and of eight years, followed by four supplementary days, which, in his system,
appear to be those of the equinoxes and solstices."* . . . . To which he
adds, later on, "I see but one means to palliate them (these
'absurdities'), it is to suppose that the author expounds some fanciful system
which may have existed BEFORE THE ORDER OF NATURE HAD BEEN ALTERED AT THE
PERIOD OF THE UNIVERSAL DELUGE."
Precisely
so; and the Secret Doctrine teaches that that "order of nature" has
been thus altered, and the series of the Earth's humanities too. For, as the
angel Uriel tells Enoch: "Behold, I have showed thee all things, O Enoch;
and all things have I revealed to thee. Thou seest the Sun, the Moon, and those
which conduct the stars in Heaven, which cause all their operations, seasons,
and arrivals to return. In the days of sinners THE YEARS SHALL BE SHORTENED . .
. . the moon shall change its laws, etc." (chap. lxxix). In those days
also, years before the great Deluge that carried away the Atlanteans and
changed the face of the whole earth -- because "the earth (on its axis)
became inclined" --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Danielo's criticisms upon De Sacy, in the Annales de Philosophic, p. 393.
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[[Vol.
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nature,
geologically, astronomically, and cosmically in general, could not have been
the same, just because the Earth had inclined. See chap. 1xiv. (Sect. xi.) . .
. . "And Noah cried with a bitter voice 'Hear me, hear me, hear me'; three
times. And he said 'The earth labours and is violently inclined; surely, I
shall perish with it.' "
This,
by the way, looks like one of those many "inconsistencies," if the Bible
is read literally. For, to say the least, this is a very strange fear in one
who had "found grace in the eyes of the Lord" and been told to build
an ark! But here we find the venerable Patriarch expressing as much fear as if,
instead of a "friend" of God, he had been one of the Giants doomed by
the wrathful deity. The earth has already inclined, and the deluge of waters
has become simply a question of time, and yet Noah seems to know nothing of his
intended salvation.
A
decree had come indeed; the decree of nature and the Law of Evolution, that the
earth should change its race, and that the Fourth Race should be destroyed to
make room for a better one. The Manvantara had reached its turning point of
three and a half Rounds, and gigantic physical Humanity had reached the acme of
gross materiality. Hence the apocalyptic verse that speaks of a commandment
gone forth that they may be destroyed, "that their end may be" (of
the race); for they knew truly "every secret of the angels, every oppressive
and secret power of the Satans, and every power of those who commit sorcery, as
well as of those who make molten images in the whole earth."
And
now a natural question. Who could have informed the apocryphal author of this
powerful vision (to whatever age he may be assigned before the day of Galileo)
that the Earth could occasionally incline her axis? Whence has he derived such
astronomical and geological knowledge if the Secret Wisdom, of which the
ancient Rishis and Pythagoras had drunk, is but a fancy, an invention of the
later ages? Has Enoch read prophetically perchance in Frederick Klee's work on
the Deluge (p. 79) these lines: "The position of the terrestrial globe
with reference to the Sun has evidently been, in primitive times, different
from what it is now; and this difference must have been caused by a
displacement of the axis of rotation of the Earth."?
This
reminds one of that other unscientific statement made by the Egyptian priests
to Herodotus, namely, that the Sun has not always risen where it arises now,
and that in former times the ecliptic had cut the equator at right angles.*
There
are many such "dark sayings" throughout Puranas, Bible and Mythology;
and to the occultist they divulge two facts: (a) that the ancients knew as
well, and better, perhaps, than the moderns
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Astronomie Ancienne, Bailly, Vol. I., p. 203, and Vol. II., p. 216.
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[[Vol.
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do,
astronomy, geognosy and cosmography in general; and (b) that the globe and its
behaviour have altered more than once since the primitive state of things.
Thus, on the blind faith of his "ignorant" religion, which taught
that Phaeton, in his desire to learn the hidden truth, made the Sun deviate
from its usual course -- Xenophantes asserts somewhere that, "the Sun
turned toward another country"; which is a parallel, however slightly more
scientific, if as bold, of Joshua stopping the course of the Sun altogether.
Yet it may explain the teaching of the Northern mythology (in Jeruskoven) that,
before the actual order of things, the Sun arose in the South, and its placing
the Frigid Zone in the East, whereas now it is in the North.
The
Book of Enoch, in short, is a resume, a compound of the main features of the
History of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Races; a very few prophecies from the
present age of the world; a long retrospective, introspective and prophetic
summary of universal and quite historical events -- geological, ethnological,
astronomical, and psychic -- with a touch of theogony out of the antediluvian
records. The Book of this mysterious personage is referred to and quoted
copiously in the Pistis Sophia, and also in the Zohar and its most ancient
Midrashim. Origen and Clement of Alexandria held it in the highest esteem. To
say, therefore, that it is a post-Christian forgery is to utter an absurdity
and to become guilty of an anachronism, since Origen, among others, lived in
the second century of the Christian era, yet he mentions it as an ancient and
venerable work. The secret and sacred name and its potency are well and clearly
though allegorically described in the old volume. From the XVIIIth to the Lth
chapter, the Visions of Enoch are all descriptive of the Mysteries of
Initiation, one of which is the Burning Valley of the "Fallen
Angels."
Perhaps
St. Augustine was quite right in saying that the Church rejected the BOOK OF
ENOCH out of her canon owing to its too great antiquity, ob nimiam
antiquitatem.* There was no room for the events noticed in it within the limit
of the 4004 years B.C. assigned to the world from its "creation"!
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
City of God, I. xv. ch. xxiii.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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§
XXII.
THE
SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY-NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH, WITH THEIR RELATION TO THE
CROSS AND CIRCLE.
WHEN
the Abbe Louis Constant -- known as Eliphas Levi -- said in his Histoire de la
Magie that the "Sepher Jezirah, the Zohar, and the Apocalypse (of St.
John) are the master-pieces of the Occult Sciences," he ought, if he
wanted to be correct and clear, to have added, "in Europe." It is
quite true that these works contain "more significance than words";
and that "its expression is poetical, while in numbers it is exact."
Unfortunately, before any one can appreciate the poetry of the expressions, or
the exactness of the numbers, he will have to learn the real significance and
meaning of the terms and symbols used. And man will never learn this so long as
he remains ignorant of the fundamental principle of the Secret Doctrine,
whether in Oriental Esotericism, or in the Kabalistical symbology:-- the key,
or value, in all their aspects, of the "God"-names,
"Angel"-names, and "Patriarchal" names in the Bible --
their mathematical or geometrical value, and their relations to manifested nature.
Therefore,
if, on the one hand, the Zohar "astonishes (the mystic) by the profundity
of its views and the great simplicity of its images," on the other hand,
that work misleads the student by such expressions as those used with respect
to AIN-SOPH and Jehovah, notwithstanding the assurance that "the book is
careful to explain that the human form with which it clothes God is but an
image of the word, and that God should not be expressed by any thought, or any
form." It is well known that Origen, Clemens, and the Rabbis confessed, with
regard to the Kabala and the Bible, to their being veiled and secret Books; but
few know that the esotericism of the Kabalistic books in their present
re-edited form is simply another and still more cunning veil thrown upon the
primitive symbolism of these secret volumes.
The
idea of representing the hidden deity by the circumference of a Circle, and the
Creative Power (male and female, or the Androgynous WORD), by the diameter
across it, is one of the oldest symbols. It is upon this conception that every
great Cosmogony was built. With the old Aryans, the Egyptians, and the
Chaldeans, it was complete, as it embraced the idea of the eternal and
immovable Divine Thought in its absoluteness, separated entirely from the
incipient stage of (the so-called)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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creation;
and comprised psychological and even Spiritual evolution, and its mechanical
work, or cosmogonical construction. With the Hebrews, however, though the
former conception is to be distinctly found in the Zohar, and the Sepher
Jezirah -- or what remains of the latter -- that which has been embodied
subsequently in the Pentateuch proper, and especially in Genesis, is simply
this secondary stage, to wit, the mechanical law of creation, or rather of
construction; while theogony is hardly, if at all, outlined.
It
is only in the first six chapters of Genesis, in the rejected Book of Enoch,
and the misunderstood and mistranslated poem of Job, that true echoes of the
archaic doctrine may now be found. The key to it is lost, even among the most
learned Rabbis, whose predecessors in the early period of the middle ages have
preferred, in their national exclusiveness and pride, and especially in their
profound hatred of Christianity, to cast it into the deep sea of oblivion,
rather than to share their knowledge with their relentless and fierce
persecutors. Jehovah was their own tribal property, inseparable from, and unfit
to play a part in, any other but the Mosaic Law. Violently torn out of his
original frame, which he fitted and which fitted him, the "lord god of
Abraham and Jacob" could hardly be crammed without damage and breakage
into the new Christian Canon. Being the weakest, the Judeans could not help the
desecration; but they kept the secret of the origin of their Adam Kadmon, or
male-female Jehovah; and the new tabernacle proved a complete misfit for the
old god: they were, indeed, avenged!
The
statement that Jehovah was the tribal god of the Jews and no higher, will be
denied like many other things. Yet the theologians are not in a position to
tell us, in that case, the meaning of verses 8 and 9 in Deuteronomy, chapter
xxxii. These verses say quite plainly: "When the MOST HIGH (not the
"Lord," or "Jehovah" either) divided to the nations their
inheritance, when he separated the Sons of Adam he set the bounds . . .
according to the number of the children of Israel. . . . The Lord's (Jehovah's)
portion is his people; Jacob is the lot of his inheritance." This settles
the question. So impudent were the modern translators of Bibles and Scriptures
and so damaging are these verses, that, following in the steps traced for them
by their worthy Church Fathers, each translator rendered these verses in his
own way. While the above-cited quotation is taken verbatim from the authorized
English version, in the French Bible (of the Protestant Biblical Society of
Paris, according to the version revised in 1824 by J. E. Ostervald) one finds the
"Most High" translated by Souverain (a Sovereign!!), the "sons
of Adam" rendered by "the children of men," and the
"Lord" changed into the "Eternal." For impudent
sleight-of-hand, the French Protestant Church seems thus to have surpassed even
English ecclesiasticism.
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[[Vol.
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Nevertheless,
one thing is patent: the "Lord's ("Jehovah's") portion" is
his "chosen people" and none else, for, Jacob alone is the lot of his
inheritance. What, then, have other nations, who call themselves Aryans, to do
with this Semitic deity, the tribal god of Israel? Astronomically, the
"Most High" is the Sun, and the "Lord" is one of his seven
planets, whether it be Iao, the genius of the moon, or Ilda-Baoth-Jehovah, that
of Saturn, according to Origen and the Egyptian Gnostics.* Let the "Angel
Gabriel," the "Lord" of Iran, watch over his people; and
Michael-Jehovah, over his Hebrews. These are not the gods of other nations, nor
were they ever those of Jesus. As each Persian Dev is chained to his planet
(see Origen's Copy of the Chart), so each Hindu Deva (a "Lord") has
its allotted portion, a world, a planet, a nation or a race. Plurality of
worlds implies plurality of gods. We believe in the former, and may recognize,
but will never worship, the latter. (Vide Part III., "On Chains of Worlds
and their Plurality.")
It
has been repeatedly stated in this work that every religious and philosophical
symbol had seven meanings attached to it, each pertaining to its legitimate
plane of thought, i.e., either purely metaphysical or astronomical; psychic or
physiological, etc., etc. These seven meanings and their applications are hard
enough to learn when taken by themselves; but the interpretation and the right
comprehension of them become tenfold more puzzling, when, instead of being
correlated, or made to flow consecutively out of and to follow each other,
each, or any one of these meanings is accepted as the one and sole explanation
of the whole symbolical idea. An instance may be given, as it admirably
illustrates the statement. Here are two interpretations given by two learned
Kabalists and scholars, of one and the same verse in Exodus, xxxiii, 18-23.
Moses beseeches the Lord to show him his "glory." Evidently it is not
the crude dead letter phraseology as found in the Bible that is to be accepted.
There are seven meanings in the Kabala, of which we may give two as interpreted
by the said two scholars. One of them quotes, while explaining: "Thou
canst not see my face . . . I will put thee in the cleft of the rock . . .
cover thee with my hand while I pass by. And then I will take away mine hand,
and thou shalt see my a'hoor, my back; . . " and tells us in a gloss,
"That is, I will show you 'My back,' i.e., my visible universe, my lower
manifestations, but, as a man still in the flesh, thou canst not
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
With the Egyptian Gnostics it was Thoth (Hermes), who was chief of the Seven
(Vide "Book of the Dead"). Their names are given by Origen, as Adonai
(of the Sun) Iao (of the Moon), Eloi (Jupiter), Sabao (Mars), Orai (Venus),
Astapkoi (Mercury), and, finally, Ildabaoth (Saturn).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 539 A GROTESQUE VERSE EXPLAINED.
see
my invisible nature. So proceeds the Qabbalah." This is correct, and is
the cosmo-metaphysical explanation. And now speaks the other Kabalist, giving
the numerical meaning. As it involves a good many suggestive ideas, and is far
more fully given, we may allow it more space. This synopsis is from an
unpublished MS., and explains more fully what was given in § XVII, "The
Holy of Holies," page 467.
The
numbers of the name Moses are those of "I AM THAT I AM," so that the
names Moses and Jehovah are at one in numerical harmony.
The
word Moses is [[hebrew]] [[over]] 5,300,40, and the sum of the values of its
letters is 345; Jehovah -- the genius par excellence of the lunar year --
assumes the value of 543, or the reverse of 345. . . . In the third chapter of
Exodus, in the 13th and 14th verses, it is said: And Moses said . . . Behold
when I come unto the children of Israel, and shall say unto them, The God of
your fathers hath sent me unto you; and they shall say, What is his name? What
shall I say unto them? and God said unto Moses -- "I am that I am."
The
Hebrew words for this expression are ahiye asher ahiye, and in the value of the
sums of their letters stand thus:--
[[hebrew]]
[[hebrew]] [[hebrew]]
21
501 21
.
. . This being his (God's) name, the sum of the values composing it are 21,
501, 21 are 543, or simply a use of the simple digit numbers in the name of Moses
. . . but now so ordered that the name of 345 is reversed, and reads 543. . . .
So that when Moses asks "Let me see Thy face or glory," the other
rightly and truly replies "Thou canst not see my face" . . . but thou
shalt see me behind -- (the true sense, though not the precise words); because
the comer and the behind of 543 is the face of 345 -- "for check and to
keep a strict use of a set of numbers to develop certain grand results, for the
object of which they are specifically employed." "In other uses,"
adds the learned Kabalist, "of the number they saw each other face to
face. It is strange that if we add 345 to 543 we have 888, which was the
gnostic Kabalistic value of the name Christ, who was Jehoshua or Joshua. And so
also the division of the 24 hours of the day gives three eights as quotient. .
. . The chief end of all this system of number checks was to preserve in
perpetuity the exact value of the Lunar year in the natural measure of
days."
This
is the astronomical and numerical meaning in the secret theogony of
sidereo-cosmical gods invented by the Chaldeo-Hebrews,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Qabbalah, by Isaac Myer.
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[[Vol.
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and
two meanings out of seven. The other five would astonish the Christians still
more.
The
series of OEdipuses who have endeavoured to interpret the riddle of the Sphinx,
is long indeed. For many ages she has been devouring the brightest and the
noblest intellects of Christendom; but now the Sphinx is conquered. In the
great intellectual struggle which has ended in the complete victory of the
OEdipuses of Symbolism, it is not the Sphinx, however, who, burning with the
shame of defeat, has had to bury herself in the sea, but verily the many-sided
symbol, named Jehovah, whom Christians -- the civilized nations -- have
accepted for their God. The latter has collapsed under the too close analysis,
and is -- drowned. Symbologists have discovered with dismay that their adopted
deity was only a mask for many other gods, an Euhemerized extinct planet, at
best, the genius of the Moon and Saturn with the Jews, of the Sun and Jupiter,
with early Christians; that the Trinity was, in truth, only an astronomical
triad -- unless they accepted the more abstract and metaphysical meanings given
to it by the Gentiles -- composed of the Sun (the Father), and the two planets
Mercury (the Son) and Venus (the Holy Ghost, Sophia, the Spirit of Wisdom, Love
and Truth, and Lucifer, as Christ, the bright and morning Star; vide
"Revelation," ch. xxii., 15). Because, if the Father is the Sun (the
elder Brother in the Eastern inner philosophy), the nearest planet to it is
Mercury (Hermes, Budha, Thot), the name of whose mother on Earth was Maia; the
planet which receives seven times more light than any other: which fact led the
Gnostics to call their Christos, and the Kabalists their Hermes (in the astronomical
meaning), the "seven-fold light" (vide at end of this §). Finally,
this God was Bel; the Sun being "Bel," with the Gauls,
"Helios" with the Greeks, "Baal," with the Phoenicians;
"El" in Chaldean, hence "EL-ohim," "Emanu-EL,"
El, "god," in Hebrew. But even the Kabalistic god has vanished in the
rabbinical workmanship, and one has now to turn to the innermost metaphysical
sense of the Zohar to find in it anything like Ain-Soph, the nameless deity and
the Absolute, so authoritatively and loudly claimed by the Christians. But it
is certainly not to be found in the Mosaic books, by those who try to read
without a Key to them. Ever since it was lost Jews and Christians have tried
their best to blend these two conceptions, but in vain. They have only succeeded
in finally robbing even the Universal Deity of ITS majestic character and
primitive meaning.
This
is what was said in "Isis Unveiled":--
It
would seem, therefore, but natural to make a difference between the mystery-god
[[Iao]], adopted from the highest antiquity by all who participated in the
esoteric knowledge of the priests, and his phonetic counterparts, whom we find
treated with so little reverence by the Ophites and other Gnostics.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 541 THE ANTIQUITY OF THE CROSS.
In
the Ophite gems of King ("Gnostics") we find the name of IAO
repeated, and often confounded with that of Jevo, while the latter simply
represents one of the genii antagonistic to Abraxas. But the name IAO neither
originated with, nor was it the sole property of the Jews. Even if it had
pleased Moses to bestow the name upon the tutelary "Spirit," the
alleged protector and national deity of the "chosen people of
Israel," there is yet no possible reason why other nationalities should
receive Him as the Highest and One-living God. But we deny the assumption
altogether. Besides, there is the fact that Jaho or Iao was a "Mystery
name" from the beginning, for [[hebrew]] and [[hebrew]] never came into
use before King David. Anterior to his time, few or no proper names were
compounded with Iah or Jah. It looks rather as though David, being a sojourner
among the Tyrians and Philistines (2 Samuel), brought thence the name of
Jehovah. He made Zadok high priest, from whom came the Zadokites or Sadducees.
He lived and ruled first at Hebron [[hebrew]], Habir-on or Kabeir-town, where
the rites of the four (mystery-gods) were celebrated. Neither David nor Solomon
recognized either Moses or the law of Moses. They aspired to build a temple to
[[hebrew]], like the structures erected by Hiram to Hercules and Venus, Adon
and Astarte.
Says
Furst: "The very ancient name of God, Yaho, written in the Greek law,
appears, apart from its derivation, to have been an old mystic name of the
Supreme deity of the Shemites. Hence it was told to Moses when he was initiated
at Hor-eb -- the cave -- under the direction of Jethro, the Kenite (or Cainite)
priest of Midian. In an old religion of the Chaldeans, whose remains are to be
found among the Neo-Platonists, the highest divinity, enthroned above the seven
heavens, representing the Spiritual Light-Principle . . . . and also conceived
of as Demiurgus,* was called [[Iao]]([[hebrew]]), who was, like the Hebrew
Yaha, mysterious and unmentionable, and whose name was communicated to the
Initiated. The Phoenicians had a Supreme God, whose name was trilateral and
secret, and he was [[Iao]]."** (Isis Unveiled), Vol. II., p. 298.)
The
Cross, say the Kabalists, repeating the lesson of the Occultists, is one of the
most ancient -- nay, perhaps, the most ancient of symbols. This is demonstrated
at the very beginning of the Proem (Vol. I.). The Eastern Initiates show it
coeval with the circle of Deific infinitude and the first differentiation of
the Essence, the union of spirit and matter. This was rejected, and the
astronomical allegory alone was accepted and made to fit into cunningly
imagined terrestrial events.
Let
us demonstrate this statement. In astronomy, as said, Mercury is the son of
Coelus and Lux -- of the sky and light, or the Sun; in mythology he is the
progeny of Jupiter and Maia. He is the "messenger" of his Father
Jupiter, the Messiah of the Sun; in Greek, his name "Hermes," means,
among other things, the "Interpreter" -- the "Word" by mouth;
the LOGOS, or VERBUM. Now, Mercury, besides being born on Mount Cyllene among
shepherds, is the patron of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
By very few though, for the creators of the material universe were always
considered as subordinate gods to the Most High Deity.
**
Lydus I., c. Ledrenus, I. c.
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[[Vol.
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latter.
A psychopompic genius, he conducted the souls of the dead to Hades and brought
them back, an office attributed to Jesus, after his death and resurrection. The
symbols of Hermes-Mercury (Dii Termini) were placed along and at the turning
points of highways (as crosses are now placed in Italy) and they were
cruciform.* Every seventh day the priests anointed these termini with oil, and
once a year hung them with garlands, hence they were the anointed. Mercury,
when speaking through his oracles said, "I am he whom you call the Son of
the Father (Jupiter) and Maia. Leaving the King of Heaven (the Sun) I come to
help you, mortals." Mercury heals the blind and restores sight, mental and
physical.** He was often represented as three-headed and called
"Tricephalos," "Triplex," as one with the Sun and Venus.
Finally, Mercury, as Cornutus*** shows, was sometimes figured under a cubic
form, without arms, because "the power of speech and eloquence can prevail
without the assistance of arms or feet." It is this cubic form which
connects the termini directly with the cross, and the eloquence or the power of
speech of Mercury, which made the crafty Eusebius say "Hermes is the
emblem of the Word which creates and interprets all," for it is the
creative word; and he shows Porphyry teaching that the speech of Hermes, (now
interpreted "Word of God" (!) in Pymander) a creative speech
(Verbum), is the seminal principle scattered throughout the Universe.**** In
Alchemy "Mercury" is the radical Moyst, primitive or elementary
water, containing the seed of the Universe, fecundated by the solar fires. To
express this fecundating principle, a phallus was often added to the cross (the
male and female, or the vertical and the horizontal united) by the Egyptians
(Vide Egyptian Museums). The cruciform termini also represented this dual idea,
which was found in Egypt in the cubic Hermes. The author of "Source of
Measures" tells us why. (But see the last page of § XVI., about the
Gnostic Priapus).
As
shown by him, the cube unfolded becomes in display a cross of the tau, or the
Egyptian, form; or again, "the circle attached to the tau gives the
ansated cross" of the old Pharaohs. They had known this from their priests
and their "Kings Initiates" for ages, and also what was meant by
"the attachment of a man to the cross," which idea "was made to
co-ordinate with that of the origin of human life, and hence the phallic
form." Only the latter came into action aeons and ages after the idea of
the carpenter and artificer of the Gods,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Montfaucon, Antiquities. See plates in Vol. I., plate 77. The disciples of
Hermes go after their death to his planet, Mercury -- their Kingdom of Heaven.
**
Cornutus.
***
Lydus de Mensibus, iv.
****
Preparat, Evang. I. iii. ch. 2.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 543 A PERSONAL, IS A FINITE GOD.
Visvakarma,
crucifying the "Sun-Initiate" on the cruciform lathe. As the same
author writes: "the attachment of a man to the cross . . . was made use of
in this very form of display by the Hindus"; but, made "to
co-ordinate" with the idea of the new rebirth of man by spiritual, not
physical regeneration. The candidate for initiation was attached to the tau or
astronomical cross with a far grander and nobler idea than that of the origin
of mere terrestrial life.
On
the other hand, the Semites seem to have had no other or higher purpose in life
than that of procreating their species. Thus, geometrically, and according to
the reading of the Bible by means of the numerical method, the author of the
"Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery" is quite correct. Their (the Jewish) entire
system --
"Seems
to have been anciently regarded as one resting in nature, and one which was
adopted by nature, or God, as the basis of law of the exertion practically of
creative power -- i.e., it was the creative design, of which creation was
practically the application. This seems to be established by the fact that,
under the system set forth, measures of planetary times serve coordinately as
measures of the size of planets, and of the peculiarity of their shapes --
i.e., in the extension of their equatorial and polar diameters" . . .
etc., etc. (p. 3). . . . "This system seems to underlie the whole Biblical
structure (that of creative design), as a foundation for its ritualism and for
its display of the works of the Deity in the way of architecture, by use of the
sacred unit of measure in the Garden of Eden, the Ark of Noah, the Tabernacle,
and the Temple of Solomon."
Thus,
on the very showing of the defenders of this system the Jewish Deity is proved
to be, at best, only the manifested duad, never the One absolute ALL.
Geometrically demonstrated, he is a NUMBER; symbolically, an euhemerized Priapus;
and this can hardly satisfy a mankind thirsting after the demonstration of real
spiritual truths, and the possession of a god with a divine, not
anthropomorphic, nature. It is strange that the most learned of modem Kabalists
can see in the cross and circle nothing but a symbol of the manifested creative
and androgyne deity in its relation to, and interference with, this phenomenal
world.* One author believes that "man (read the Jew and Rabbi) obtained
knowledge of the practical measure . . . . by which nature was thought to
adjust the planets in size to harmonize with the notation of their
movements" . . . . and adds: "it seems he did obtain it, and esteemed
its possession as the means of his realization of the Deity -- that is, he
approached so nearly to a conception of a Being having a mind like his own,
only infinitely more powerful, as to be able to realize a law of creation
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the Zohar and the two Qabbalahs (by Messrs. I. Myer and Mathers), with
interpretations, if the reader would satisfy himself of this.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 544 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
established
by that Being, which must have existed prior to any creation (Kabalistically
called the Word) " ("Source of Measures," p. 5).
This
may have satisfied the practical Semite mind, but the Eastern Occultist has to
decline the offer of such a God; indeed, a Deity, a Being, "having a mind
like that of man, only infinitely more powerful," is no God that has any
room beyond the cycle of creation. He has nought to do with the ideal
conception of the eternal universe. He is, at best, one of the creative subordinate
powers, the Totality of which is called the "Sephiroth," the
"Heavenly Man," and Adam Kadmon, the second logos of the Platonists.
This
very same idea is clearly found at the bottom of the ablest definitions of the
Kabala and its mysteries, e.g., by John A. Parker, as quoted in the same
work:--
"The
key of the Kabala is thought to be the geometrical relation of the area of the
circle inscribed in the square, or, of the cube to the sphere, giving rise to
the relation of diameter to circumference of a circle with the numerical value
of this relation expressed in integrals. The relation of diameter to
circumference, being a supreme one connected with the god-names of Elohim and
Jehovah (which terms are expressions numerically of these relations
respectively, the first being of circumference, the latter of diameter),
embraces all. Two expressions of circumference to diameter in integrals are
used in the Bible: (1) The perfect, and (2) the imperfect. One of the relations
between these is such that (2) subtracted from (1) will leave a unit of a
diameter value in terms, or in the denomination of the circumference value of
the perfect circle, or a unit straight line having a perfect circular value, or
a factor of circular value" (p. 22).
Such
calculations can lead one no further than to unriddle the mysteries of the
third stage of Evolution, or the "third creation of Brahma." The
initiated Hindus know how to "square the circle" far better than any
European. But of this more anon. The fact is that the Western Mystics commence
their speculation only at that stage when the universe "falls into
matter," as the occultists say. Throughout the whole series of Kabalistic
books we have not met with one sentence that would hint in the remotest way at
the psychological and spiritual, as well as at the mechanical and physiological
secrets of "creation." Shall we, then, regard the evolution of the
Universe as simply a prototype, on a gigantic scale, of the act of procreation?
as "divine" Phallicism, and rhapsodize on it as the evilly-inspired
author of a late work of this name has done? The writer does not think so. And
she feels justified in saying so, since the most careful reading of the Old
Testament -- esoterically, as well as exoterically -- seems to have carried the
most enthusiastic enquirers no further than a certainty on mathematical grounds
that from the first to the last chapter of the Pentateuch every scene, every
character or event are shown connected, directly or indirectly, with the origin
of birth in its crudest and most
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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brutal
form. Thus, however interesting and ingenious the rabbinical methods, the
writer, in common with other Eastern Occultists, must prefer those of the
Pagans.
It
is not, then, in the Bible that we have to search for the origin of the Cross
and Circle, but beyond the Flood. Therefore, returning to Eliphas Levi and the
Zohar, we answer for the Eastern Occultists and say that, applying practice to
principle, they agree entirely with Pascal, who says that "God is a
circle, the centre of which is everywhere and the circumference nowhere,"
whereas the Kabalists say the reverse, and maintain it solely out of their
desire to veil their doctrine. By the way, the definition of Deity by the
Circle is not Pascal's at all, as E. Levi thought. It was borrowed by the
French philosopher from either Mercury Trismegistus or Cardinal Cusa's Latin
work, De Docta Ignorantia, in which he makes use of it. It is, moreover,
disfigured by Pascal, who replaces the words "Cosmic Circle," which
stand symbolically in the original inscription, by the word Theos. With the
ancients both words were synonymous.
-------
A.
CROSS
AND CIRCLE.
Something
of the divine and the mysterious has ever been ascribed, in the minds of the
ancient philosophers, to the shape of the circle. The old world, consistent in
its symbolism with its pantheistic intuitions, uniting the visible and the
invisible Infinitudes into one, represented Deity and its outward VEIL alike --
by a circle. This merging of the two into a unity, and the name theos given
indifferently to both, is explained, and becomes thereby still more scientific
and philosophical. Plato's etymological definition of the word theos has been
shown elsewhere. He derives it from the verb [[theein]] (see Cratylus),
"to move," as suggested by the motion of the heavenly bodies which he
connects with deity. According to the Esoteric philosophy, this Deity is during
its "nights" and its "days" (i.e., cycles of rest or
activity) "the eternal perpetual motion," "the EVER-BECOMING, as
well as the ever universally present, and the ever Existing." The latter
is the root-abstraction, the former -- the only possible conception in human
mind, if it disconnects this deity from any shape or form. It is a perpetual,
never-ceasing evolution, circling back in its incessant progress through aeons
of duration into its original status -- ABSOLUTE UNITY.
It
was only the minor gods, who were made to carry the symbolical attributes of
the higher ones. Thus, the god Shoo, the personification of Ra, who appears as
"the great Cat of the Basin of Persea, in An"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 546 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
(See
"Book of the Dead," Ritual XVII, 45-47), was often represented in the
Egyptian monuments seated, and holding a cross, symbol of the four quarters, or
the Elements, attached to a Circle.
In
that very learned work, "The Natural Genesis," by Mr. Gerald Massey,
on pp. 408-455 (Vol. I.), under the heading, "Typology of the Cross,"
there is more information to be had on the cross and circle than in any other
work we know of. He who would fain have proofs of the antiquity of the Cross is
referred to these two volumes. The author shows that "the circle and the
cross are inseparable. . . . The crux ansata unites the circle and cross of the
four corners. From this origin they came to be interchangeable at times. For
example, the Chakra, or Disk of Vishnu, is a circle. The names denote the
circling, wheeling round, periodicity, the wheel of time. This the god uses as
a weapon to hurl at the enemy. In like manner, Thor throws his weapon, the
Fylfot, a form of the four-footed cross (Swastica) and a type of the four
quarters. Thus the cross is equivalent to the circle of the year. . . . The
wheel emblem unites the cross and circle in one, as does the hieroglyphic cake
and the Ankh-tie [[diagram]]."
Nor
was the double glyph sacred with the profane, but only with the Initiates. For
Raoul-Rochette shows (ibid) "the sign [[diagram]], occurring as the
reverse of a Phoenician coin, with a Ram as the obverse. . . . .The same sign,
sometimes called Venus' Looking-Glass, because it typified reproduction, was
employed to mark the hind-quarters of valuable brood mares of Corinthian and
other beautiful breeds of horses" (Raoul-Rochette, loc. cit. De La Croix
Ansee, Mem. de l'Academie des Sciences, pl. 2, Nos. 8, 9, also 16, 2, p. 320,
quoted in "Nat. Gen."), which proves that so far back as those early
days the cross had already become the symbol of human procreation, and that
oblivion of the divine origin of Cross and Circle had been forgotten.
Another
form of the cross is given from the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (vol.
xviii., p. 393, pl. 4):--
"At
each of the four corners is placed a quarter arc of an oviform curve, and when
the four are put together they form an oval; thus the figure combines the cross
with the circle round in four parts, corresponding to the four corners of the
cross. The four segments answer to the four feet of the Swastica cross and the
Fylfot of Thor. The four-leaved lotus flower of Buddha, is likewise figured at
the centre of this cross, the lotus being an Egyptian and Hindu type of the
four quarters. The four quarter arcs, if joined together, would form an
ellipse, and the ellipse is also figured on each arm of the cross. This ellipse
therefore denotes the path of the earth . . . . Sir J. Y. Simpson copied the following
specimen [[diagram]], which is here presented, as the cross of the two
equinoxes and the two solstices placed within the figure of the earth's path.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 547 VARIATIONS OF THE SYMBOLISM.
The
same ovoid or boat-shaped figure appears at times in the Hindu drawings with
seven steps at each end as a form or a mode of Meru."
This
is the astronomical aspect of the double glyph. There are six more aspects,
however, and an attempt may be made to interpret a few of these. The subject is
so vast that it would require in itself alone many volumes.
But
the most curious of these Egyptian symbols of Cross and Circle, spoken of in
the above cited work, is one which receives its full explanation and final
colour from Aryan symbols of the same nature. Says the author:--
"The
four-armed Cross is simply the cross of the four quarters, but the cross sign
is not always simple.* This is a type that was developed from an identifiable
beginning, which was adapted to the expression of various ideas afterwards. The
most sacred cross of Egypt that was carried in the hands of the gods, the
Pharaohs, and the mummied dead, is the Ankh [[diagram]] the sign of life, the
living, an oath, the covenant . . . The top of this is the hieroglyphic Ru
[[diagram]] set upright on the Tau-Cross. The Ru is the door, gate, mouth, the
place of outlet. This denotes the birth-place in the northern quarter of the
heavens, from which the Sun is reborn. Hence the Ru of the Ankh sign is the
feminine type of the birth-place, representing the north. It was in the
NORTHERN QUARTER that the GODDESS OF THE SEVEN STARS, called the "Mother
of the Revolutions," gave birth to time in the earliest cycle of the year.
The first sign of this primordial circle and cycle made in heaven is the
earliest shape of the Ankh-cross [[diagram]], a mere loop which contains both a
circle and the cross in one image. This loop or noose is carried in front of
the oldest genitrix, Typhon of the great Bear, as her Ark, the ideograph of a
period, an ending, a time, shown to mean one revolution.
"This
then represents the circle made in the northern heaven by the Great Bear, which
constituted the earliest year of time, from which we infer that the loop or Ru
of the North represents that quarter, the birth-place of time when figured as
the Ru of the Ankh symbol. Indeed this can be proved. The noose is an Ark or
Rak type of reckoning. The Ru of the Ankh-cross was continued in the Cypriote
[[diagram]] and the Coptic Ro, P.** The Ro, was carried into the Greek cross
[[diagram]], which is formed of the Ro and Chi or R-K. . . . The Rak, or Ank,
was the sign of all beginning (Arche) on this account, and the Ank-tie is the
cross of the North, the hind part of Heaven. . . ."
Now
this, again, is entirely astronomical and phallic. The Puranic version in India
gives the whole another colour; and without, however,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Certainly not; for very often there are symbols made to symbolize other
symbols, and these are in turn used in ideographs.
**
The R of the Slavonian and Russian alphabets (the Kyriletza) is also the Latin
P.
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 548 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
destroying
the above interpretation it is made to reveal a portion of its mysteries with
the help of the astronomical key, and thus offers a more metaphysical
rendering. The "Ankh-tie" [[diagram]] does not belong to Egypt alone.
It exists under the name of pasa, a cord which Siva holds in the hand of his
right back arm* (Siva having four arms). The Mahadeva is represented in the
posture of an ascetic, as Maha-Yogi, with his third eye [[diagram]], which is
"the Ru, [[diagram]],set upright on the Tau-Cross" in another form.
The pasa is held in the hand in such a way that it is the first finger and hand
near the thumb which make the cross, or loop and crossing. [[diagram]] Our Orientalists
would have it to represent a cord to bind refractory offenders with, because,
forsooth, Kali, Siva's consort, has the same as an attribute!
The
pasa has here a double significance, as also has Siva's trisula and every other
divine attribute. This significance lies in Siva, as Rudra has certainly the
same meaning as the Egyptian ansated cross in its cosmic and mystic meaning. In
the hand of Siva it becomes linga and yonic. That which is meant is this: Siva,
as said before, is unknown by that name in the Vedas; and it is in the white
Yajur Veda that he appears for the first time as the great god -- MAHADEVA --
whose symbol is the lingham. In Rig Veda he is called Rudra, the
"howler," the beneficent and the maleficent Deity at the same time,
the Healer and the Destroyer. In the Vishnu Purana, he is the god who springs
from the forehead of Brahma, who separates into male and female, and he is the
parent of the Rudras or Maruts, half of whom are brilliant and gentle, others,
black and ferocious. In the Vedas, he is the divine Ego aspiring to return to
its pure, deific state, and at the same time that divine ego imprisoned in
earthly form, whose fierce passions make of him the "roarer," the
"terrible." This is well shown in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad,
wherein the Rudras, the progeny of Rudra, god of fire, are called the "ten
vital breaths" (prana, life) with manas, as eleventh, whereas as Siva, he
is the Destroyer of that life. Brahma calls him Rudra, and gives him, besides,
seven other names, which names are his seven forms of manifestation, also the
seven powers of nature which destroy but to recreate or regenerate.
Hence
the cruciform noose (pasa) in his hand, when he is represented as an ascetic,
the Mahayogin, has no phallic signification, and it, indeed, requires a strong
imagination bent in this direction to find such even in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Moor's "Hindu Pantheon," plate xiii.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 549 "GUHA," THE MYSTERIOUS.
an
astronomical symbol. As an emblem of "door, gate, mouth, the place of
outlet" it signifies the "strait gate" that leads to the kingdom
of heaven, far more than the "birth-place" in a physiological sense.
It
is a Cross in a Circle and Crux Ansata, truly; but it is a Cross on which all
the human passions have to be crucified before the Yogi passes through the
"strait gate," the narrow circle that widens into an infinite one, as
soon as the inner man has passed the threshold.
As
to the mysterious constellation of the Seven Rishis in the great Bear, if Egypt
made them sacred to "the oldest genitrix, Typhon" -- India has
connected all these symbols ages ago with time or Yuga revolutions, and the
Saptarishis are intimately connected with our present age -- the Dark Kali
Yug.* The great Circle of Time, on the face of which fancy in India has
represented the Tortoise (Kurma, or Sisumara, one of the Avatars of Vishnu),
has the Cross placed on it by nature in its division and localisation of stars,
planets and constellations. Thus in Bhagavata Purana V., xxx., it is said that
"at the extremity of the tail of that animal, whose head is directed
toward the South and whose body is in the shape of a ring (Circle), Dhruva (the
ex-pole star) is placed; and along that tail are the Prajapati, Agni, Indra,
Dharma, etc.; and across its loins the Seven Rishis." This is then the
first and earliest Cross and Circle, into the formation of which enters the
Deity (symbolized by Vishnu), the Eternal Circle of Boundless Time, Kala, on
whose plane lie crossways all the gods, creatures, and creations born in Space
and Time; -- who, as the philosophy has it, all die at the Mahapralaya.
Meanwhile
it is they, the Seven Rishis, who mark the time and the duration of events in
our septenary life cycle. They are as mysterious as their supposed wives, the
Pleiades, of whom only one -- she who hides -- has proven virtuous. The
Pleiades (Krittika) are the nurses of Karttikeya, the God of War (Mars of the
Western Pagans), who is called the Commander of the celestial armies -- or
rather of the Siddhas (translated Yogis in heaven, and holy sages on the earth)
-- "Siddha-sena," which would make Karttikeya identical with Michael,
the "leader of the celestial hosts" and, like himself, a virgin
Kumara.** Verily he is the "Guha," the mysterious one, as much so as
are the Saptarshis and the Krittika (seven Rishis and the Pleiades), for the
interpretation of all these combined, reveal to the adept the greatest mysteries
of occult nature. One point is worth mention in this question of cross and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Described in the "Mission des Juifs" by the Marquis St. Yves d'Alveydre,
the hierophant and leader of a large party of French Kabalists, as the Golden
Age!
**
The more so since he is the reputed slayer of Tripurasura and the Titan Taraka.
Michael is the conqueror of the dragon, and Indra and Karttikeya are often made
identical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 550 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
circle,
as it bears strongly upon the elements of fire and water, which play such an
important part in the circle and cross Symbolics. Like Mars, who is alleged by
Ovid to have been born of a mother alone (Juno), without the participation of a
father, or like the Avatars (Krishna, for instance), in the West as in the East
-- Karttikeya is born, but in a still more miraculous manner -- begotten by
neither father nor mother, but out of a seed of Rudra Siva, via Agni, who
dropped it into the Ganges. Thus he is born from fire and water -- a "boy
bright as the Sun and beautiful as the moon." Hence he is called Agnibhuva
(Agni's son) and Ganga-putra (Son of Ganges). Add to this the fact that the
Krittika, his nurses, as Matsya Purana shows, are presided over by Agni, or, in
the authentic words -- "The seven Rishis are on a line with the brilliant
Agni," and hence are called Agneya -- and the connection is easy to
follow.
It
is, then, the Rishis who mark the time and the periods of Kali-yuga, the age of
sin and sorrow. See in the Bhagavata Purana XII., II, 2, 6, 32, and Vishnu
Purana. Says the latter: "When the splendour of Vishnu (Krishna) departed
for heaven, then did the Kali Yug, during which men delight in sin, invade the
world. . . . . When the Seven Rishis were in Magha, the Kali Yug, comprising
1,200 (divine) years (432,000 years of mortals), began; and when from Magha,
they shall reach Purvashadha, then will this Kali age attain its growth, under
Nanda and his successors."* This is the revolution of the Rishis
"when the two first stars of the Seven Rishis (of the Great Bear) rise in
the heavens, and some lunar asterism is seen at night, at an equal distance
between them, then the Seven Rishis continue stationary in that conjunction for
a hundred years," a hater of Nanda makes Parasara say. According to
Bentley, it is in order to show the quantity of the precession of the equinoxes
that this notion originated among the astronomers. It was done "by
assuming an imaginary line, or great circle, passing through the poles of the
ecliptic and the beginning of the fixed Magha, which circle was supposed to cut
some of the stars in the Great Bear. . . . The seven stars being called the
Rishis, the Circle so assumed was called the line of the Rishis . . . . and
being invariably fixed to the beginning of the lunar asterism Magha, the
precession would be noted by stating the degree . . . of any moveable lunar
mansion cut by that line or circle as an index" ("Historical View of
the Hindu Astronomy," p. 65).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nanda is the first Buddhist Sovereign, Chandragupta, against whom all the
Brahmins were so arrayed; he of the Morya Dynasty, and the grandfather of
Asoka. This is one of those passages that do not exist in the earlier Puranic
MSS. They were added by the Vaishnavas, who interpolated almost as much, out of
Sectarian spite, as the Christian Fathers did.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 551 THE RISHIS AND THE PLEIADES.
There
was, and still exists, a seemingly endless controversy about the chronology of
the Hindus. Here is a point that could help to determine -- approximately at
least -- the age when the symbolism of the Seven Rishis and their connection
with the Pleiades began. When Karttikeya was delivered to them by the gods to
be nursed, the Krittika were only six -- whence Karttikeya is represented with
six heads; but when the poetical fancy of the early Aryan symbologists made of
them the consorts of the Seven Rishis, they were seven. Their names are given,
and these are Amba, Dula, Nitatui, Abrayanti, Maghayanti, Varshayanti, and
Chupunika. There are other sets of names which differ, however. Anyhow, the
Seven Rishis were made to marry the Seven Krittika before the disappearance of
the seventh Pleiad. Otherwise, how could the Hindu astronomers speak of that
which, without the help of the strongest telescopes, no one can see? This is
why, perhaps, in every such case the majority of the events described in the
Hindu allegories is fixed upon as "a very recent invention, certainly
within the Christian era"?
The
oldest MSS. in Sanskrit on astronomy, begin their series of Nakshatras (the 27
lunar asterisms) with the sign of Krittika, and this can hardly make them
earlier than 2780 B.C., (see the "Vedic Calendar," accepted even by
the Orientalists); though they get out of the difficulty by saying that the
said Calendar does not prove that the Hindus knew anything of astronomy at that
date, and assure their readers that, Calendars notwithstanding, the Indian
pundits may have acquired their knowledge of the lunar mansions headed by Krittika
from the Phoenicians, etc. However that may be, the Pleiades are the central
group of the system of sidereal symbology. They are situated in the neck of the
constellation of Taurus, regarded by Madler and others, in astronomy, as the
central group of the system of The Milky Way, and in the Kabala and Eastern
Esotericism, as the sidereal septenate born from the first manifested side of
the upper triangle, the concealed [[diagram]]. This manifested side is Taurus,
the Symbol of ONE (the figure 1), or of the first letter of the Hebrew
alphabet, Aleph [[hebrew]] (bull or ox) whose synthesis is ten (10), or
[[hebrew]] Yodh, the perfect letter and number. The Pleiades (Alcyone,
especially), are thus considered, even in astronomy, as the central point around
which our Universe of fixed stars revolves, the focus from which, and into
which the divine breath, MOTION, works incessantly during the Manvantara. Hence
-- in the Occult philosophy and its sidereal symbols -- it is this Circle and
the starry cross on its face, which play the most prominent part.
The
Secret Doctrine teaches us that everything in the universe, as well as the
universe itself, is formed (created) during its periodical manifestations -- by
accelerated MOTION set into activity by the BREATH of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 552 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
ever-to-be-unknown power (unknown to present mankind, at any rate) within the
phenomenal world. The Spirit of Life and Immortality was everywhere symbolized
by a circle: hence the serpent biting his tail, represents the circle of Wisdom
in infinity; as does the astronomical cross -- the cross within a circle, and
the globe, with two wings added to it, which then became the sacred Scarabaeus
of the Egyptians, its very name being suggestive of the secret idea attached to
it. For the Scarabaeus is called in Egypt (in the papyri) Khopirron and Khopri
from the verb Khopron "to become," and has thus been made a symbol
and an emblem of human life and of the successive becomings of man, through the
various peregrinations and metempsychoses (reincarnations) of the liberated
Soul. This mystical symbol shows plainly that the Egyptians believed in
reincarnation and the successive lives and existences of the Immortal entity.
Being, however, an esoteric doctrine, revealed only during the mysteries by the
priest-hierophants and the Kings-Initiates to the candidates, it was kept
secret. The incorporeal intelligences (the Planetary Spirits, or Creative Powers)
were always represented under the form of circles. In the primitive philosophy
of the Hierophants these invisible circles were the prototypic causes and
builders of all the heavenly orbs, which were their visible bodies or
coverings, and of which they were the souls. It was certainly a universal
teaching in antiquity. (See Ezekiel, ch. 1.)
"Before
the mathematical numbers," says Proclus (in Quinto Libro, EUCLID),
"there are the Self-moving numbers; before the figures apparent -- the vital
figures, and before producing the material worlds which move in a Circle, the
Creative Power produced the invisible Circles."
Deus
enim et circulus est, says Pherecydes, in his hymn to Jupiter. It was a
Hermetic axiom, and Pythagoras prescribed such a circular prostration and
posture during the hours of contemplation. "The devotee must approach as
much as possible the form of a perfect circle," prescribes the Secret
Book. Numa tried to spread among the people the same custom, Pierius* tells his
readers; and Pliny says: "During our worship, we roll up, so to say, our
body in a ring, totum corpus circumagimur."** The vision of the prophet
Ezekiel reminds one
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pierius Vale.
**
The goddess Basht (or Pasht) was represented with the head of a cat. This
animal was sacred in Egypt for several reasons: as a symbol of the Moon
"the eye of Osiris" or the "Sun," during night. The cat was
also sacred to Sokhit. One of the mystic reasons was because of its body being
rolled up in a circle when asleep. The posture is prescribed for occult and
magnetic purposes, in order to regulate in a certain way the circulation of the
vital fluid, with which the cat is pre-eminently endowed. "The nine lives
of a cat" is a popular saying based on good physiological and occult
reasons. Mr. G. Massey gives also an astronomical reason for it which may be
found in § I. "SYMBOLISM." "The cat saw the Sun, had it in its
eye by night (was the eye [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 553 THE DEGRADATION OF THE SYMBOL.
forcibly
of this mysticism of the circle, when he beheld a whirl-wind from which came
out "one wheel upon the earth" whose work "was as it were a
wheel in the middle of a wheel" (ch. i. vv. 4-16). . . . "for the
Spirit of the living creature was in the wheels" (v. 20).
"Spirit
whirleth about continually and returneth again according to his circuits"
-- says Solomon (Eccles. i. 6), who is made in the English translation to speak
of the "Wind," and in the original text to refer both to the Spirit
and the Sun. But the Zohar, the only true glossary of the Kabalistic Preacher,
in explanation of this verse, which is, perhaps, rather hazy and difficult to
comprehend, says that "it seems to say that the sun moves in circuits,
whereas it refers to the Spirit under the Sun, called the holy Spirit, that
moves circularly, toward both sides, that they (It and the Sun) should be united
in the same Essence." . . . (Zohar, fol. 87, col. 346.)
The
Brahmanical "Golden Egg," from within which emerges Brahma, the
creative deity, is the "circle with the Central Point" of Pythagoras,
and its fitting symbol. In the Secret Doctrine the concealed UNITY -- whether
representing PARABRAHMAM, or the "GREAT EXTREME" of Confucius, or the
Deity concealed by PHTA, the Eternal Light, or again the Jewish EN-SOPH, is
always found to be symbolized by a circle or the "nought" (absolute
No-Thing and Nothing, because it is infinite and the ALL); while the
god-manifested (by its works) is referred to as the diameter of that circle.
The symbolism of the underlying idea is thus made evident: the right line
passing through the centre of a circle has, in the geometrical sense, length,
but neither breadth or thickness: it is an imaginary and feminine symbol,
crossing eternity and made to rest on the plane of existence of the phenomenal
world. It is dimensional, whereas its circle is dimensionless, or, to use an
algebraical term, it is the dimension of an equation. Another way of
symbolizing the idea is found in the Pythagorean sacred Decade which
synthesizes, in the dual numeral Ten (the 1 and a circle or cipher), the
absolute ALL manifesting itself in the WORD or generative Power of Creation.
-------
B.
THE
FALL OF THE CROSS INTO MATTER.
Those
who would feel inclined to argue upon this Pythagorean symbol by objecting that
it is not yet ascertained, so far, at what period of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of night), when it was otherwise unseen by men
(for as the moon reflects the light of the Sun, so the cat was supposed to reflect
it on account of its phosphorescent eyes) . . . We might say the moon mirrored
the solar light, because we have looking-glasses. With them the cat's eye was
the mirror."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 554 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
antiquity
the nought or cipher occurs for the first time -- especially in India -- are
referred to Vol. II. of "Isis Unveiled," pp. 299, 300, et seq.
Admitting
for argument's sake that the ancient world was not acquainted with our modes of
calculation or Arabic figures -- though we know it was -- yet the circle and
diameter idea is there to show that it was the first symbol in cosmogony.
Before the trigrammes of Fo-hi, Yang, the Unity, and Yin, the binary, explained
cunningly enough by Eliphas Levi thus (Dogme et Rituel, Vol. I., p. 124):--
China had her Confucius, and her Tau-ists.* The former circumscribes the
"great extreme" within a circle with a horizontal line across; the
latter place three concentric circles beneath the great circle, while the Sung
Sages showed the "great Extreme" in an upper circle, and Heaven and
Earth in two lower and smaller circles. The Yangs and the Yins are a far later
invention. [[diagram]] Plato and his school never understood the Deity otherwise,
many epithets of his applied to the "God over all" ([[ho epi pasi
theos]]) notwithstanding. Plato having been initiated, could not believe in a
personal God -- a gigantic Shadow of Man. His epithets of "monarch"
and "Law-giver of the Universe" bear an abstract meaning well
understood by every Occultist, who, no less than any Christian, believes in the
One Law that governs the Universe, recognizing it at the same time as
immutable. "Beyond all finite existences," he says, "and secondary
causes, all laws, ideas and principles, there is an INTELLIGENCE or MIND
([[nous]]), the first principle of all principles, the Supreme Idea on which
all other ideas are grounded . . . the ultimate substance from which all things
derive their being and essence, the first and efficient cause of all the order,
and harmony, and beauty and excellency, and goodness, which pervades the
Universe" -- who is called, by way of preeminence and excellence, the
Supreme** good "the god" ([[Theos]]), and "the god over
all." These words apply, as Plato himself shows, neither to the
"Creator" nor to the "Father" of our modern Monotheist, but
to the ideal and abstract cause. For, as he says, "this [gk char], the god
over all, is not the truth or the intelligence, but the FATHER of it," and
its Primal cause. Is it Plato, the greatest pupil of the archaic Sages, a sage
himself, for whom there was but a single object of attainment in this life --
REAL KNOWLEDGE -- who would have ever believed in a deity that curses and damns
men for ever, on the slightest provocation?*** Not he, who considered only
those to be
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Also in T'sang-t-ung-ky, by Wei-Pa-Yang.
**
Cocker's "Christianity and Greek Philosophy," xi., p. 377.
***
The cry of despair uttered by Count de Montlosier in his Mysteres de la Vie
Humaine, p. 117, is a warrant that the Cause of "excellence and
goodness," supposed by Plato to pervade the Universe is neither his Deity,
nor our World. "Au spectacle de tant [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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genuine
philosophers and students of truth who possessed the knowledge of the really
existing in opposition to mere seeming; of the always existing in opposition to
the transitory; and of that which exists permanently in opposition to that
which waxes, wanes, and is developed and destroyed alternately.* Speusippus and
Xenocrates followed in his footsteps. The ONE, the original, had no existence,
in the sense applied to it by mortal men. "The [[timion]] (honoured one)
dwells in the centre as in the circumference, but it is only the reflection of
the Deity -- the world Soul"** -- the plane of the surface of the circle.
The Cross and Circle are a universal conception -- as old as human mind itself.
They stand foremost on the list of the long series of, so to say, international
symbols, which expressed very often great scientific truths, besides their
direct bearing upon psychological, and even physiological mysteries; and this
symbol is precisely one of this kind, and is based upon the oldest esoteric
cosmogony.
It
is no explanation to say, as Eliphas Levi does, that God, the universal Love,
having caused the male unit to dig an abyss in the female Binary, or chaos,
produced thereby the world. Besides being as gross a conception as any, it does
not remove the difficulty of conceiving it without losing one's veneration for
the rather too human-like ways of the Deity. It is to avoid such
anthropomorphic conceptions that the Initiates never use the epithet
"God" to designate the One and Secondless Principle in the Universe;
and that -- faithful in this to the oldest traditions of the Secret Doctrine
the world over -- they deny that such imperfect and often not very clean work
could ever be produced by Absolute Perfection. There is no need to mention here
other still greater metaphysical difficulties. Between speculative Atheism and
idiotic anthropomorphism there must be a philosophical mean, and a
reconciliation. The Presence of the Unseen Principle throughout all nature, and
the highest manifestation of it on Earth -- MAN, can alone help to solve the
Problem, which is that of the mathematician whose x must ever elude the grasp
of our terrestrial algebra. The Hindus have tried to solve it by their avatars,
the Christians think
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] de grandeur oppose a celui de tant de misere,
l'esprit qui se met a observer ce vaste ensemble, se represente je ne sais
quelle grande diviniti qu'une diviniti, plus grande et plus pressante encore,
aurait comme brisee et mise en pieces en dispersant les debris dans tout
l'Univers." The "still greater and still more exacting divinity"
than the god of this world, supposed so "good" -- is KARMA. And this
true Divinity shows well that the lesser one, our inner God (personal for the
time being), has no power to arrest the mighty hand of this greater Deity, the
CAUSE awakened by our actions generating smaller causes, which is called the
LAW OF RETRIBUTION.
*
See "Isis Unveiled," Before the Veil, xii. (Vol. I.).
**
Plato: "Parmenides," 141, E.
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[[Vol.
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they
did it -- by their one divine Incarnation. Exoterically -- both are wrong;
esoterically both of them are very near the truth. Alone, among the Apostles of
the Western religion, Paul seems to have fathomed -- if not actually revealed
-- the archaic mystery of the Cross. As for the rest of those who, by unifying
and individualizing the Universal Presence, have thus synthesized it into one symbol
-- the central Point in the Crucifix -- they have shown thereby that they have
never seized the true Spirit of the teaching of Christ, and by their
interpretations they have degraded it in more than one way. They have forgotten
the Spirit of that universal symbol and have selfishly monopolized it -- as
though the Boundless and the Infinite can ever be limited and conditioned to
one manifestation individualized in one man, or even in a nation!
The
four arms of the "[[diagram]]," the decussated cross, and of the
"Hermetic," pointing to the four cardinal points -- were well
understood by the mystical minds of the Hindus, Brahmins and Buddhists,
thousands of years before it was heard of in Europe; and that symbol was and is
found all over the world. They bent the ends of that cross and made of it their
Swastica [[diagram]] now the Wan of the Buddhist Mongolian.* It implies that
the "Central point" is not limited to one individual, however
perfect. That the Principle (God) is in Humanity, and Humanity, as all the
rest, is in it, like drops of water are in the Ocean, the four ends being
toward the four cardinal points, hence losing themselves in infinity.
Isarim,
an Initiate, is said to have found at Hebron, on the dead body of Hermes, the
well known Smaragdine tablet, which, it is said, contained the essence of
Hermetic wisdom . . . . "Separate the earth from the fire, the subtile
from the gross . . . . Ascend from the earth to heaven and then descend again
to earth" was traced on it. The riddle of the cross is contained in these
words, and its double mystery is solved -- to the Occultist.
"The
philosophical cross, the two lines running in opposite directions, the
horizontal and the perpendicular, the height and breadth, which the
geometrizing Deity divides at the intersecting point, and which forms the
magical as well as the scientific quaternary, when it is inscribed within the
perfect square, is the basis of the occultist. Within its mystical precinct
lies the master-key which opens the door of every science, physical as well as
spiritual. It symbolizes our human existence, for the circle of life circum-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Swastica is certainly one of the oldest symbols of the Ancient Races. In
our century, says Kenneth R. H. Mackenzie (Royal Masonic Cyclopeadia) it (the
Swastica) "has survived in the form of the mallet" in the Masonic
Fraternity. Among the many "meanings" the author gives of it, we do
not find, however, the most important one, masons evidently not knowing it.
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[[Vol.
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scribes
the four points of the cross, which represent in succession birth, life, death,
and IMMORTALITY.
"
'Attach thyself,' say the alchemists, 'to the four letters of the tetragram
disposed in the following manner: The letters of the ineffable name are there,
although thou mayest not discern them at first. The incommunicable axiom is
kabalistically contained therein, and this is what is called the magic arcanum
by the masters.' " ("Isis Unveiled.")
Again:--
The [[diagram]] (Tau), and the astronomical cross of Egypt [[diagram]] are
conspicuous in several apertures of the remains of Palenque. In one of the
basso-relievos of the Palace of Palenque, on the west side, sculptured as a
hieroglyphic right under the seated figure, is a Tau. The standing figure,
which leans over the first one, is in the act of covering its head with the
left hand with the veil of initiation; while it extends its right with the
index and middle finger pointing to heaven. The position is precisely that of a
Christian bishop giving his blessing, or the one in which Jesus is often
represented while at the Last Supper. . . . The Egyptian Hierophant had a
square head-dress which he had to wear always during his functions. . . . The
perfect Tau, formed of the perpendicular (descending male ray), and a
horizontal line (matter, female principle), and the mundane circle was an
attribute of Isis, and it is but at death that the Egyptian cross was laid on
the breast of the mummy." These square hats are worn unto this day by the
Armenian priests. The claim that the cross is purely a Christian symbol
introduced after our era, is strange indeed, when we find Ezekiel stamping the
foreheads of the men of Judah, who feared the Lord (Ezekiel ix. 4), with the
signum Thau, as it is translated in the Vulgate. In the ancient Hebrew this
sign was formed thus [[diagram]], but in the original Egyptian hieroglyphics as
a perfect Christian cross [[diagram]] (Tat, the emblem of stability). In the
Revelation, also, the "Alpha and Omega" (spirit and matter), the
first and the last, stamps the name of his Father in the foreheads of the
elect, (p. 323, Vol. II.) Moses, in Exodus xii. 22, orders his people to mark
their door-posts and lintels with blood, lest the "Lord God" should
make a mistake and smite some of his chosen people, instead of the doomed
Egyptians. And this mark is a tau! The identical Egyptian handled cross, with
the half of which talisman Horus raised the dead, as is shown on a sculptured
ruin at Philoe.
Enough
was said in the text about the Swastica and the Tau. Verily may the Cross be
traced back into the very depths of the unfathomable Archaic Ages! Its Mystery deepens
rather than clears, as we find it on the statues of Easter Island -- in old
Egypt, in Central Asia, engraved on rocks as Tau and Swastica, in pre-Christian
Scandinavia,
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[[Vol.
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everywhere!
The author of the "Hebrew Egyptian Mystery" stands perplexed before
the endless shadow it throws back into antiquity, and is unable to trace it to
any particular nation or man. He shows the Targums handed down by the Hebrews,
obscured by translation. In Joshua (viii. 29) read in Arabic, and in the Targum
of Jonathan, it is said: "The king of Ai he crucified upon a tree."
The Septuagint rendering is of suspension from a double word (Wordsworth on Joshua.)
. . . The strangest expression of this kind is in Numbers xxv. 4, where, by
Onkalos (?) it is read: "Crucify them before the Lord (Jehovah) against
the Sun." "The word here [[hebrew]], to nail to, is rendered properly
(Fuerst) by the Vulgate to crucify. The very construction of this sentence is
mystic."
So
it is, but the spirit of it has been ever misunderstood. "To crucify
before (not against) the sun" is a phrase used of initiation. It comes
from Egypt, and primarily from India. The enigma can be unriddled only by
searching for its key in the Mysteries of Initiation. The initiated adept, who
had successfully passed through all the trials, was attached, not nailed, but
simply tied on a couch in the form of a tau [[diagram]] (in Egypt) of a
Svastika without the four additional prolongations (thus: [[diagram]], not
[[diagram]]) plunged in a deep sleep (the "Sleep of Siloam" it is
called to this day among the Initiates in Asia Minor, in Syria, and even higher
Egypt). He was allowed to remain in this state for three days and three nights,
during which time his Spiritual Ego was said to confabulate with the
"gods," descend into Hades, Amenti, or Patala, (according to the
country), and do works of charity to the invisible beings, whether souls of men
or Elemental Spirits; his body remaining all the time in a temple crypt or
subterranean cave. In Egypt it was placed in the Sarcophagus in the King's
Chamber of the Pyramid of Cheops, and carried during the night of the
approaching third day to the entrance of a gallery, where at a certain hour the
beams of the rising Sun struck full on the face of the entranced candidate, who
awoke to be initiated by Osiris, and Thoth the God of Wisdom.
Let
the reader who doubts the statement consult the Hebrew originals before he
denies. Let him turn to some most suggestive Egyptian bas reliefs. One
especially from the temple of Philoe, represents a scene of initiation. Two
Gods-Hierophants, one with the head of a hawk (the Sun), the other ibis-headed
(Mercury, Thoth, the god of Wisdom and secret learning, the assessor of
Osiris-Sun), are standing over the body of a candidate just initiated. They are
in the act of pouring on his head a double stream of water (the water of life
and new birth), which stream is interlaced in the shape of a cross and full of
small ansated crosses. This is allegorical of the awakening of the candidate
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 559 ITS EARLY SIGNIFICANCE.
(now
an Initiate), when the beams of the morning sun (Osiris) strike the crown of
his head (his entranced body being placed on its wooden tau so as to receive
the rays). Then appeared the Hierophants-Initiators, and the sacramental words
were pronounced, ostensibly, to the Sun-Osiris, addressed in reality to the
Spirit Sun within, enlightening the newly-born man. Let the reader meditate on
the connection of the Sun with the Cross in both its generative and spiritually
regenerative capacities -- from the highest antiquity. Let him examine the tomb
of Bait-Oxly, in the reign of Ramses II., where he will find the crosses in
every shape and position. So again, on the throne of that sovereign, and
finally on a fragment from the Hall of the ancestors of Totmes III., preserved
in the National Library of Paris, which represents the adoration of
Bakhan-Aleare.
In
this extraordinary sculpture and painting one sees the disc of the Sun beaming
upon an ansated cross placed upon a cross of which those of the Calvary were
perfect copies. The ancient MSS. mention these as the "hard couches of
those who were in (spiritual) travail, the act of giving birth to
themselves." A quantity of such cruciform "couches," on which
the candidate, thrown into a dead trance at the end of his supreme initiation,
was placed and secured, were found in the underground halls of the Egyptian
temples after their destruction. The worthy and holy Fathers of the Cyril and
Theophilus types used them freely, believing they had been brought and
concealed there by some new converts. Alone Origen, and after him Clemens
Alexandrinus and other ex-initiates, knew better. But they preferred to keep
silent.
Again,
let the reader read the Hindu "fables," as the Orientalists call
them, and remember the allegory of Visvakarma, the creative power, the great
architect of the world, called in the Veda "the all-seeing god," who
"sacrifices himself to himself" (the Spiritual Egos of mortals are
his own essence, one with him, therefore). Remember that he is called Deva
Vardhika "the builder of the gods" and that it is he who ties (the
Sun) Surya, his son-in-law, on his lathe, in the exoteric allegory; on the
Swastika, in esoteric tradition, as on earth he is the Hierophant Initiator,
and cuts away a portion of his brightness. Visvakarma, remember again, is the Son
of Yoga-Siddha, i.e., the holy power of Yoga, and the fabricator of the
"fiery weapon," the magic Agneyastra. The narrative is given more
fully elsewhere. The author of the Kabalistic work so often quoted from,
asks:--
"The
theoretical use of crucifixion must have been somehow connected with the
personification of this symbol (the structure of the garden of Paradise
symbolized by a crucified man). But how? And as showing what? The symbol was of
the origin of measures, shadowing forth creative law or design. What
practically, as regards humanity,
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[[Vol.
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could
actual crucifixion betoken? Yet, that it was held as the effigy of some
mysterious working of the same system, is shown from the very fact of the use.
There seems to be deep below deep as to the mysterious workings of these number
values -- (the symbolization of the connection of 113 : 355, with 20612 : 6561,
by a crucified man). Not only are they shown to work in the Kosmos . . . . but
by sympathy, they seem to work out conditions relating to an unseen and
spiritual world, and the prophets seem to have held knowledge of the connecting
link. . . . Reflection becomes more involved when it is considered that the
power of expression of the law, exactly, by numbers, clearly defining a system,
was not the accident of the language, but was its very essence, and of its
primary organic construction; therefore, neither the language, nor the
mathematical system attaching to it, could be of man's invention, unless both
were founded upon a prior language, which afterwards became obsolete . . .
" (p. 205).
The
author proves these points by further elucidation, and reveals the secret
meaning of more than one dead-letter narrative, by showing that probably
[[hebrew]] man was the primordial word -- "the very first word possessed
by the Hebrews, whoever they were, to carry the idea by sound of a man. The
essential of this word was 113 (the numerical value of that word) from the
beginning, and carried with it the elements of the cosmical system
displayed."
This
is demonstrated by the Hindu Wittoba -- a form of Vishnu -- as said already.
The figure of Wittoba, even to the nail-marks on the feet,* is that of Jesus crucified,
in all its details save the Cross; and that MAN was meant is proved to us
further by the fact of the Initiate being reborn after his crucifixion on the
TREE OF LIFE. This "tree" has now become exoterically, through its
use by the Romans as an instrument of torture, and the ignorance of the early
Christian schemers, the tree of death!
Thus,
one of the seven esoteric meanings implied in this mystery of Crucifixion by
the mystic inventors of the system -- the original elaboration and adoption of
which dates back to the very establishment of the MYSTERIES -- is discovered in
the geometrical symbols containing the history of the evolution of man. The
Hebrews, whose prophet Moses was so learned in the esoteric Wisdom of Egypt,
and who adopted their numerical system from the Phoenicians, and later from the
Gentiles, from whom they borrowed most of their Kabalistic Mysticism, adapted,
most ingeniously, the Cosmic and anthropological symbols of the
"heathen" nations to their peculiar secret records. If Christian
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Moor's Hindu Pantheon, where Wittoba's left foot bears the mark of the nail
-- on the figure of his idol.
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[[Vol.
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sacerdotalism
has lost the key of it to-day, the early compilers of the Christian Mysteries
were well versed in Esoteric philosophy and the Hebrew occult metrology, and
used it dexterously. Thus they took the word aish (one of the Hebrew word forms
for MAN) and used it in conjunction with that of Shanah "lunar year,"
so mystically connected with the name of Jehovah, the supposed
"father" of Jesus, and embosomed the mystic idea in an astronomical
value and formula.
The
original idea of "Man Crucified" in Space belongs certainly to the
ancient Hindus, and Muir shows it in his "Hindu Pantheon" in the
engraving that represents Wittoba. Plato adopted it in his decussated Cross in
Space, the [[diagram]], "the Second God who impressed himself on the
Universe in the form of the Cross"; Krishna is likewise shown
"crucified." (See Dr. Lundy's Monumental Christianity, fig. 72.)
Again it is repeated in the Old Testament in the queer injunction to crucify
men before the Lord, the Sun -- which is no prophecy at all, but has a direct
phallic significance. In § II. of that same most suggestive work on the
Kabalistic meanings -- "The Hebrew-Egyptian Mystery," we read
again:--
"In
symbol, the nails of the cross have for the shape of the heads thereof a solid
pyramid, and a tapering square obeliscal shaft, or phallic emblem, for the
nail. Taking the position of the three nails in the Man's extremities and on
the cross, they form or mark a triangle in shape, one nail being at each corner
of the triangle. The wounds or stigmata in the extremities are necessarily four
designative of the square. . . . The three nails with the three wounds are in
number 6, which denotes the 6 faces of the cube unfolded (which make the cross or
man-form, or 7, counting three horizontal and four vertical bars) on which the
man is placed; and this in turn points to the circular measure transferred on
to the edges of the cube. The one wound of the feet separates into two when the
feet are separated, making three together for all, and four when separated, or
7 in all -- another most holy (and with the Jews) feminine base number."
Thus,
while the phallic or sexual meaning of the "Crucifixion Nails" is
proven by the geometrical and numerical reading, its mystical meaning is
indicated by the short remarks upon it, as given above, in its connection with,
and bearing upon, Prometheus. He is another victim, for he is crucified on the
Cross of Love, on the rock of human passions, a sacrifice to his devotion to
the cause of the spiritual element in Humanity.
Now,
the primordial system, the double glyph that underlies the idea of the Cross,
is not "of human invention," for Cosmic ideation and the Spiritual
representation of the divine Ego-man are at its basis. Later, it expanded in
the beautiful idea adopted by and represented in the Mysteries, that of
regenerated man, the mortal, who, by crucifying the man of flesh and his
passions on the
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[[Vol.
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Procrustean
bed of torture, became reborn as an Immortal. Leaving the body, the animal-man,
behind him, tied on the Cross of Initiation like an empty chrysalis, the Ego
Soul became as free as a butterfly. Still later, owing to the gradual loss of
spirituality, the cross became in Cosmogony and Anthropology no higher than a
phallic symbol.
With
the Esotericists, from the remotest times the Universal Soul or anima mundi,
the material reflection of the Immaterial Ideal, was the Source of Life of all
beings and of the life principle of the three kingdoms; and it was Septenary
with the Hermetic philosophers, as with all ancients. For it is represented as
a Sevenfold cross, whose branches are respectively, light, heat, electricity,
terrestrial magnetism, astral radiation, motion, and Intelligence, or what some
call self-consciousness.
We
have said it elsewhere. Long before the cross or its sign were adopted as symbols
of Christianity, the sign of the cross was used as a sign of recognition among
adepts and neophytes, the latter being called Chrests (from Chrestos, man of
tribulation and sorrow). Says E. Levi: "The sign of the cross adopted by
the Christians does not belong exclusively to them. It is Kabalistic, and
represents the opposition and quaternary equilibrium of the elements. We see by
the Occult verse of the Paternoster that there were originally two ways of
making it, or, at least two very different formulas to express its meaning --
one reserved for priests-initiates, the other given to neophites and the
profane. Thus, for example, the initiate, carrying his hand to his forehead,
said: To thee; then he added, belong: and continued, while carrying his hand to
the breast -- the kingdom; then, to the left shoulder -- justice: to the right
shoulder -- and mercy. Then he joined the two hands, adding: throughout the
generating cycles: 'Tibi sunt Malchut et Geburah et Chassed per Aeonas' -- a
sign of the Cross, absolutely and magnificently kabalistic, which the
profanations of Gnosticism made the militant and official Church completely
lose." (Dogma et Ritual, etc., Vol. II., p. 88.)
The
"militant and official Church" did more: having helped herself to
what had never belonged to her, she took only that which the
"profane" had, the Kabalistic meaning of the male and female
Sephiroth. She never lost the inner and higher meaning since she never had it
-- E. Levi's pandering to Rome, notwithstanding. The sign of the cross adopted
by the Latin Church was phallic from the beginning, while that of the Greeks
was the cross of the neophytes, the CHREST.
------
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 563 THE SEVEN THUNDERS.
§
XXIII.
THE
UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE.
We
are reminded in King's "Gnostics" that the Greek language has but one
word for vowel and voice; and this has led the uninitiated to many erroneous
interpretations. On the simple knowledge, however, of that well-known fact a
comparison may be attempted, and a flood of light thrown upon several mystic
meanings. Thus the words, so often used in the Upanishads and the Puranas,
"Sound" and "Speech," may be collated with the Gnostic "Vowels"
and the "Voices" of the Thunders and Angels in
"Revelation." The same will be found in Pistis Sophia, and other
ancient Fragments and MSS. This was remarked even by the matter-of-fact author
of "The Gnostics and their Remains."
Through
Hippolytus, an early Church Father, we learn what Marcus -- a Pythagorean
rather than a Christian Gnostic, and a Kabalist most certainly -- had received
in mystic revelation. It is said that "Marcus had it revealed unto him
that 'the seven heavens'* . . . . sounded each one vowel, which, all combined
together, formed a complete doxology"; in clearer words: "the Sound
whereof being carried down (from these seven heavens) to earth, became the
creator and parent of all things that be on earth." (See
"Hippolytus," vi., 48, and King's Gnostics, p. 200.) Translated from
the Occult phraseology into still plainer language this would read: "The
Sevenfold LOGOS having differentiated into seven Logoi, or creative potencies
(vowels) these (the second logos, or "Sound") created all on Earth.
Assuredly
one who is acquainted with Gnostic literature can hardly help seeing in St.
John's Apocalypse, a work of the same school of thought. For we find John
saying (chap. x. 3, 4), "Seven thunders uttered their voices . . . and I
was about to write . . . (but) I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me,
'Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not.'
" The same injunction is given to Marcus, the same to all other semi and
full Initiates. Yet the sameness of equivalent expressions used, and of the
underlying ideas, always betrays a portion of the mysteries. We must always
seek for more than one meaning in every mystery allegorically revealed,
especially in those in which the number seven and its multiplication seven by
seven, or forty-nine, appear. Now when the Rabbi Jesus is requested (in Pistis
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Heavens" are identical with "Angels," as already
stated.
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[[Vol.
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Sophia)
by his disciples to reveal to them, "the mysteries of the Light of thy
(his) Father" (i.e., of the higher SELF enlightened by Initiation and
Divine knowledge), Jesus answers: "Do ye seek after these mysteries? No
mystery is more excellent than they which shall bring your souls unto the Light
of Lights, unto the place of Truth and Goodness, unto the place where there is
neither male nor female, neither form in that place but Light, everlasting, not
to be uttered. Nothing therefore is more excellent than the mysteries which ye
seek after, saving only THE MYSTERY of the seven vowels and their FORTY AND
NINE POWERS, and their numbers thereof; and no name is more excellent than all
these vowels." "The Seven Fathers and the Forty-nine Sons blaze in
DARKNESS, but they are the LIFE and LIGHT and the continuation thereof through
the Great Age" -- says the Commentary speaking of the "Fires."
Now
it becomes evident that, in every esoteric interpretation of exoteric beliefs
expressed in allegorical forms, there was the same underlying idea -- the basic
number seven, the compound of three and four, preceded by the divine THREE
([[diagram]]) making the perfect number ten.
Also,
these numbers applied equally to divisions of time, to cosmography metaphysical
and physical, as well as to man and everything else in visible nature. Thus
these Seven vowels with their forty-nine powers are identical with the three
and the Seven Fires of the Hindus and their forty-nine fires; identical with
the numerical mysteries of the Persian Simorgh; identical with those of the
Jewish Kabalists. The latter, dwarfing the numbers (their mode of blinds), made
the duration of each successive renewal (what we call in esoteric parlance
Round) of the seven renewals of the globe only of 7,000 years, instead of, as
is more likely, 7,000,000,000, and assigned to the total duration of the
universe 49,000 years only. (Compare § "Chronology of the Brahmins.")
Now,
the Secret Doctrine furnishes a key which reveals to us on indisputable grounds
of comparative analogy that Garuda, the allegorical and monstrous half-man and
half-bird, -- the Vahan or vehicle on which Vishnu (who is Kala,
"time") is shown to ride -- is the origin of all other such
allegories. He is the Indian phoenix, the emblem of cyclic and periodical time,
the "man-lion" Singha, of whose representations the so-called
"gnostic gems" are so full.* "Over the seven rays of the lion's
crown, and corresponding to their points, stand, in many cases, the seven
vowels of the Greek alphabet [Gk char], testifying to the Seven Heavens."
This is the Solar lion and the emblem of the Solar cycle, as
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As confessed by King, the great authority on Gnostic antiquities, these gnostic
gems are not the work of the Gnostics, but belong to pre-christian periods, and
are the work of magicians (p. 241).
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[[Vol.
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Garuda*
is that of the great cycle, the "Maha-Kalpa" co-eternal with Vishnu,
and also, of course, the emblem of the Sun, and Solar cycle. This is shown by
the details of the allegory. At his birth, Garuda is mistaken for Agni, the God
of Fire, on account of his (Garuda's) "dazzling splendour," and
called thereupon Gaganeswara, "lord of the sky." Again, his being
represented as Osiris, and by many heads of allegorical monsters on the Abraxas
(gnostic) gems, with the head and beak of an eagle or a hawk (solar birds),
denotes Garuda's solar and cyclic character. His Son is Jatabu, the cycle of
60,000 years. As well remarked by C. W. King:-- "Whatever the primary
meaning (of the gem with the solar lion and vowels) it was probably imported in
its present shape from INDIA, that true fountain head of gnostic
iconography" (Gnostics, p. 218).
The
mysteries of the seven gnostic vowels, uttered by the thunders of St. John, can
be unriddled only by the primeval and original Occultism of Aryavarta, brought
into India by the primeval Brahmins, who had been initiated in Central Asia.
And this is the Occultism we study and try to explain, as much as is possible
in these pages. Our doctrine of seven Races and Seven Rounds of life and
evolution around our terrestrial chain of spheres, may be found even in
Revelation.** When the seven "thunders," or "sounds," or
"vowels" -- one meaning out of the seven for each such vowel relating
directly to our own Earth and its seven Root-Races in each Round -- "had
uttered their voices" -- but forbidden the Seer to write them, and made
him "seal up those things" -- what did the Angel "standing upon
the sea and upon the earth" do? He lifted his hand to heaven "and
sware by him that liveth for ever and ever . . . . that there should be time no
longer." "But in the days of the voice of the seventh angel when he
shall begin to sound, the Mystery of God (of the Cycle) should be
finished" (x. 7), which means, in theosophic phraseology, that when the
Seventh Round is completed, then Time will cease. "There shall be time no
longer" very naturally, since pralaya shall set in and there will remain
no one on earth to keep a division of time, during that periodical dissolution
and arrest of conscious life.
Dr.
Kenealy and others believed this doctrine of the Rabbins (their calculations of
cyclic seven and forty-nine) to have been brought by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The lack of intuition in Orientalists and antiquarians past and present, is
remarkable. Thus, Wilson, the translator of Vishnu Purana, declares in his
Preface that in the Garuda Purana he found "no account of the birth of
Garuda." Considering that an account of "Creation" in general is
given therein, and that Garuda is co-eternal with Vishnu, the Maha Kalpa, or
Great Life-CycIe, beginning with and ending with the manifesting Vishnu, what
other account of Garuda's birth could be expected !
**
Vide Revelation xvii., verses 2 and 10; and Leviticus xxiii., verses 15 to 18;
the first passage speaking of the "Seven Kings," of whom five have
gone; and the second about the "Seven Sabbaths," etc.
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[[Vol.
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them
from Chaldea. This is more than likely. But the Babylonians, who had all those
cycles and taught them only at their great initiatory mysteries of astrological
magic, got their wisdom and learning from India. It is not difficult,
therefore, to recognize in them our own esoteric doctrine. In their secret
computations, the Japanese have the same figures in their cycles. As to the
Brahmins, their Puranas and Upanishads are a good proof of it. The latter have
passed entirely into Gnostic literature; and a Brahmin needs only to read
Pistis Sophia* to recognize his forefathers' property, even to the phraseology
and similes used. Compare: in Pistis Sophia the disciple says to Jesus:
"Rabbi, reveal unto us the Mysteries of the Light (i.e., the "Fire of
Knowledge or Enlightenment") . . . forasmuch as we have heard thee saying
that there is another baptism of smoke, and another baptism of the Spirit of
Holy Light," i.e., the Spirit of FIRE. "I baptize you with water, but
. . . . he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire," says John
of Jesus (Matt. iii. 2); meaning this esoterically. The real significance of
this statement is very profound. It means that he, John, a non-initiated
ascetic, can impart to his disciples no greater wisdom than the mysteries
connected with the plane of matter (water being a symbol of it). His gnosis was
that of exoteric and ritualistic dogma, of dead-letter orthodoxy; ** while the
wisdom which Jesus, an Initiate of the higher mysteries, would reveal to them,
was of a higher character, for it was the "FIRE" Wisdom of the true
gnosis or the real spiritual enlightment. One was FIRE, the other the SMOKE.
For Moses, the fire on Mount Sinai, and the spiritual wisdom imparted; for the
multitudes of the "people" below, for the profane, Mount Sinai in
(through) smoke, i.e., the exoteric husks of orthodox or sectarian ritualism.
Now,
having the above in view, read the dialogue between the sages Narada and Davamata
in the Anugita, the antiquity and importance of which MS. (an episode from the
Mahabharata) one can learn in the "Sacred Books of the East," edited
by Prof. Max Muller.** Narada is discussing upon the breaths or the
"life-winds," as they are called in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Pistis Sophia is an extremely important document, a genuine Evangel of the
Gnostics, ascribed at random to Valentinus, but much more probably a
pre-Christian work in its original. It was discovered in a Coptic MS. by
Schwartze, in the British Museum, quite accidentally, and translated by him
into Latin; after which text and (Latin) version were published by Petermann in
the year 1853. In the text itself the authorship of this Book is ascribed to
Philip the Apostle, whom Jesus bids to sit down and write the revelation. It is
genuine and ought to be as canonical as any other gospel. Unfortunately it
remains to this day untranslated.
**
In the Cycle of Initiation, which was very long, water represented the first
and lower steps toward purification, while trials connected with fire came
last. Water could regenerate the body of matter; FIRE alone, that of the inner
Spiritual man.
***
See Introduction by Kashinath Trimbak Telang, M.A.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 567 TRUTH BETWEEN TWO CONTRASTS.
the
clumsy translations of such words as Prana, Apana, etc., whose full esoteric
meaning and application to individual functions can hardly be rendered in
English. He says of this Science that "it is the teaching of the Veda that
the fire verily is all the deities, and knowledge of it arises among Brahmans,
being accompanied by intelligence." By "fire," says the Commentator,
he means the SELF. By "intelligence," the Occultist says, Narada
means neither "discussion" nor "argumentation," as Aruna
Misra believes, but "intelligence" truly, or the adaptation of the
fire of Wisdom to Exoteric Ritualism for the profane. This is the chief concern
of the Brahmans (who were the first to set the example to other nations who
thus anthropomorphized and carnalized the grandest metaphysical truths). Narada
makes it plain and is made to say: "The smoke of that fire, which is of
excellent glory, appears in the shape of darkness" (verily so!); "its
ashes (are) passion; and goodness is that in connection with it in which the
offering is thrown": i.e., that faculty in the disciple which apprehends
the subtle truth (the flame) which escapes heavenward, while the objective
sacrifice remains as a proof and evidence of piety only to the profane. For
what can Narada mean in teaching that "those who understand the sacrifice
understand the Samana and the Vyana as the principal (offering)"; and
"the Prana and Apana, but portions of the offering . . . and between them
is the fire . . . . that is the excellent seat of the Udana as understood by
Brahmanas. As to that which is distinct from these pairs, hear me speak about
that. Day and night are a pair, between them is the fire. . . That which exists
and that which does not exist are a pair, between them is the fire, etc.,"
and after every such contrast Narada adds "That is the excellent seat of
the Udana as understood by Brahmanas."
Now
many people do not know the full meaning of such terms as Samana and Vyana,
Prana and Apana, explained as being "life-winds" (we say
"principles and their respective faculties and senses"), being
offered up to Udana, the soi-disant principal "life wind," (?) said
to act at all the joints. Therefore the reader, who is ignorant that the word
"fire" means in these allegories both the "Self" and the
higher divine knowledge, will understand nothing in this; and will therefore
entirely miss the point of our argument, as its translators and even its editor
the great Oxford Sanskritist, Max Muller, has missed the true meaning of
Narada's words. Exoterically, all this enumeration of "life winds"
means, of course, approximately, that which is surmised in the foot-notes;
namely, "The sense appears to be this . . . . worldly life is due to the
operations of the life-winds which are attached to the SELF, and lead to its
manifestations as individual souls (?). Of these the Samana and Vyana are
controlled and held under check by
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Prana and Apana. . . . The latter two are held in check and controlled by the
Udana, which thus controls all. And the control of this, which is the control
of all five . . . . leads to the Supreme Self" (p. 259, Anugita,
"Sacred Books of the East," Vol. VIII.)
The
above is given as an explanation of the text, which records the words of the
Brahmana, who narrates how he reached the ultimate Wisdom of Yogism, and had reached
all knowledge in this wise. Saying that he had "perceived by means of the
SELF the seat abiding in the SELF," where dwells the Brahman free from
all; and explaining that that indestructible principle was entirely beyond the
perception of senses (i.e., of the five "life-winds"), he adds that
"in the midst of an these (life-winds) which move about in the body and
swallow up one another, blazes the Vaisvanara fire sevenfold." This
"Fire," according to Nilakantha's Commentary, is identical with the
"I," the SELF, which is the goal of the ascetic (Vaisvanara being a
word often used for the Self). Then the Brahmana goes on to enumerate that
which is meant by the word "Sevenfold," and says, "The nose (or
smell), the tongue (taste), the eye, and the skin, and the ear as the fifth,
the mind, and the understanding, these are the seven tongues of the blaze of
Vaisvanara,*. . . . . those are the seven (kinds of) fuel for me,**. . . . .
these are the seven great officiating priests."
These
seven priests are accepted by Arjuna Misra in the sense of meaning "the
soul distinguished as so many (souls, or principles) with reference to these
several powers"; and, finally, the translator seems to accept the
explanation, and reluctantly admits that "they may mean" this; though
he himself takes the sense to mean "the powers of hearing, etc. (the
physical senses, in short) which are presided over by the several
deities." (Vide loc. cit., p. 259, f.n. 6.)
But
whatever it may mean, whether in scientific or orthodox interpretations, this
passage on page 259 explains Narada's statements on page 276, and shows them
referring to exoteric and esoteric methods and contrasting them. Thus the
Samana and the Vyana, though subject to the Prana and the Apana, and all the
four to Udana in the matter of acquiring the Pranayama (of the Hatha-Yogi,
chiefly, or the "lower" form of the Yoga) are yet referred to as the
principal offering, for, as rightly argued by the commentator, their
"operations are more practically important for vitality"; i.e., they
are the grossest, and are offered in the sacrifice, to disappear, so to speak,
in the quality of darkness of that fire or its SMOKE (mere exoteric ritualistic
form). But
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the astronomical and cosmical key, Vaisvanara is Agni, son of the Sun, or
Viswanaras, but in the psycho-metaphysical symbolism it is the SELF, in the
sense of non-separateness, i.e., both divine and human.
**
Here the speaker personifies the said divine SELF.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 569 THE DIVINE SELF'S WISDOM.
Prana
and Apana, though shown as subordinate (because less gross or more purified),
have the FIRE between them: the Self and the secret knowledge possessed by that
Self. So for the good and evil, and for "that which exists and that which
does not exist"; all these "pairs"* have fire between them,
i.e., esoteric knowledge, the Wisdom of the divine SELF. Let those who are
satisfied with the Smoke of the FIRE remain wherein they are, that is to say
within the Egyptian darkness of theological fictions and dead-letter
interpretations.
The
above is written only for the Western students of Occultism and Theosophy. The
writer presumes to explain these things neither to the Hindus, who have their
own Gurus; nor to the Orientalists, who think they know more than all the Gurus
and Rishis, past and present, put together. These rather lengthy quotations and
examples cited are necessary, if even to point out to the student the works he
has to study so as to derive benefit and learning from comparison. Let him read
Pistis Sophia in the light of the Bhagavatgita, the Anugita and others; and
then the statement made by Jesus in the Gnostic Gospel will become clear, and
the dead letter blinds disappear at once. Read this and compare with the
explanation from the Hindu scriptures just given. . . . "And no name is
more excellent than all these (seven) vowels. A name wherein be contained all
names, all Lights, and all (the fortynine) powers, knowing it, if a man quits
this body of matter** no Smoke (i.e., no theological delusion),*** no darkness,
nor Ruler of the Sphere (no personal genius or planetary spirit called God), or
of Fate (karma) shall
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Compare with these "pairs of opposites," in the Anugita, the
"pairs" of AEons, in the elaborate system of Valentinus, the most
learned and profound master of Gnosis. As the "pairs of opposites,"
male and female, are all derived from Akasa (undeveloped and developed,
differentiated and undifferentiated, or SELF or Prajapati), so are the
Valentinian "pairs" of male and female AEons shown to emanate from
Bythos, the pre-existing eternal Depth, and in their secondary emanation from
Ampsiu-Ouraan (or sempiternal Depth and Silence), the second Logos. In the
esoteric emanation there are seven chief "pairs of opposites"; and so
also in the Valentinian system there were fourteen, or twice seven. Epiphanius,
copying incorrectly, "copied one pair twice over," Mr. C. W. King
thinks, "and thus adds one pair to the proper fifteen." ("The
Gnostics," etc., pp. 263-4.) Here King falls into the opposite error: the
pairs of AEons are not 15 (a blind) but 14, as the first AEon is that from
which others emanate, Depth and Silence being the first and only emanation from
Bythos. As Hippolytus shows: "The AEons of Valentinus are confessedly the
Six Radicals of Simon (Magus)," with the seventh, Fire, at their head. And
these are: Mind, Intelligence, Voice, Name, Reason and Thought subordinate to
FIRE, the higher self, or precisely the "Seven Winds" or the
"Seven Priests" of Anugita.
**
Not necessarily at death only, but during Samadhi or mystic trance.
***
All the words and sentences between parenthetical marks, are the writer's. This
is translated directly from the Latin MS. of the British Museum. King's
translation in the Gnostics conforms too much to the gnosticism as explained by
the Church-Fathers.
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[[Vol.
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be
able to hold back the soul that knoweth that name. . . If he shall utter that
(Name) unto the fire, the darkness shall flee away. . . And if he shall utter that
name unto . . . all their Powers, nay, even unto Barbelo,* the Invisible God,
and the triple-powered Gods, so soon as he shall have uttered that name in
those places, they shall all be shaken and thrown one upon the other, so that
they shall be ready to melt, perish and disappear, and shall cry aloud, 'O,
Light of all Lights that art in the Boundless Light, remember us also and
purify us!' "
It
is easy to see who this Light and Name are: the light of Initiation and the
name of the "Fire-Self," which is no name, no action, but a
Spiritual, ever-living Power, higher even than the "Invisible God,"
as this Power is ITSELF.
But
if the able and learned author of the "Gnostics and their Remains"
has not sufficiently allowed for the Spirit of allegory and mysticism in the
fragments translated and quoted by him, in the above named work, from Pistis
Sophia -- other Orientalists have done far worse. Having neither his
intuitional perception of the Indian origin of the Gnostic Wisdom still more
than of their "gems," most of them, beginning with Wilson and ending
with the dogmatic Weber, have made most extraordinary blunders with regard to
almost every symbol. Sir M. Monier Williams and others show a very decided
contempt for the "Esoteric Buddhists" as theosophists are now called;
yet no Student of Occult philosophy has ever mistaken a cycle for a living
personage and vice versa, as was very often the case with our learned
Orientalists. An instance or two may illustrate the statement more graphically.
Let us choose the best known.
In
the Ramayana, Garuda is called "the maternal uncle of Sagara's 60,000
sons"; and Ansumat, Sagara's grandson, "the nephew of the 60,000
uncles" reduced to ashes by the look of Kapila, "the
Purushottama" (or infinite Spirit), who caused Sagara's horse for the
Aswamedha sacrifice to disappear. Again, Garuda's son** -- Garuda being himself
the Maha-Kalpa or great cycle -- Jatayu, the king of the feathered tribe, when
on the point of being slain by Ravana who carries off Sita -- says, speaking of
himself:
"It
is 60,000 years O King, that I am born," after which turning his back on
the Sun -- he dies.
Jatayu
is, of course, the cycle of 60,000 years within the great cycle of GARUDA;
hence he is represented as his son, or nephew, ad libitum,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Barbelo is one of the three "Invisible Gods," and, as C. W. King
believes, includes "the Divine Mother of the Saviour," or rather
Sophia Achamoth (Vide cap. 359).
**
In other Puranas Jatayu is the son of Aruna, Garuda's brother, both the Sons of
Kasyapa. But all this is external allegory.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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since
the whole meaning rests in his being placed on the line of Garuda's
descendants. Then, again, there is Diti -- the Mother of the Maruts -- whose
descendants and progeny belonged to the posterity of Hiranyaksha, "whose
number was 77 crores (or 770 millions) of men." (See Padma Purana.) All
such narratives are pronounced meaningless fictions and absurdities. But --
Truth is the daughter of Time, verily; and time will show.
Meanwhile,
what could be easier than an attempt, at least, to verify Puranic chronology?
There are many Kapilas; but the Kapila who slew King Sagara's progeny -- 60,000
men strong -- was undeniably Kapila, the founder of the Sankhya philosophy,
since it is so stated in the Puranas; although one of them flatly denies the
imputation without explaining its esoteric meaning. It is the Bhagavata Purana
(IX. viii., 12 and 13), which says that "the report that the sons of the
King were reduced to ashes by the mere glance of the sage is not true."
"For," as it argues, "how can the quality of darkness, the
product of anger, exist in a sage whose goodness was the essence that purified
the world -- the earth's dust, as it were, attributed to Heavens! How should
mental perturbation distract that sage, identified with the Supreme Spirit, and
who has steered here (on earth) that solid vessel of the Sankhya (philosophy),
with the help of which he who desires to obtain liberation crosses the dreaded
ocean of existence, that path to death?"
The
Purana is in duty bound to speak as it does. It has a dogma to promulgate and a
policy to carry out -- that of great secrecy with regard to mystical divine
truths divulged for countless ages only at initiation. It is not in the
Puranas, therefore, that we have to look for an explanation of the mystery connected
with various transcendental states of being. That the story is an allegory is
seen upon its very face: the 60,000 Sons, brutal, vicious, and impious, are the
personification of the human passions that a "mere glance of the
sage" -- the SELF who represents the highest state of purity that can be
reached on earthreduces to ashes. But it has also other significations --
cyclic and chronological meanings, -- a method of marking the periods when
certain sages flourished, found also in other Puranas.
Now
it is as well ascertained as any tradition can be, that it was at Hardwar (or
Gangadwara, the "door or gate of the Ganges") at the foot of the
Himalayas, that Kapila sat in meditation for a number of years. Not far from
the Sewalik range, the "pass of Hardwar" is called to this day
"Kapila's Pass"; and the place, "Kapilasthen," by the
ascetics. It is there that Ganga (Ganges) emerging from its mountainous gorge,
begins its course over the sultry plains of India. And it is as clearly
ascertained by geological survey that the tradition which claims that the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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ocean
ages ago washed the base of the Himalayas -- is not entirely without
foundation, for there are traces left of this.
The
Sankhya philosophy may have been brought down and taught by the first, and
written out by the last Kapila.
Now
Sagara is the name of the Ocean, and even of the Bay of Bengal, at the mouth of
the Ganges, to this day in India (Vide Wilson's Vishnu Purana, Vol. III. p.
309). Have geologists ever calculated the number of millenniums it has taken
the sea to recede to where it is now, from Hardwar, 1,024 feet above the level
of the sea at present? If they did, those Orientalists who show Kapila
flourishing from the 1st to the 9th cent. A.D., might change their opinions, if
only for one of two very good reasons: the true number of years elapsed since
Kapila's day is in the Puranas unmistakably, though the translators fail to see
it. And secondly -- the Kapila of the Satya, and the Kapila of the Kali-Yugas
may be one and the same INDIVIDUALITY, without being the same PERSONALITY.
Kapila,
besides being the name of a personage, of the once living Sage and the author
of Sankhya philosophy, is also the generic name of the Kumaras, the celestial
ascetics and virgins; therefore the very fact of Bhagavata Purana calling that
Kapila -- which it showed just before as a portion of Vishnu -- the author of
Sankhya philosophy, ought to have warned the reader of a blind containing an
esoteric meaning. Whether the Son of Vitatha, as Harivansa shows him to be, or
of anyone else, the author of Sankhya cannot be the same as the Sage of the
SatyaYuga -- at the very beginning of the Manvantara, when Vishnu is shown in
the form of Kapila, "imparting to all creatures true Wisdom"; for
this relates to that primordial period when "the Sons of God" taught
to the just created men the arts and sciences, which have been cultivated and
preserved since then in the sanctuaries by the Initiates. There are several
well-known Kapilas in the Puranas. First the primeval sage, then Kapila, one of
the three "Secret" Kumaras; and Kapila, son of Kasyapa and Kadru --
the "many-headed Serpent," (See Vayu Purana placing him on the list
of the forty renowned sons of Kasyapa), besides Kapila, the great sage and
philosopher of the Kali Yuga. Being an Initiate, "a Serpent of
Wisdom," a Naga, the latter was purposely blended with the Kapilas of the
former ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 573 THE GNOSTICS AND PYTHAGORAS.
§
XXIV.
THE
CROSS AND THE PYTHAGOREAN DECADE.
THE
early Gnostics claimed that their Science, the GNOSIS, rested on a square, the
angles of which represented respectively Sige (Silence), Bythos (depth), Nous
(Spiritual Soul or Mind), and Aletheia (Truth).
It
is they who were the first to introduce and reveal to the world that which had
remained concealed for ages: namely, the Tau, in the shape of a Procrustean
bed, and Christos as incarnating in Chrestos, he who became for certain
purposes a willing candidate for a series of tortures, mental and physical.
For
them the whole of the Universe, metaphysical and material, was contained
within, and could be expressed and described by the digits of Number 10, the
Pythagorean decade.
This
Decade representing the Universe and its evolution out of Silence and the
unknown Depths of the Spiritual Soul, or anima mundi, presented two sides or
aspects to the student. It could be, and was at first so used and applied to
the Macrocosm, after which it descended to the Microcosm, or Man. There was,
then, the purely intellectual and metaphysical, or the "inner
Science," and the as purely materialistic or "surface science,"
both of which could be expounded by and contained in the Decade. It could be
studied, in short, from the Universals of Plato, and the inductive method of
Aristotle. The former started from a divine comprehension, when the plurality
proceeded from unity, or the digits of the decade appeared, but to be finally
re-absorbed, lost in the infinite Circle. The latter depended on sensuous
perception alone, when the Decade could be regarded either as the unity that
multiplies, or matter which differentiates, its study being limited to the
plane surface; to the Cross, or the Seven which proceeds from the ten -- or the
perfect number, on Earth as in heaven.
This
dual system was brought, together with the Decade, by Pythagoras from India. That
it was that of the Brachmans and Iranians, as they are called by the ancient
Greek philosophers, is warranted to us by the whole range of Sanskrit
literature, such as the Puranas and the laws of Manu. In these "Laws"
or "Ordinances of Manu," it is said that Brahma first creates
"the ten lords of Being," the ten Prajapati or creative Forces; which
ten produce "seven" other Manus, or, rather, as some MSS. have it,
Munin, instead of Manun = "devotees," or holy Beings, which are the
Seven Angels of the Presence in the
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[[Vol.
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Western
religion. This mysterious number Seven, born from the upper triangle
[[diagram]], the latter itself born from the apex thereof, or the Silent Depths
of the unknown universal soul (Sige and Bythos), is the sevenfold Saptaparna
plant, born and manifested on the surface of the soil of mystery, from the
threefold root buried deep under that impenetrable soil. This idea is fully
elaborated in Vol. I. § "Primordial Substance and Divine Thought,"
which the reader has to notice carefully, if he would grasp the metaphysical
idea involved in the above symbol. In man as in nature, it is, according to the
cis-Himalayan esoteric philosophy (which is that of the original Manu
Cosmogony), the septenary division that is intended by Nature herself. The
seventh principle (purusha) alone is the divine SELF, strictly speaking; for,
as said in Manu, "He (Brahma) having pervaded the subtile parts of those
six of unmeasured brightness," created or called them forth to
"Self"-consciousness or the consciousness of that One SELF (V. 16,
ch. i. Manu). Of these six, five elements (or principles, or Tattva, as
Medhatithi, the commentator thinks) "are called the atomic destructible
elements" (v. 27); they are described in the above-named section.
We
have now to speak of the Mystery language, that of the prehistoric races. It is
not a phonetic, but a purely pictorial and symbolical tongue. It is known at present
in its fulness to the very few, having become with the masses for more than
5,000 years an absolutely dead language. Yet most of the learned Gnostics,
Greeks and Jews, knew it, and used it, though very differently. A few instances
may be given.
On
the plane above, the Number is no Number but a nought -- a CIRCLE. On the plane
below, it becomes one -- which is an odd number. Each letter of the ancient
alphabets having had its philosophical meaning and raison d'etre, the number I
signified with the Alexandrian Initiates a body erect, a living standing man,
he being the only animal that has this privilege. And, by adding to the I a
head, it was transformed into a P, a symbol of paternity, of the creative
potency; while R signified a "moving man," one on his way. Hence
PATER ZEUS had nothing sexual or phallic either in its sound or form of
letters; nor had [[pater Deus]] (vide Ragon). If we turn now to the Hebrew
Alphabet, we shall find that while I or aleph, [[hebrew]], has a bull or an Ox
for its symbol, 10, the perfect number, or One of the Kabala is a Yodh
[[hebrew]] (y, i, or j); and means, as the first letter of Jehovah, the
procreative organ, et seq.
The
odd numbers are divine, the even numbers are terrestrial, devilish, and
unlucky. The Pythagoreans hated the binary. With them it was the origin of
differentiation, hence of contrasts, discord, or matter, the beginning of evil.
In the Valentinian theogony, Bythos and Sige (Depth, Chaos, matter born in
Silence) are the primordial binary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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With
the early Pythagoreans, however, the duad was that imperfect state into which
the first manifested being fell when it got detached from the Monad. It was the
point from which the two roads -- the Good and the Evil -- bifurcated. All that
which was double-faced or false was called by them "binary." ONE was
alone Good, and Harmony, because no disharmony can proceed from one alone.
Hence the Latin word Solus in relation to one and only God, the Unknown of
Paul. Solus, however, very soon became Sol -- the Sun.
The
ternary is thus the first of the odd numbers, as the triangle is the first of
the geometrical figures. This number is truly the number of mystery par
excellence. To study it on the exoteric lines one has to read Ragon's Cours
Interpretatif des Initiations; on the esoteric -- the Hindu symbolism of
numerals; as the combinations which were applied to it are numberless. It is on
the occult properties of the three equal lines or sides of the Triangle that
Ragon based his studies and founded the famous masonic society of the
Trinosophists (those who study three sciences; an improvement upon the ordinary
three masonic degrees, given to those who study nothing except eating and
drinking at the meetings of their lodges). "The first line of the triangle
offered to the apprentice for study," writes the founder, -- "is the
mineral kingdom, symbolized by Tubalc . . . (Tubal-cain). The second side on
which the 'companion' has to meditate, is the vegetable kingdom, symbolized by
Schibb [[diagram]] (Schibboleth). In this kingdom begins the generation of the
bodies. This is why the letter G is presented radiant before the eyes of the
adept (? !). The third side is left to the master mason, who has to complete
his education by the study of the animal kingdom. It is symbolized by Maoben
[[diagram]] (Sun of putrefaction)" etc., etc.
The
first solid figure is the Quaternary, symbol of immortality. It is the pyramid:
for the pyramid stands on a triangular, square, or polygonal base, and
terminates with a point at the top, thus yielding the triad and the quaternary
or the 3 and 4. It is the Pythagoreans who taught the connection and relation
between the gods and the numbers -- in a Science called arithmomancy. The Soul
is a number, they said, which moves of itself and contains the number 4; and
spiritual and physical man is number 3, as the ternary represented for them not
only the surface but also the principle of the formation of the physical body.
Thus animals were ternaries only, man alone being a septenary, when virtuous; a
quinary when bad, for:--
Number
5 was composed of a binary and a ternary, which binary threw everything in the
perfect form into disorder and confusion. The
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The reason for it is simple, and was given in "Isis Unveiled." In
geometry, one line fails to represent a perfect body or figure, nor can two
lines constitute a demonstratively perfect figure. The triangle alone is the
first perfect figure.
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[[Vol.
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perfect
man, they said, was a quaternary and a ternary, or four material and three
immaterial elements; which three spirits or elements we likewise find in 5,
when it represents the microcosm. The latter is a compound of a binary directly
relating to gross matter, and of three Spirits:
"since
5 is the ingenious union of two Greek accents [[diagram]] placed over vowels
which have or have not to be aspirated. The first sign [[diagram]] is called
'Strong Spirit' or superior Spirit, the spirit of God aspired (spiratus) and
breathed by man. The second sign [[diagram]] the lower, is the Spirit of Love,
representing the secondary Spirit; the third embraces the whole man. It is the
universal Quintessence, the vital fluid or Life." (Ragon.)
The
more mystic meaning of 5 is given in an excellent article by Mr. Subba Row, in
"Five Years of Theosophy" (pp. 110, et seq.) -- "The Twelve
Signs of the Zodiac," in which he gives some rules that may help the
inquirer to ferret out "the deep significance of ancient Sanskrit
nomenclature in the old Aryan myths and allegories." Meanwhile, let us see
what has been hitherto stated about the constellation Capricornus in
theosophical publications, and what is known of it generally. Every one knows
that [[diagram]] is the tenth sign of the Zodiac into which the Sun enters at
the winter solstice, about December 21st. But very few are those who know --
even in India, unless they are initiated -- the real mystic connection which
seems to exist, as we are told, between the names Makara and Kumara. The first
means some amphibious animal called flippantly 'crocodile,' as some
Orientalists think, and the second is the title of the great patrons of Yogins
(See "Saiva Puranas,") the Sons of, and even one with, Rudra (Siva);
a Kumara himself. It is through their connection with Man that the Kumaras are
likewise connected with the Zodiac. Let us try to find out what the word Makara
means.
The
word Makara, says the author of "The Twelve Signs of the Zodiac,"
"contains within itself the clue to its correct interpretation. The letter
Ma is equivalent to No. 5, and Kara means hand. Now in Sanskrit Thribhujam
means a triangle, bhujam or Karam (both synonyms) being understood to mean a
side. So Makaram or Panchakaram means a Pentagon" -- the five-pointed star
or pentagon representing the five limbs of man.* Under the old system, we are
told, Makara was the eighth instead of the tenth sign.** It is "intended
to represent the faces of the Universe, and indicates that the Universe is
bounded by Pentagons," as the Sanskrit writers "speak also of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
What is the meaning and the reason of this figure? Because, Manas is the fifth
principle, and because the pentagon is the symbol of Man -- not only of the
five-limbed, but rather of the thinking, conscious MAN.
**
The reason for it becomes apparent when Egyptian symbology is studied. See
further on.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 577 POSEION'S FIVE MINISTERS.
Ashtadisa
or eight faces bounding Space," referring thus to the loka-palas, the
eight points of the compass (the four cardinal and the four intermediate
points) . . . "From an objective point of view the Microcosm is
represented by the human body. Makaram may be taken to represent simultaneously
both the microcosm and the macrocosm, as external objects of perception."
(pp. 113, 115).
But
the true esoteric sense of the word "Makara," does not mean
"crocodile," in truth, at all, even when it is compared with the
animal depicted on the Hindu Zodiac. For it has the head and the fore-legs of
an antelope and the body and tail of a fish. Hence the tenth sign of the Zodiac
has been taken variously to mean a shark, a dolphin, etc.; as it is the vahan
of Varuna, the Ocean God, and is often called, for this reason, Jala-rupa or
"water-form." The dolphin was the vehicle of Poseidon-Neptune with
the Greeks, and one with him, esoterically; and this "dolphin" is the
"sea-dragon" as much as the Crocodile of the Sacred Nile is the
vehicle of Horus, and Horus himself. "I am the fish and seat of the great
Horus of Kem-our," says the mummy-form God with the crocodile's head (ch.
lxxxviii., 2, "Book of the Dead"). With the Peratae Gnostics it is
Chozzar (Neptune), who converts into a sphere the dodecagonal pyramid,
"and paints its gate with many colours." He has FIVE androgyne
ministers -- he is Makara, the Leviathan.
The
rising Sun being considered the Soul of the Gods sent to manifest itself to men
every day, and the crocodile rising out of the water at the first sunbeam, that
animal came finally to personify a Solar-fire devotee in India, as it
personified that fire, or the highest soul with the Egyptians.
In
the Puranas, the number of the Kumaras changes according to the exigencies of
the allegory. For occult purposes their number is given in one place as seven,
then as four, then as five. In the Kurma Purana it is said of them: "These
five (Kumara), O Brahman, were Yogins who acquired entire exemption from
passion." Their very name shows their connection with the said
constellation -- the Makara, and with some other Puranic characters connected
with the Zodiacal signs. This is done in order to veil what was one of the most
suggestive glyphs of the primitive Temples. They are mixed up astronomically,
physiologically, and mystically, in general, with a number of Puranic
personages and events. Hardly hinted at in the "Vishnu," they figure
in various dramas and events throughout all the other Puranas and sacred
literature; so that the Orientalists, having to pick up the threads of
connection hither and thither, have ended by proclaiming the Kumaras "due
chiefly to the fancy of the Puranic writers." But --
Ma,
-- we are told by the author of the "Twelve Signs of the Zodiac" --
is Five; kara, a hand with its five fingers, as also a five-sided sign or
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 578 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
a
pentagon. The Kumara (in this case an anagram for occult purposes) are five in
esotericism, as Yogis -- because the last two names have ever been kept secret;
they are the fifth order of Brahmadevas, and the fivefold Chohans, having the
soul of the five elements in them, Water and Ether predominating, and therefore
their symbols were both aquatic and fiery. "Wisdom lies concealed under
the couch of him who rests on the golden lotos (padma) floating on the
water." In India it is Vishnu (one of whose avatars was Budha, as claimed
in days of old). The Prachetasas, the worshippers of Narayana (who, like
Poseidon moved or dwelt over not under the waters), plunged into the depths of
the ocean for their devotions and remained therein 10,000 years; and the
Prachetasas are ten exoterically, but five, esoterically. "Prachetas"
is in Sanskrit, the name of Varuna, the water god, Nereus, an aspect of the
same as Neptune, the Prachetasas being thus identical with the "five
ministers" of [[CHOZZAR]] (Poseidon) of the Peratae Gnostics. These are
respectively called [[AOT, AOAI, OTO, OTOB]], "the fifth, a triple name
(making Seven) being lost"* -- i.e., kept secret. This much for the
"aquatic" symbol; the "fiery" connecting them with the
fiery symbol -- spiritually. For purposes of identity, let us remember that as
the mother of the Prachetasas was Savarna, the daughter of the Ocean, so was
Amphitrite the mother of Neptune's mystic "ministers."
Now
the reader is reminded that these "five ministers" are symbolized
both in the Dolphin, who had overcome the chaste Amphitrite's unwillingness to
wed Poseidon, and in Triton their son. The latter, whose body above the waist
is that of a man and below a dolphin, a fish, is, again, most mysteriously
connected with Oannes, the Babylonian Dag, and further also with the (fish)
Avatar of Vishnu, Matsya, both teaching mortals Wisdom. The Dolphin, as every
mythologist knows, was placed for his service by Poseidon among the
constellations, and became with the Greeks, Capricornus, the goat, whose hind
part is that of a dolphin, thus shown identical with Makara, whose head is also
that of an antelope and the body and tail those of a fish. This is why the sign
of the Makara was borne on the banner of Kama deva, the Hindu god of love,
identified, in Atharva Veda, with Agni (the fire-god), the son of Lakshmi, as
correctly given by Harivansa. For Lakshmi and Venus are one, and Amphitrite is
the early form of Venus. Now Kama (the Makara-ketu) is "Aja" (the
unborn), and "Atma-bhu" (the self-existent), and Aja is the LOGOS in
the Rig-Veda, as he is shown therein to be the first manifestation of the ONE:
"Desire first arose in IT, which was the primal
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So is Brahma's fifth head, said to be lost, burnt to ashes by Siva's
"central eye"; Siva being also panchanana "five faced."
Thus the number is preserved and secresy maintained on the true esoteric
meaning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 579 THE PUZZLES OF SYMBOLISM.
germ
of mind," that "which connects entity with non-entity" (or
Manas, the fifth, with Atma, the seventh, esoterically) say the Sages. This is
the first stage. The second, on the following plane of manifestation, shows
Brahma (whom we select as a representative for all the other first gods of the
nations) as causing to issue from his body his mind-born sons, "Sanandana
and others," who, in the fifth "creation," and again in the
ninth (for purposes of blind) become the Kumara. Let us close by reminding the
reader that goats were sacrificed to Amphitrite and the Nereids on the
sea-shore, as goats are sacrificed to this day to Durga Kali, who is only the
black side of Lakshmi (Venus), the white side of Sakti; and by suggesting what
connection these animals may have with Capricornus, in which appear twenty-eight
stars in the form of a goat, which goat was transformed by the Greeks into
Amalthaea -- Jupiter's foster-mother. Pan, the god of Nature, had goat's feet,
and changed himself into a goat at the approach of Typhon. But this is a
mystery which the writer dares not dwell upon at length, not being sure of
being understood. Thus the mystical side of the interpretation must be left to
the intuition of the student. Let us note one more thing in relation to the
mysterious number five. It symbolizes at one and the same time the Spirit of
life eternal and the Spirit of life and love terrestrial -- in the human
compound; and, it includes divine and infernal magic, and the universal and the
individual quintessence of being. Thus, the five mystic words or vowels (vide
infra) uttered by Brahma at "creation," which forthwith became the
Panchadasa (certain Vedic hymns, attributed to that God) are in their creative
and magical potentiality, the white side of the black Tantrik five
"makaras," or the five m's. "Makara," the constellation, is
a seemingly meaningless and absurd name. Yet, even besides its anagrammatical
significance in conjunction with the term "Kumara," the numerical
value of its first syllable and its esoteric resolution into five has a very
great and occult meaning in the mysteries of nature.
Suffice
it to say, that as the sign of Makara is connected with the birth of the
spiritual "microcosm," and the death or dissolution of the physical
Universe (its passage into the realm of the Spiritual)*; so the Dhyan Chohans,
called in India Kumara, are connected with both. Moreover, in the exoteric
religions, they have become the synonyms of the Angels of Darkness. Mara is the
God of Darkness, the Fallen One, and Death**; and yet it is one of the names of
Kama, the first god in the Vedas, the Logos, from whom have sprung the Kumaras,
and this
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"When the Sun passes away behind the 30th degree of Makara and will reach
no more the sign of the Meenam (pisces) then the night of Brahma has
come." . . .
**
Death of every physical thing truly; but Mara is also the unconscious quickener
of the birth of the Spiritual.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 580 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
connects
them still more with our "fabulous" Indian Makara, and the
crocodile-headed God in Egypt.* The crocodiles in the Celestial Nile are Five,
and the God Toum, the primordial deity creating the heavenly bodies and the living
beings, calls forth these crocodiles in his fifth creation. When Osiris,
"the defunct Sun," is buried and enters into Amenti, the sacred
crocodiles plunge into the abyss of primordial Waters -- "the great Green
One." When the Sun of life rises, they re-emerge out of the sacred river.
All this is highly symbolical, and shows how primeval esoteric truths found
their expression in identical symbols. But, as Mr. T. Subba Row truly declares,
"The veil, that was dexterously thrown over certain portions of the
mystery connected with the (Zodiacal) signs by the ancient philosophers, will
never be fully lifted up for the amusement or edification of the uninitiated
public."
Nor
was number five less sacred with the Greeks. The five words (Panchadasa) of
Brahma have become with the Gnostics the "Five Words" written upon
the akasic (shining) garment of Jesus at his glorification: the words [[ZAMA
ZAMA OZZA PAXAMA, OZAI]], translated by the Orientalists "the robe, the
glorious robe of my strength." These words were, in their turn, the
anagrammatic blind of the five mystic powers represented on the robe of the
"resurrected" Initiate after his last trial of three days' trance;
the five becoming seven only after his death, when the Adept became the full
CHRISTOS, the full KRISHNA-VISHNU, i.e., merged in Nirvana. The E Delphicum, a
sacred symbol, was the numeral five, again; and how sacred it was is shown by
the fact that the Corinthians (according to Plutarch) replaced the wooden
numeral in the Delphic Temple by a bronze one; and this one was transmuted by
Livia Augusta into a fac-simile of gold.
It
is easy to recognize in the two spirits -- the Greek accents or signs
([[diagram]]) spoken of by Ragon (vide supra) -- Atma and Buddhi, or
"divine spirit and its vehicle" (spiritual soul).
The
six or the "Senary" is dealt with later, while the Septenary will be
fully treated in the course of this volume. (Vide the "Mysteries of the
Hebdomad.")
The
Ogdoad or 8 symbolizes the eternal and spiral motion of cycles, the 8, [[diagram]],
and is symbolized in its turn by the Caduceus. It shows the regular breathing
of the Kosmos presided over by the eight great gods -- the seven from the
primeval Mother, the One and the Triad.
Then
comes the number nine or the triple ternary. It is the number which reproduces
itself incessantly under all shapes and figures in
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Osiris is called in the "Book of the Dead" "Osiris, the double
Crocodile." (See Chapter "On the Names of Osiris," cxlii.)
"He is the good and the bad Principle; the Day, and the Night Sun, the
God, and the mortal man." Thus far the Macrocosm and the Microcosm.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 581 THE MASTER MASON'S GRIP.
every
multiplication. It is the sign of every circumference, since its value in
degrees is equal to 9, i.e., to 3 + 6 + 0. It is a bad number under certain
conditions, and very unlucky. If number 6 was the symbol of our globe ready to
be animated by a divine spirit, 9 symbolized our earth informed by a bad or
evil spirit.
Ten,
or the Decade, brings all these digits back to unity, and ends the Pythagorean
table. Hence this figure -- [[diagram]], unity within zero -- was the symbol of
Deity, of the Universe, and of man. Such is the secret meaning of "the
strong grip of the Lion's paw, of the tribe of Judah" between two hands
(the "master mason's grip"), the joint number of whose fingers is ten.
If
we now give our attention to the Egyptian cross, or the Tau, we may discover
this letter, so exalted by Egyptians, Greeks, and Jews, to be mysteriously
connected with the Decade. The tau is the Alpha and the Omega of secret divine
Wisdom, which is symbolized by the initial and the final letter of Thot
(Hermes). Thot was the inventor of the Egyptian alphabet, and the letter tau
closed the alphabets of the Jews and the Samaritans, who called this character
the "end" or "perfection," "culmination" and
"security." Thence -- Ragon tells us -- the words terminus (end), and
tectum (roof), are symbols of shelter and security, which is rather a prosaic
definition. But such is the usual destiny of ideas and things in this world of
spiritual decadence, if also of physical progress. PAN was at one time absolute
nature, the one and GREAT-ALL; but when history catches a first glimpse of him,
Pan has already tumbled down into a godling of the fields, a rural god; and
history will not recognize him, while theology makes of him the devil. Yet his
seven-piped flute, the emblem of the seven forces of nature, of the seven
planets, the seven musical notes, of all the septenary harmony, in short, shows
well his primordial character. So with the Cross. Far earlier than the Jews had
devised their golden candlestick of the temple with three sockets on one side
and four on the other, and made of number 7 a feminine number of generation,*
thus introducing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Reflecting on the Cross, the author of the "Source of Measures" shows
that this candlestick in the temple "was so composed that counting on
either side there were four candle-sockets; while at the apex, there being one
in common to both sides, there were in fact three to be counted on the one side
and four on the other, making in all number 7 upon the self-same idea of one in
common with the cross display. Take a line of one unit in breadth by three
units long, and place it on an incline; take another of four units long, and
lean it upon this one, from an opposite incline, making the top unit of the
four in length the corner or apex of a triangle. This is the display of the
candlestick. Now take away the line of three units in length and cross it on
the one of four units in length, and the cross form results. The same idea is
conveyed in the six days of the week in Genesis, crowned by the seventh, which
was used by itself as a base of circular measure" (p. 51).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 582 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
phallic element into religion, the more spiritually-minded nations had made of
the cross (as 3, 4 = 7), their most sacred divine symbol. In fact, Circle,
Cross, and Seven -- the latter being made a base of circular measurement -- are
the first primordial symbols. Pythagoras, who brought his wisdom from India,
left to posterity a glimpse into this truth. His school regarded number 7 as a
compound of numbers 3 and 4, which they explained in a dual manner. On the
plane of the noumenal world, the triangle was, as the first conception of the
manifested Deity, its image: "Father-Mother-Son"; and the Quaternary,
the perfect number, was the noumenal, ideal root of all numbers and things on
the physical plane. Some students, in view of the sacredness of Tetraktis and
the Tetragrammaton, mistake the mystic meaning of the Quaternary. The latter
was with the ancients only a secondary "perfection," so to speak,
because it related only to the manifested planes. Whereas it is the Triangle,
the Greek delta, [[diagram]], which was the "vehicle of the unknown
Deity." A good proof of it lies with the name of the Deity beginning with
Delta. Zeus was written [[Deus]], by the Boeotians,* thence the Deus of the Latins.
This, in relation to the metaphysical conception, with regard to the meaning of
the Septenary in the phenomenal world, but for purposes of profane or exoteric
interpretation, the symbolism changed. Three became the ideograph of the three
material elements -- air, water, earth; and four became the principle of all
that which is neither corporeal nor perceptible. But this has never been
accepted by the real Pythagoreans. Viewed as a compound of 6 and 1, the senary
and the unity, number seven was the invisible centre, the spirit of everything
(see further the explanation of 6), as there exists no body with six lines
constituting its form without a seventh being found as the central point in it
(see crystals and snow-flakes in so-called inanimate nature). Moreover, number
seven, they said, has all the perfection of the UNIT -- the number of numbers.
For as absolute unity is uncreated, and impartite (hence number-less) and no
number can produce it, so is the seven: no digit contained within the decade
can beget or produce it. And it is 4, which affords an arithmetical division
between unity and seven, as it surpasses the former by the same number (three),
as it is itself surpassed by the seven, since four is by as many numbers above
one, as seven is above four. (From a MS. supposed to be by "St.
Germain.")
"With
the Egyptians number 7 was the symbol of life eternal," says Ragon, and
adds that this is why the Greek letter Z, which is but a double 7 is the
initial letter of Zao, "I live," and of Zeus, "the father of all
living."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Liddell's Greek-English Lexicon.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 583 THE MYSTERY OF THE NUMBER SIX.
Moreover,
figure 6 was the symbol of the Earth during the autumn and winter
"sleeping" months, and figure 7 during spring and summer, -- as the
Spirit of life animated her at that time -- the seventh or central informing
Force. We find the same in the Egyptian mythos and symbol of Osiris and Isis,
personifying Fire and Water metaphysically, and the Sun and the Nile
physically. The number of the Solar year, 365 in days, is the numerical value
of the word Neilos (Nile). This, together with the Bull, with the Crescent and
the ansated cross between its horns, and the Earth under its astronomical
symbol -- [[diagram]] -- are the most phallic symbols of later antiquity.
"The
Nile was the river of time with the number of a year, or year and a day (364 +
1 = 365). It represented the parturient water of Isis, or Mother Earth, the
moon, the woman, and the cow, also the workshop of Osiris, representing the
T'sod Olaum of the Hebrews. The ancient name of this river was Eridanus, or the
Hebrew Iardan, with the Coptic or old Greek suffix. This was the door of the
Hebrew word Jared, or 'Source,' or Descent . . . of the river Jordan, which had
the same mythical use with the Hebrews that the Nile had with the Egyptians,*
it was the source of descent, and held the waters of life" (Unpub. MS.) It
was, to put it plainly, the symbol of the personified Earth, or Isis, regarded
as the womb of that Earth. This is shown clearly enough; and Jordan -- the
river so sacred now to Christians -- held no more sublime or poetical meaning
in it than the parturient waters of the moon (Isis, or Jehovah in his female
aspect). Now, as shown by the same scholar, Osiris was the sun, and the river
Nile, and the tropical year of 365 days; while Isis was the moon, the bed of
that river, or the mother earth "for the parturient energies, of which
water was a necessity," as also the lunar year of 354 days, "the
time-maker of the periods of gestation." All this then is sexual and
phallic, and our modern scholars seem to find in these symbols nothing beyond a
physiological or phallic meaning. Nevertheless, the three figures 365, or the
number of days in a solar year, have but to be read with the Pythagorean Key to
find in them a highly philosophical and moral meaning. One instance will be
sufficient. It can read:
The
Earth -- animated by -- the Spirit of Life.
3.
6. 5.
Simply
because 3 is equivalent to the Greek gamma, or [[G]], which letter is the
symbol of gaia (the Earth); while the figure 6 is the symbol of the animating
or informing principle, and the 5 is the universal quintessence which spreads
in every direction and forms all matter. (St. Germain's MS.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It had no such meaning in the beginnings; nor during the earlier dynasties.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 584 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
few instances and examples brought forward reveal only one small portion of the
methods used to read the symbolical ideographs and numerals of antiquity. The
system being of an extreme and complex difficulty, very few, even among the
Initiates, could master all the seven keys. Is it to be wondered, then, that
the metaphysical gradually dwindled down into the physical nature; that the
Sun, once upon a time the symbol of DEITY, became, as aeons glided by, that of
its creative ardour only; and that thence it fell into a glyph of phallic
significance? But surely, it is not those whose method was (like Plato's) to
proceed from the universals down to the particulars, who could ever have begun
by symbolizing their religions by sexual emblems! It is quite true, though
uttered by that incarnated paradox, Eliphas Levi, that "man is God on
Earth, and God is man in Heaven." But this could not, and never did apply
to the One Deity, only to the Hosts of ITS incarnated beams, called by us Dhyan
Chohans, by the ancients, Gods; and now transformed by the Church into devils
on the left, and into the Saviour on the right side!
But
all such dogma grew out of the one root, the root of wisdom, which grows and
thrives on the Indian soil. There is not an Archangel that could not be traced
back to its prototype in the sacred land of Aryavarta. These
"prototypes" are all connected with the Kumaras who appear on the
scene of action by refusing -- as Sanatkumara and Sananda -- to "create
progeny." Yet they are called the "creators" of (thinking) man.
More than once they are brought into connection with Narada -- another bundle
of apparent incongruities, yet a wealth of philosophical tenets. Narada is the
leader of the Gandharvas, the celestial singers and musicians; esoterically,
the reason for it is explained by the fact that the latter (the Gandharvas) are
"the instructors of men in the secret sciences." It is they, who
"loving the women of the Earth," disclosed to them the mysteries of
creation; or, as in the Veda -- the "heavenly Gandharva" is a deity
who knew and revealed the secrets of heaven and divine truths, in general. If
we remember what is said of this class of Angels in Enoch and in the Bible,
then the allegory is plain: their leader, Narada, while refusing to procreate,
leads men to become gods. Moreover, all of these, as stated in the Vedas, are
Chhandaja (will-born) or incarnated (in different Manvantaras) of their own
will; -- and they are shown in exoteric literature as existing age after age;
some being "cursed to be re-born," others, incarnating as a duty.
Finally, as the Sanakadikas, the seven Kumaras who went to visit Vishnu on the
"White Island" (Sveta-dwipa) the island inhabited by the Maha Yogins
-- they are connected with Sakadwipa and the Lemurians and Atlanteans of the
Third and Fourth Races.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 585 SEEMING CONTRADICTIONS.
In
Esoteric Philosophy, the Rudras (Kumaras, Adityas, Gandharvas, Asuras, etc.)
are the highest Dhyan Chohans or Devas as regards intellectuality. They are
those who, owing to their having acquired by self-development the five-fold
nature -- hence the sacredness of number five -- became independent of the pure
Arupa devas. This is a mystery very difficult to realize and understand
correctly. For, we see that those who were "obedient to law" are,
equally with the rebels, doomed to be reborn in every age. Narada, the Rishi,
is cursed by Brahma to incessant peripateticism on Earth, i.e., to be
constantly reborn. He is a rebel against Brahma, and yet has no worse fate than
the Jayas -- the twelve great creative gods produced by Brahma as his assistants
in the functions of creation. For the latter, lost in meditation, only forgot
to create; and for this, they are equally cursed by Brahma to be born in every
manvantara. And still they are termed -- together with the rebels --
Chhandajas, or those born of their own will in human form!
All
this is very puzzling to one who is unable to read and understand the Puranas
except in their dead letter sense.* Hence we find the Orientalists refusing to be
puzzled, and cutting the Gordian knot of perplexity by declaring the whole
scheme "figments" "of Brahminical fancy and love of
exaggeration." But to the student of occultism, the whole is pregnant with
deeply philosophical meaning. We willingly leave the rind to the Western
Sanskritist, but claim the essence of the fruit for ourselves. We do more: we
concede that in one sense much in these so-called "fables" refers to
astronomical allegories about constellations, asterisms, stars, and planets.
Yet, while the Gandharva of the Rig-Veda may there be made to personify the
fire of the Sun, the Gandharva devas are entities both of a physical and
psychic character; while the Apsarasas (with other Rudras) are both qualities
and quantities. In short, if ever unravelled, the theogony of the Vedic Gods
will reveal fathomless mysteries of Creation and being. Truly says Parasara:
"These thirty-three divinities exist age after age, and their appearance
and disappearance is in the same manner as the sun sets and rises again."
(Book I., xv.)
There
was a time, when the Eastern symbol of the Cross and Circle, the Swastica, was
universally adopted. With the esoteric (and, for the matter of that, exoteric)
Buddhist, the Chinaman and the Mongolian, it means "the 10,000 truths."
These truths, they say, belong to the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Yet this sense, if once mastered, will turn out to be the secure casket which
holds the keys to the Secret Wisdom. True, a casket so profusely ornamented
that its fancy work hides and conceals entirely any spring for opening it, and
thus makes the unintuitional believe it has not, and cannot have, any opening
in it. Still the Keys are there, deeply buried, yet ever present to him who
searches for them.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 586 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
mysteries
of the unseen Universe and primordial Cosmogony and Theogony. "Since Fohat
crossed the Circle like two lines of flame (horizontally and vertically), the
hosts of the Blessed Ones have never failed to send their representatives upon
the planets they are made to watch over from the beginning." This is why
the Swastica is always placed -- as the ansated Cross was in Egypt -- on the
breasts of the defunct mystics. It is found on the heart of the images and
statues of Buddha, in Tibet and Mongolia. It is the seal placed also on the
hearts of the living Initiates, burnt into the flesh, for ever, with some.
This, because they have to keep those truths inviolate and intact, in eternal
silence and secrecy to the day these are perceived and read by their chosen
successors -- new Initiates -- "worthy of being entrusted with the ten
thousand perfections." So degraded, however, has it now become, that it is
often placed on the headgear of the "gods," the hideous idols of the
sacrilegious Bhons, the Dugpas (Sorcerers) of the Tibetan borderlands; until
found out by a Galukpa and torn off together with the head of the
"god;" though it would be better were it that of the worshipper which
was severed from the sinful body. Still, it can never lose its mysterious
properties. Throw a retrospective glance, and see it used alike by the
Initiates and Seers, as by the priests of Troy (found by Schliemann on the site
of that old city). One finds it with the old Peruvians, the Assyrians,
Chaldeans, as well as on the walls of the old-world cyclopean buildings; in the
catacombs of the New world, and in those of the Old (?), at Rome, where,
because the first Christians are supposed to have concealed themselves and
their religion, it is called Crux Dissimulata.
"According
to de Rossi, the Swastica from an early period was a favourite form of the
cross employed with an occult signification, which shows the secret was not
that of the Christian cross. One Swastica cross in the catacombs is the sign of
an inscription which reads [['ZOTIKO ZOTIKE]],' 'Vitalis Vitalia,' or 'life of
life.' "*
But
the best evidence to the antiquity of the cross is that which is brought forward
by the author of Natural Genesis on page 433.
"The
value of the cross," says Mr. Massey, "as a Christian symbol, is
supposed to date from the time when Jesus Christ was crucified. And yet in the
'Christian' Iconography of the Catacombs no figure of a man appears upon the
Cross during the first six or seven centuries. There are all forms of the cross
except that -- the alleged starting-point of the new religion. That was not the
initial but the final form of the Crucifix.** During some six
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Quoted in "The Natural Genesis" (p. 427, Vol. I.).
**
With the Christians, most undeniably. With the pre-Christian symbologists it
was, as said, the Bed or Couch of Torture during the Initiation Mystery, the
"Crucifix" being placed horizontally, on the ground, and not erect,
as at the time when it became the Roman gallows.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 587 THE CROSS, A CHRISTIAN AFTER-THOUGHT.
centuries
after the Christian era the foundation of the Christian religion in a crucified
Redeemer is entirely absent from Christian art! The earliest known form of the
human figure on the cross is the crucifix presented by Pope Gregory the Great to
Queen Theodolinde of Lombardy, now in the Church of St. John at Monza, whilst
no image of the Crucified is found in the Catacombs at Rome earlier than that
of San Giulio, belonging to the seventh or eighth century. . . . There is no
Christ and no Crucified; the Cross is the Christ even as the Stauros cross was
a type and a name of Horus, the Gnostic Christ. The Cross, not the Crucified,
is the essential object of representation in its art, and of adoration in its
religion. The germ of the whole growth and development can be traced to the
cross. And that cross is pre-Christian, is pagan and heathen, in half a dozen
different shapes. The cult began with the cross, and Julian was right in saying
he waged a 'Warfare with the X'; which he obviously considered had been adopted
by the A-Gnostics and Mytholators to convey an impossible significance.* During
centuries the cross stood for the Christ, and was addressed as if it were a
living being. It was made divine at first, and humanized at last."
Few
world-symbols are more pregnant with real occult meaning than the Swastica. It
is symbolized by the figure 6; for, like that figure, it points in its concrete
imagery, as the ideograph of the number does, to the Zenith and the Nadir, to
North, South, West, and East; one finds the unit everywhere, and that unit
reflected in all and every unit. It is the emblem of the activity of Fohat, of
the continual revolution of the "wheels," and of the Four Elements,
the "Sacred Four," in their mystical, and not alone in their cosmical
meaning; further, its four arms, bent at right angles, are intimately related,
as shown elsewhere, to the Pythagorean and Hermetic scales. One initiated into
the mysteries of the meaning of the Swastica, say the Commentaries, "can
trace on it, with mathematical precision, the evolution of Kosmos and the whole
period of Sandhya." Also "the relation of the Seen to the
Unseen," and "the first procreation of man and species."
To
the Eastern Occultist the TREE of Knowledge in the Paradise of man's own heart,
becomes the Tree of Life eternal, and has nought to do with man's animal
senses. It is an absolute mystery that reveals itself only through the efforts
of the imprisoned Manas and the Ego to liberate themselves from the thraldom of
sensuous perception and see, in the light of the one eternal present Reality.
To the Western Kabalist, and now far more to the superficial Symbologist,
nursed in the lethal atmosphere of materialistic science, there is but one
chief explanation of the mysteries of the Cross -- its sexual element. Even the
otherwise spiritualistic modern commentator discerns in the Cross and Swastica,
this feature before all others.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So it was, and could not be otherwise. Julian (the Emperor) was an Initiate,
and as such knew well the "mystery-meaning," both metaphysical and
physical.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 588 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"The
cross was used in Egypt as a protecting talisman and a symbol of saving power.
Typhon, or Satan, is actually found chained and bound to the cross. In the
Ritual, the Osirian cries, 'The Apophis is overthrown, their cords bind the
South, North, East, and West, their cords are on him. Har-ru-bah has knotted
him.'* These were the cords of the four Quarters, or the cross. Thor is said to
smite the head of the Serpent with his hammer . . . a form of Swastica or
four-footed Cross. . . . In the primitive sepulchres of Egypt the model of the
Chamber had the form of a Cross.** The pagoda of Mathura . . . the birth-place
of Krishna, was built in the form of a Cross . . . . ***
This
is perfect and no one can discern in this "sexual worship," with
which the Orientalists love to break the head of Paganism. But how about the
Jews, and the exoteric religions of some Hindu sects, especially the rites of
the Vallabacharyas? For, as said, the Lingham and Yoni of Siva-worship stand
too high philosophically, its modern degeneration notwithstanding, to be called
a simple phallic worship. But the tree or Cross-worship**** of the Jews, as
denounced by their own Prophets, can hardly escape the charge. The "Sons
of Sorcerers," "the seed of the adulterer," as Isaiah calls them
(lvii.), never lost an opportunity of "enflaming themselves with idols
under every green tree," which denotes no metaphysical recreation. It is
from these monotheistic Jews that the Christian nations have derived their
religion, their "God of gods, the One living God," while despising and
deriding the worship of the Deity of the ancient philosophers. Let such believe
in and worship the physical form of the Cross, by all means.
But
to the follower of the true Eastern archaic Wisdom, to him who worships in
spirit nought outside the Absolute Unity, that ever-pulsating great Heart that
beats throughout, as in every atom of nature, each such atom contains the germ
from which he may raise the Tree of Knowledge, whose fruits give life eternal
and not physical life alone. For him the Cross and Circle, the Tree or the Tau,
are, after every symbol relating to these has been applied to, and read one
after another, still a profound mystery in their Past, and it is to that Past
alone that he directs his eager gaze. He cares little whether it be the seed
from
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Apophis or Apap is the Serpent of evil, symbol of human passions. The Sun
(Osiris-Horus), destroys him, when Apap is thrown down, bound and chained. The
god Aker, "the chief of the gate of the Abyss," of Aker, the realm of
the Sun (xv. 39) binds him. Apophis is the enemy of Ra (light), but the
"great Apap has fallen!" exclaims the defunct. "The Scorpion has
hurt thy mouth," he says to the conquered enemy (xxxix. v. 7). The Scorpion
is the "worm that never dies" of the Christians. Apophis is bound on
the Tau or Tat, "the emblem of stability." (See the erection of Tat
in Tatoo, Ritual xviii.).
**
So have the crypts in cis-Himalayan regions where Initiates live, and where
their ashes are placed for seven lunar years.
***
The Natural Genesis, Vol. I. p. 432.
****
The Cross and the Tree are identical and synonymous in symbolism.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 589 MAN, THE REVILER OF GOD.
which
grows the genealogical Tree of Being, called the Universe. Nor is it the Three
in One, the triple aspect of the seed -- its form, colour, and substance --
that interest him, but rather the FORCE which directs its growth, the ever
mysterious, as the ever unknown. For this vital Force, that makes the seed
germinate, burst open and throw out shoots, then form the trunk and branches,
which, in their turn, bend down like the boughs of the Aswattha, the holy Tree
of Bodhi, throw their seed out, take root and procreate other trees -- this is
the only FORCE that has reality for him, as it is the never-dying breath of
life. The pagan philosopher sought for the Cause, the modern is content with
only the effects and seeks the former in the latter. What is beyond, he does
not know, nor does the modern A-gnostic care: thus rejecting the only knowledge
upon which he can with full security base his Science. Yet this manifested
Force has an answer for him who seeks to fathom it. He who sees in the cross,
the decussated circle of Plato, the Pagan, not the antitype of circumcision, as
Christian (St.) Augustine did,* is forthwith regarded by the Church as a
heathen: by Science, as a lunatic. This because, while refusing to worship the
god of physical generation, he confesses that he can know nothing of the Cause
which underlies the so-called First Cause, the causeless Cause of this Vital
Cause. Tacitly admitting the All-Presence of the boundless Circle and making of
it the universal Postulate upon which the whole of the manifested universe is
based, the Sage keeps a reverential silence concerning that upon which no
mortal men should dare to speculate. "The Logos of God is the revealer of
man, and the logos (the verb) of man is the revealer of God," says Eliphas
Levi in one of his paradoxes. To this, the Eastern Occultist would reply:--
"On this condition, however, that man should be dumb on the CAUSE that
produced both God and its logos. Otherwise, he becomes invariably the reviler,
not the 'revealers' of the incognizable Deity."
We
have now to approach a mystery -- the Hebdomad in nature. Perchance, all that
we may say, will be attributed to coincidence. We may be told that this number
in nature is quite natural (so we say too), and has no more significance than
the illusion of motion which forms the so-called "Strobic circles."
No great importance was given to these "singular illusions" when
Professor Sylvanus Thompson exhibited them at the meeting of the British Association
in 1877. Nevertheless we should like to learn the scientific explanation why
seven should ever form itself as a pre-eminent number -- six concentric circles
around a seventh, and seven rings within one another round a central point,
etc., etc. -- in this illusion, produced by a swaying saucer, or any other
vessel. We give the solution refused by science in the section which follows.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Sermon the 160th.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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§
XXV.
THE
MYSTERIES OF THE HEBDOMAD.
WE
must not close this Part on the Symbolism of Archaic History, without an
attempt to explain the perpetual recurrence of this truly mystic number in
every scripture known to the Orientalists. As every religion, from the oldest
to the latest, claims its presence, and explains it on its own grounds
agreeably with its own special dogmas, this is no easy task. We can, therefore,
do no better or more explanatory work than to give a bird's-eye view of all.
These sacred numbers (3, 4, 7) are the sacred numbers of Light, Life, and Union
-- especially in this present manvantara, our Life-cycle; of which number seven
is the special representative, or the Factor number. This has now to be
demonstrated.
If
one happened to ask a Brahmin learned in the Upanishads -- so full of the
secret wisdom of old, why "he, of whom seven forefathers have drunk the
juice of the moon-plant, is trisuparna," as Bopaveda is credited with
saying; and why the Somapa Pitris should be worshipped by the Brahmin
trisuparna -- very few could answer the question; or, if they knew, they would
still less satisfy one's curiosity. Let us, then, hold to what the old Esoteric
doctrine teaches.
"When
the first 'Seven' appeared on earth, they threw the seed of everything that
grows on the land into the soil. First came three, and four were added to these
as soon as stone was transformed into plant. Then came the second 'Seven,' who,
guiding the Jivas of the plants, produced the middle (intermediate) natures
between plant and moving living animal. The third 'Seven' evolved their
Chhayas. . . . The fifth 'Seven' imprisoned their ESSENCE. . . . Thus man
became a Saptaparna." (Commentary.)
-------
A.
SAPTAPARNA.
Such
is the name given in Occult phraseology to man. It means as shown elsewhere, a
seven-leaved plant, and the name has a great significance in the Buddhist
legends. So it had, also, under disguise, in the Greek "myths." The T,
or [[diagram]] (tau), formed from the figure 7, and the Greek letter [[G]]
(gamma), was (see § "Cross and Circle") the symbol of life,
------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 591 THE MEANING OF THE DOUBLE TRIANGLE.
and
of life eternal: of earthly life, because [[G]] (gamma) is the symbol of the
Earth (gaia)*; and of "life eternal," because the figure 7 is the
symbol of the same life linked with divine life, the double glyph expressed in
geometrical figures being:--
[[diagram]]
a
triangle and a quaternary, the symbol of septenary MAN.
Now,
the number six has been regarded in the ancient mysteries as an emblem of
physical nature. For six is the representation of the six dimensions of all
bodies: the six lines which compose their form, namely, the four lines
extending to the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West, and the
two lines of height and thickness that answer to the Zenith and the Nadir.
Therefore, while the senary was applied by the sages to physical man, the
septenary was for them the symbol of that man plus his immortal soul.
Ragon
gives in his Maconnerie Occulte a very good illustration of the
"hieroglyphical senary," as he calls our double equilateral triangle,
[[diagram]]. He shows it as the symbol of the commingling of the
"philosophical three fires and the three waters, whence results the
procreation of the elements of all things. The same idea is found in the Indian
equilateral double triangle. For, though it is called in that country the sign
of Vishnu, yet in truth it is the symbol of the Triad (or the Trimurti). For,
even in the exoteric rendering, the lower triangle [[diagram]] with the apex
downward, is the symbol of Vishnu, the god of the moist principle and water ("Nara-yana,"
or the moving Principle in Nara, water;**) while the triangle, with its apex
upward, [[diagram]] is Siva, the Principle of Fire, symbolized by the triple
flame in his hand. (See the bronze statue of Tripurantika Siva, "Mahadeva
destroying Tripurasura," at the museum of the India House). It is these
two interlaced triangles -- wrongly called "Solomon's seal," which
also form the emblem of our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Hence the Initiates in Greece called the Tau [[I]], son of gaia, "sprung
from earth," like Tityos in Odyssey 7, 324.
**
See the Mahabharata, e.g., III., 189, 3, where Vishnu says, "I called the
name of water nara in ancient times, and am hence called Narayana, for that was
always the abode I moved in" (Ayana). It is into the water (or chaos, the
"moist principle" of the Greeks and Hermes), that the first seed of
the Universe is thrown. "The 'Spirit of God' moves on the dark waters of
Space"; hence Thales makes of it the primordial element and prior to Fire,
which was yet latent in that Spirit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Society
-- that produce the Septenary and the Triad at one and the same time, and are
the Decad, whatever way this sign [[diagram]] is examined, as all the ten
numbers are contained therein. For with a point in the middle or centre, thus
[[diagram]] it is a sevenfold sign; its triangles denote number 3; the two
triangles show the presence of the binary; the triangles with the central point
common to both yield the quaternary; the six points are the senary; and the
central point, the unit; the quinary being traced by combination, as a compound
of two triangles, the even number, and of three sides in each triangle, the
first odd number. This is the reason why Pythagoras and the ancients made the
number six sacred to Venus, since "the union of the two sexes, and the
spagyrisation of matter by triads are necessary to develop the generative force,
that prolific virtue and tendency to reproduction which is inherent in all
bodies."*
Belief
in "Creators," or the personified Powers of Nature, is in truth no
polytheism, but a philosophical necessity. Like all the other planets of our system,
the Earth has seven Logoi -- the emanating rays of the one
"Father-Ray" -- the PROTOGONOS, or the manifested "Logos"
-- he who sacrifices his Esse (or flesh, the Universe) that the world may live
and every creature therein have conscious being.
Numbers
3 and 4 are respectively male and female, Spirit and Matter, and their union is
the emblem of life eternal in spirit on its ascending arc, and in matter as the
ever resurrecting element -- by procreation and reproduction. The spiritual
male line is vertical [[diagram]]; the differentiated matter-line is
horizontal; the two forming the cross or [[diagram]]. The former (the 3), is
invisible; the latter (the 4), is on the plane of objective perception. This is
why all the matter of the Universe, when analyzed by science to its ultimates,
can be reduced to four elements only -- carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and hydrogen:
and why the three primaries, the noumenoi of the four, or graduated Spirit or
Force, have remained a terra incognita and mere speculations, names, to exact
Science. Her servants must believe in and study first the primary causes,
before they can hope to fathom the nature and acquaint themselves with the
potentialities of the effects. Thus, while the men of Western learning had, and
still have, the four, or matter to toy with, the Eastern Occultists and their
disciples, the great alchemists the world over, have the whole septenate to
study from.** As those Alche-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "Potency of the Pythagorean Triangles" (Ragon).
**
There are learned Brahmins who have protested against our septenary division.
They are right from their own standpoint, as we are right from ours. Leaving
the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 593 SPIRITUAL AND PHYSICAL CORRESPONDENCES.
mists
have it:-- "When the Three and the Four kiss each other, the Quaternary
joins its middle nature with that of the Triangle," (or Triad, i.e., the
face of one of its plane surfaces becoming the middle face of the other),
"and becomes a cube; then only does it (the cube unfolded) become the
vehicle and the number of LIFE, the Father-Mother SEVEN."
The
following diagram will perhaps assist the student to grasp these parallelisms.
HUMAN
PRINCIPLES. [[diagram]] PRINCIPLES OF PHYSICAL NATURE.
VII.
. . . . ATMA.
VI.
. . . . BUDDHI.
V.
. . . . . MANAS.
IV.
Kama-rupa, the principle of animal desire, which burns fiercely during life in
matter, resulting in satiety: it is inseparable from animal existence.
HYDROGEN
The
lightest of all gases: it burns in oxygen giving off the most intense heat of
any substance in combustion, and forming Water, the most stable of compounds; Hydrogen
enters largely into all organic compounds.
III.
Linga-Sarira; the inert vehicle or form on which the body is moulded; the
vehicle of Life. It is dissipated very shortly after the disentigration of the
body.
NITROGEN
An
inert gas; the vehicle with which Oxygen is mixed to adapt the latter for
animal respiration; it also enters largely into all organic substances.
II.
Prana, LIFE, the active power producing all vital phenomena.
OXYGEN
The
supporter of combustion the life-giving gas; the active chemical agent in all
organic life.
I.
The gross Matter of the body, the substance formed and moulded over the
Liga-sarira (Chhaya) by the action of Prana.
CARBON
The
fuel par excellence; the basis of all organic substances; the (chemical)
element which forms the largest variety of compounds.
Now
we are taught that all these earliest forms of organic life also appear in
septenary groups of numbers. From minerals or "soft
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] three aspects, or adjunct principles out of
calculation, they accept only four Upadhis (bases) including the Ego -- the
reflected image of the Logos in the "Karana Sarira" -- and even
"strictly speaking . . . . only three Upadhis." For purely
theoretical metaphysical philosophy, or purposes of meditation, these three may
be sufficient, as shown by the Taraka Yoga system; but for practical occult
teaching our septenary division is the best and easiest. It is, however, a
matter of school and choice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 594 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
stones
that hardened" (Stanza) followed by the "hard plants that
softened," which are the product of the mineral, for "it is from the
bosom of the stone that vegetation is born" (Commentary, Book IX., F. 19);
and then to man -- all the primitive models in every kingdom of nature begin by
being ethereal, transparent, films. This, of course, takes place only in the
first beginning of life. With the next period they consolidate, and at the
seventh begin to branch off into species, all except men, the first of the
mammalian animals* in the Fourth Round.
Virgil,
versed as every ancient poet was, more or less, in esoteric philosophy, sang
evolution in the following strains:--
Principio
coelum ac terras, camposque liquentes
Lucentemque
globum lunae, Titaniaque astra*
SPIRITUS
intus alit; totamque infusa per artus
MENS
agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet
Inde
Hominum pecudumque genus, etc.** (AEneid VI. )
"First
came three, or the triangle." This expression has a profound meaning in
Occultism, and the fact is corroborated in mineralogy, botany, and even in
geology, as was demonstrated in the section on "Ancient Chronology,"
by the compound number seven, the three and the four being in it. Salt in
solution proves it. For when its molecules, clustering together, begin to
deposit themselves as a solid, the first shape they assume is that of
triangles, of small pyramids and cones. It is the figure of fire, whence the
word "pyramids"; while the second geometrical figure in manifested
Nature is a square or a cube, 4 and 6; for, "the particles of earth being
cubical, those of fire are pyramidal" truly -- (Enfield). The pyramidal
shape is that assumed by the pines -- the most primitive tree after the fern
period. Thus the two opposites in cosmic nature -- fire and water, heat and
cold -- begin their metrographical manifestations, one by a trimetric, the
other by a hexagonal system. For the stellate crystals of snow, viewed under a
microscope, are all and each of them a double or a treble six-pointed star,
with a central nucleus, like a miniature star within the larger one. Says Mr.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Protista are not animals. The reader is asked to bear in mind that when we
speak of "animals," the mammalians alone are meant. Crustacea,
fishes, and reptiles are contemporary with, and most have preceded physical man
in this Round. All were bisexual, however, before the age of mammalia in the
closing portion of the secondary or Mesozoic ages, yet nearer to the Palaeozoic
than the Cenozoic ages. Smaller marsupial mammalia are contemporary with the
huge reptilian monsters of the Secondary.
**
"First Divine Spirit within sustains the Heavens, the earth and watery
plains, the moon's orb and shining stars and the Eternal Mind diffused through
all the parts of nature, actuates the whole stupendous frame and mingles with
the vast body of the universe. Thence proceed the race of men and beasts, the
vital principles of the flying kind and the monsters which the Ocean breeds
under its smooth crystal plane." "All proceeds from Ether and from
its seven natures" -- said the alchemists. Science knows these only in
their superficial effects.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 595 NOAH, AN ASPECT OF THE CREATOR.
Darwin,
in his "Descent of Man," p. 164. showing that the inhabitants of the sea-shore
are greatly affected by the tides:--
"The
most ancient progenitors in the Kingdom of the Vertebrata . . . apparently
consisted of a group of marine animals. . . . Animals living either about the
mean high-water mark, or about the mean low-water mark, pass through a complete
cycle of tidal changes in a fortnight. . . . Now it is a mysterious fact that
in the higher and now terrestrial Vertebrata . . . many normal and abnormal
processes have one or more weeks (septenates) as their periods . . . such as
gestation of mammals, the duration of fevers," etc. . . "The eggs of
the pigeon are hatched in two weeks (or 14 days); those of the fowl in three;
those of the duck in four: those of the goose in five; and those of the ostrich
in seven." (Bartlett's "Land and Water.")
This
number is closely connected with the moon, whose occult influence is ever
manifesting itself in septenary periods. It is the moon which is the guide of
the occult side of terrestrial nature, while the Sun is the regulator and
factor of manifested life; (See also Vol. I., Part II.), and this truth was
ever evident to the Seers and the adepts. Jacob Boehme, by insisting on the
fundamental doctrine of the seven properties of everlasting mother Nature,
proved himself thereby a great Occultist.
But
to return to the consideration of the septenary in ancient religious symbolism.
To the metrological key to the symbolism of the Hebrews, which reveals
numerically the geometrical relations of the Circle (All-Deity) to the Square,
Cube, Triangle, and all the integral emanations of the divine area, may be
added the theogonic Key. This Key explains that Noah, the deluge-Patriarch, is
in one aspect the permutation of the Deity (the Universal Creative Law), for
the purpose of the formation of our Earth, its population, and the propagation
of life on it, in general.
Now
bearing in mind the Septenary division in divine Hierarchies, as in Cosmic and
human constitutions, the student will readily understand that Jah-Noah is at
the head of, and is the synthesis of the lower Cosmic Quaternary. The upper
Sephirothal [[diagram]], triad -- of which Jehovah-Binah (Intelligence) is the
left, female angle -- emanates the [[diagram]] Quaternary. The latter
symbolizing by itself the "Heavenly Man," the sexless Adam-Kadmon
viewed as Nature in the abstract, becomes a septenate again by emanating from
itself the additional three principles, the lower terrestrial or manifested
physical Nature, Matter and our Earth (the seventh being Malkuth, the
"Bride of the Heavenly Man"), thus forming, with the higher triad, or
Kether, the Crown, the full number of the Sephirothal Tree -- the 10, the Total
in Unity, or the Universe. Apart from the higher Triad, the lower creative
Sephiroth are seven.
The
above is not directly to our point, though it is a necessary
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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reminder
to facilitate the comprehension of what follows. The question at issue is to show
that Jah-Noah, or the Jehovah of the Hebrew Bible, the alleged Creator of our
Earth, of man and all upon it, is:--
(a)
The lowest Septenary, the Creative Elohim -- in his Cosmic aspect.
(b)
The Tetragrammaton or the Adam-Kadmon, "the Heavenly Man" of the Four
letters -- in his theogonic and Kabalistic aspects.
(c)
Noah -- identical with the Hindu Sishta, the human seed, left for the peopling
of the Earth from a previous creation or Manvantara, as expressed in the
Puranas, or the pre-diluvian period as rendered allegorically in the Bible --
in his Cosmic character.
But
whether a Quaternary (Tetragrammaton) or a Triad, the Bible Creative God is not
the Universal 10, unless blended with AIN-SOPH (as Brahma with Parabrahm), but
a septenary, one of the many Septenaries of the Universal Septenate. In the
explanation of the question now in hand, his position and status as Noah may
best be shown by placing the 3, [[diagram]],and 4, [[diagram]] on parallel
lines with the "Cosmic" and "Human" principles. For the
latter, the old familiar classification is made use of. Thus:--
HUMAN
ASPECTS, OR PRINCIPLES.
COSMIC
ASPECTS, OR PRINCIPLES.
[[diagram]]
Triple
aspect of the Deity.
1.
Universal Spirit (Atma)
1.
The Unmanifested Logos
2.
Spiritual Soul (Buddhi)
2.
Universal (latent) Ideation*
3.
Human Soul, Mind (Manas)
3.
Universal (or Cosmic) active** Intelligence
[[diagram]]
Spirit
of the Earth.
Jehovah.***
4.
Animal Soul (Kama-Rupa)
4.
Cosmic (Chaotic) Energy
Noah.
5.
Astral Body (Linga Sarira)
5.
Astral Ideation, reflecting terrestrial things.
Space
containing Life -- the Waters of the Deluge.
6.
Life Essence (Prana)
6.
Life Essence or Energy
Mount
Ararat.****
7.
Body (Sthula Sarira)
7.
The Earth.
As
an additional demonstration of the statement, let the reader turn to scientific
works. "Ararat = the mount of descent = [[hebrew]], Hor-Jared. Hatho
mentions it out of composition by Areth = [[hebrew]]. Editor
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
NOTE.
-- For footnotes, see next page.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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of
Moses Cherenensis says: 'By this, they say, is signified the first place of
descent (of the ark).' (Bryant's Anal., Vol. IV., pages 5, 6, 15.) Under
"Berge" mountain, Nork says of Ararat: [[hebrew]], for [[hebrew]]
(i.e., Ararat for Arath) EARTH, Aramaic reduplication.' Here it is seen that
Nork and Hatho make use of the same equivalent in Arath, with the meaning of
Earth."*****
Noah
thus symbolizing both the Root-Manu and the Seed-Manu, or the Power which
developed the planetary chain, and our earth, and the Seed Race (the Fifth)
which was saved while the last sub-races of the Fourth perished -- Vaivasvata Manu
-- the number Seven will be seen to recur at every step. It is he (Noah), who
represents, as Jehovah's permutation, the septenary Host of the Elohim, and is
thus the Father or Creator (the Preserver) of all animal life. Hence verses 2
and 3 of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Adwaitee Vedantic philosophy classifies this as the highest trinity, or
rather the Trinitarian aspect of Chinmatra (Parabrahmam), explained by them as
the "bare potentiality of Pragna" -- the power or the capacity that
gives rise to perception; Chidakasam, the infinite field or plane of Universal
Consciousness; and Asath (Mulaprakriti), or undifferentiated matter. (See
"Personal and Impersonal God" in "Five Years of Theosophy.")
**
Differentiated matter existing in the Solar System (let us not touch the whole
Kosmos) in seven different conditions, and Pragna, or the capacity of
perception, existing likewise in seven different aspects corresponding to the
seven conditions of matter, there must necessarily be seven states of
consciousness in man; and according to the greater or smaller development of
these states, the systems of religions and philosophies were schemed out.
***
Represented as the jealous, angry, turbulent and ever active-god, revengeful,
and kind only to his chosen people when propitiated by them.
****
Noah and his three Sons are the collective symbol of this Quaternary in many
and various applications, Ham being the Chaotic principle.
*****
"Source of Measures," p. 65. The author explains, "Note that in
Hebrew, Jared, the father of Enoch, is construed to be 'the mount of descent,'
and it is said to be the same with Ararat on which the cubical structure of
Noah, or foundation measure rested. Jared, in Hebrew, is [[hebrew]]. The root
derivations are the same with those of Ararat, of acre, of earth." As by
Hebrew metrology "Jared, [[hebrew]] is, literally in British Y R D; hence
in Jared is to be found literally our English word yard (and also [[hebrew]],
for Jah, or Jehovah, is rod). It is noteworthy that the son of Jared, viz.,
Enoch, lived 365 years, and it is said of him by rabbinical commentators, that
the year period of 365 days was discovered by him, thus bringing, again, time
and distance values together, i.e., year time descended by co-ordination,
through the yard, or jared, who thus was its father, in or through Enoch; and
truly enough, 1296 = yard (or jared) x 4 = 5184, the characteristic value of
the solar day, in thirds, which as stated may be styled the parent numerically,
of the solar year" (ibid. p. 65). This, however, by the astronomical and
numerical Kabalistic methods. Esoterically, Jared is the Third race and Enoch
the Fourth -- but as he is taken away alive he symbolizes also the Elect saved
in the Fourth, while Noah is the Fifth from the beginning -- the family saved
from the waters, eternally and physically.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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chapter
vii. of Genesis, "Of every clean beast thou shalt take to thee by sevens,
the male (3), and the female (4); of fowls also of the air by sevens,"
etc., etc., followed by all the sevening of days and the rest.
-------
B.
THE
TETRAKTIS IN RELATION TO THE HEPTAGON.
Thus
Number Seven, as a compound of 3 and 4, is the factor element in every ancient
religion, because it is the factor element in nature. Its adoption must be
justified, and it must be shown to be the number par excellence, for, since the
appearance of "Esoteric Buddhism," frequent objections have been
made, and doubts expressed as to the correctness of these assertions.
And
here let the student be told at once, that in all such numerical divisions the
ONE universal Principle, -- although referred to as (the) one, because the Only
One -- never enters into the calculations. IT stands, in its character of the
Absolute, the Infinite, and the universal abstraction, entirely by ITSELF and
independent of every other Power whether noumenal or phenomenal. IT "is
neither matter nor spirit; IT is neither Ego nor non-Ego; and IT is neither
object nor subject," says the author of "Personal and Impersonal
God," and adds:--
"In
the language of Hindu philosophers it is the original and eternal combination of
Purusha (Spirit) and Prakriti (matter). As the Adwaitees hold that an external
object is merely the product of our mental states, Prakriti is nothing more
than an illusion, and Purusha is the only reality; it is the ONE existence
which remains in the universe of Ideas. This . . . then, is the Parabrahm of
the Adwaitees. . . . ."
"Even
if there were to be a personal God with anything like a material upadhi
(physical basis of whatever form), from the standpoint of an Adwaitee there
will be as much reason to doubt his noumenal existence, as there would be in
the case of any other object. In their opinion, a conscious God cannot be the
origin of the Universe, as his Ego would be the effect of a previous cause, if
the word conscious conveys but its ordinary meaning. They cannot admit that the
grand total of all the states of consciousness in the Universe is their deity,
as these states are constantly changing, and as cosmic ideation ceases during
Pralaya. There is only one permanent condition in the Universe, which is the
state of perfect unconsciousness, bare Chidakasam (the field of consciousness)
in fact. When my readers once realize the fact that this grand universe is in
reality but a huge aggregation of various states of consciousness, they will
not be surprised to find that the ultimate state of unconsciousness is
considered as Parabrahmam by the Adwaitees."*
Being
itself entirely out of human reckoning or calculation, yet this "huge
aggregation of various states of consciousness" is a Septenate,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Five Years of Theosophy," Art. "Personal and Impersonal
God."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
its totality entirely composed of Septenary groups; simply because "the
capacity of perception exists in seven different aspects corresponding to the
seven conditions of matter" (ibid), or the seven properties, or states, or
conditions of matter. And, therefore, number 1 down to number 7 begins in the
esoteric calculations with the first manifested principle, which is number one
if we commence from above, and the seventh when reckoning from below, or from
the lowest Principle.
The
Tetrad is esteemed in the Kabala, as it was by Pythagoras, the most perfect, or
rather sacred number, because it emanated from the one, the first manifested
Unit, or rather the three in one. Yet the latter has been ever impersonal,
sexless, incomprehensible, though within the possibility of the higher mental
perceptions.
The
first manifestation of the eternal monad was never meant to stand as the symbol
of another symbol, the UNBORN for the Element-born, or the one LOGOS for the
Heavenly man. Tetragrammaton, or the Tetractys of the Greeks, is the Second
logos, the Demiurgos. The Tetrad, as Thomas Taylor thought (vide the
"Pythagorean Triangle"), "is the animal itself of Plato, who, as
Syrianus justly observes, was the best of the Pythagoreans; it subsists at the
extremity of the intelligible triad, as is most satisfactorily shown by Proclus
in the third book of his treatise on the theology of Plato. And between these
two triads (the double triangle), the one intelligible, and the other
intellectual, another order of gods exists which partakes of both
extremes." "The Pythagorean world," Plutarch tells us (in De
anim. procr., 1027) "consisted of a double quaternary." This
statement corroborates what is said about the choice, by the exoteric
theologies, of the lower Tetraktis. For:-- "The quaternary of the
intellectual world (the world of Mahat) is T'Agathon, Nous, Psyche, Hyle; while
that of the sensible world (of matter), which is properly what Pythagoras meant
by the word Kosmos -- is Fire, Air, Water, and Earth. The four elements are
called by the name of rizomata, the roots or principles of all mixed
bodies," i.e., the lower Tetraktis is the root of illusion of the world of
matter; and this is the tetragrammaton of the Jews, and the "mysterious
deity," over which the modern Kabalists make such a fuss!
"Thus
number four forms the arithmetical mean between the monad and the heptad, as
this contains all powers, both of the productive and produced numbers; for this
of all numbers under ten, is made of a certain number; the duad doubled makes a
tetrad, and the tetrad doubled or unfolded makes the hebdomad (the septenary).
Two multiplied into itself produces four; and retorted into itself makes the
first cube. This first cube is a fertile number, the ground of multitude and
variety, constituted of two and four (depending on the monad, the seventh).
Thus the two principles of temporal things, the pyramis and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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cube,
form and matter, flow from one fountain, the tetragon (on earth) the monad (in
heaven) . . . . " (See Reuchlin, "Cabala" 1, ii.).
Here
Reuchlin, the great authority on the Kabala, shows the cube to be matter,
whereas the pyramid or the triad is "form." With the Hermesians the number
four becomes the symbol of truth only when amplified into a cube, which,
unfolded, makes seven, as symbolizing the male and female elements and the
element of LIFE.*
Some
students have been puzzled to account for the vertical line, which is male, becoming
(vide infra) in the cross a four-partitioned line -- four being a female
number, while the horizontal (the line of matter) becomes three-divisioned. But
this is easy of explanation. Since the middle face of the cube unfolded is
common to both the vertical and the horizontal bar, or double-line, it becomes
neutral ground so to say, and belongs to neither. The spirit line remains
triadic, and the matter line two-fold -- two being an even and therefore a
female number also. Moreover, according to Theon, the Pythagoreans who gave the
name of Harmony to the Tetraktis, "because it is a diatessaron in
sesquitertia" -- were of opinion that "the division of the canon of
the monochord was made by the tetraktis in the duad, triad, and tetrad; for it
comprehends a sesquitertia, a sesquialtera, a double, a triple, and a quadruple
proportion, the section of which is 27." "In the ancient musical
notation, the tetrachord consisted of three degrees or intervals, and four
terms of sounds called by the Greeks diatessaron, and by us a fourth."
Moreover, the quaternary though an even, therefore a female
("infernal") number, varied according to its form. This is shown by
Stanley (in Pythag. p. 61). The 4 was called by the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the "Hebrew Egyptian Mystery, the Source of Measures," the Author
shows (on p. 50) that the figure of the cube unfolded in connection with the
circle . . . . "becomes . . a cross proper, or of the tau form, and the
attachment of the circle to this last gives the ansated cross of the Egyptians
. . . . while there are but 6 faces to a cube, the representation of the cross
as the cube unfolded, as to the cross-bars, displays one face of the cube as
common to two bars, counted as belonging to either . . . (i.e., once counted
horizontally, and once vertically)
(CUBE
UNFOLDED)
[[diagram]]
.
. . 4 for the upright and 3 for the cross bar making seven in all," -- 4
for the upright, and 3 for the -- adding -- "Here we have the famous 4,
and 3, and 7." Esoteric philosophy explains that four is the symbol of the
Universe in its potential state, or chaotic matter, and that it requires Spirit
to permeate it actively, i.e., the primordial abstract triangle has to quit its
one dimensional quality and spread across that matter, thus forming a
manifested basis on the three dimensional space, in order that the Universe
should manifest intelligibly. This is achieved by the cube unfolded. Hence the
ansated cross [[diagram]] as the symbol of man, generation and life. In Egypt
ank signified soul, life and blood. It is the ensouled, living man, the
Septenary.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Pythagoreans
the Key-Keeper of Nature; but in union with the 3, which made it seven, it
became the most perfect and harmonious number -- nature herself. The four was
"the Masculine of Feminine Form," when forming the Cross; and Seven
is "the Master of the Moon," for this planet is forced to alter her
appearance every seven days. It is on number seven that Pythagoras composed his
doctrine on the Harmony and Music of the Spheres, calling "a tone"
the distance of the Moon from the Earth; from the Moon to Mercury half a tone,
from thence to Venus the same; from Venus to the Sun l 1/2 tones; from the Sun
to Mars a tone; from thence to Jupiter 1/2 a tone; from Jupiter to Saturn 1/2 a
tone; and thence to the Zodiac a tone; thus making seven tones -- the diapason
harmony. All the melody of nature is in those seven tones, and therefore is
called "the Voice of Nature."
Plutarch
explains (de Plac. Phil., p. 878) that the Achaean Greeks regarded the tetrad
as the root and principle of all things, since it was the number of the
elements which gave birth to all visible and invisible created things. With the
brothers of the Rosy Cross, the figure of the Cross, or Cube unfolded, formed
the subject of a disquisition in one of the theosophic degrees of Peuret, and
was treated according to the fundamental principles of light and darkness, or
good and evil.
"The
intelligible world proceeds out of the divine mind (or unit) after this manner.
The Tetraktis reflecting upon its own essence, the first unit, productrix of
all things, and on its own beginning, saith thus: Once one, twice two,
immediately ariseth a tetrad, having on its top the highest unit, and becomes a
Pyramis, whose base is a plain tetrad, answerable to a superficies, upon which
the radiant light of the divine unity produceth the form of incorporeal fire,
by reason of the descent of Juno (matter) to inferior things. Hence ariseth
essential light, not burning but illuminating. This is the creation of the
middle world, which the Hebrews call the Supreme, the world of the (their)
deity. It is termed Olympus, entirely light, and replete with separate forms,
where is the seat of the immortal gods, 'deum domus alta,' whose top is UNITY,
its wall trinity, and its superficies quaternity." (Reuchlin, Cabala, p.
689).
The
"superficies" has thus to remain a meaningless surface, if left by
itself. UNITY only "illuminating" quaternity; the famous lower four
has to build for itself also a wall from trinity, if it would be manifested.
Moreover, the tetragrammaton, or Microprosopus, is "Jehovah"
arrogating to himself very improperly the "Was, Is, Will be," now
translated into the "I am that I am," and interpreted as referring to
the highest abstract Deity, while esoterically and in plain truth, it means
only periodically chaotic, turbulent, and eternal MATTER with all its
potentialities. For the Tetragrammaton is one with Nature or Isis, and is the
exoteric series of androgyne gods such as Osiris-Isis, Jove-Juno, Brahma-Vach,
or the Kabalistic Jah-hovah; all male-females. Every anthropomorphic god, in
old nations, as Marcelinus Vicinus well observed,
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[[Vol.
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has
his name written with four letters. Thus with the Egyptians, he was Teut; the
Arabs, Alla; the Persians, Sire; the Magi, Orsi; the Mohammedans, Abdi; the
Greeks, Theos; the ancient Turks, Esar; the Latins, Deus; to which J. Lorenzo
Anania adds the German Gott; the Sarmatian, Bouh, etc., etc.
The
Monad being one, and an odd number, the ancients therefore called the odd, the
only perfect numbers; and -- selfishly, perhaps, yet as a fact -- considered
them all as masculine and perfect, being applicable to the celestial gods,
while even numbers, such as two, four, six, and especially eight, as being
female, were regarded as imperfect, and given only to the terrestrial and
infernal deities. In his eighth eclogue, Virgil records the fact by saying,
"Numero deus impare gaudet," "Unequal numbers please the
gods."
But
number seven, or the heptagon, the Pythagoreans considered to be a religious
and perfect number. It was called "Telesphoros," because by it all in
the Universe and mankind is led to its end, i.e., its culmination (Philo. de
Mund. opif.). Being under the rule of seven sacred planets,* the doctrine of
the Spheres shows, from Lemuria to Pythagoras, the seven powers of terrestrial
and sublunary nature, as well as the seven great Forces of the Universe,
proceeding and evolving in seven tones, which are the seven notes of the
musical scale. The heptad (our Septenary) was regarded "as the number of a
virgin, because it is unborn" (like the Logos or the "Aja" of
the Vedantins); "without a father or a mother, but proceeding directly
from the Monad, which is the origin and crown of all things." (Pythag.
Triangle, p. 174.) And if the heptad is made to proceed from the Monad
directly, then it is, as taught in the Secret Doctrine of the oldest schools,
the perfect and sacred number of this Maha-Manvantara of ours.
The
septenary, or heptad, was sacred indeed to several gods and goddesses; to Mars,
with his seven attendants, to Osiris, whose body was divided into seven and
twice seven parts; to Apollo (the Sun), between his seven planets, and playing
the hymn to the seven-rayed on his seven-stringed harp; to Minerva, the
fatherless and the motherless, and others.
Cis-Himalayan
Occultism with its sevening, and because of such sevening, must be regarded as
the most ancient, the original of all. It is opposed by some fragments left by
Neo-Platonists; and the admirers of the latter, who hardly understand what they
defend, say to us: "See, your forerunners believed only in triple man,
composed of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The seven planets are not limited to this number because the ancients knew of
no others, but simply because they were the primitive or primordial houses of
the seven Logoi. There may be nine and ninety-nine other planets discovered --
this does not alter the fact of these seven alone being sacred.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Spirit,
Soul, and body. Behold, the Taraka Raja Yoga of India limits that division to
3, we, to 4, and the Vedantins to 5 (koshas)." To this, we of the Archaic
school, ask:--
Why
then does the Greek poet say that "it is not four but SEVEN who sing the
praise of the Spiritual Sun," [[HEPTA ME]]? He says--
"Seven
sounding letters sing the praise of me,
The
immortal God, the Almighty deity." . . .
Why
again is the triune IAO (the Mystery God) called the "fourfold," and
yet the triad and tetradic symbols come under one unified name with the
Christians -- the Jehovah of the seven letters? Why again in the Hebrew Sheba
is the Oath (the Pythagorean Tetraktis) identical with number 7; or, as Mr. G.
Massey has it, "taking an oath was synonymous with 'to seven,' and the 10
expressed by the letter Yod, was the full number of IAO-SABAOTH, the
ten-lettered God"? In Lucian's Auction, Pythagoras asks, "How do you
reckon?" The reply is, "One, Two, Three, Four." "Then, do
you see," says Pythagoras, "in what you conceive FOUR there are Ten;
then, a perfect triangle and our Oath (tetraktis, four!)," or Seven. Why
does Proclus say in Timaeus, c. iii. -- "The Father of the golden verses
celebrates the Tetractys as the fountain of perennial nature"?
Simply
because those Western Kabalists who quote the exoteric proofs against us have
no idea of the real esoteric meaning. Because all the ancient Cosmologies --
the oldest Cosmographies of the two most ancient people of the Fifth Root Race,
the Hindu Aryans and the Egyptians, adding to them the early Chinese races (the
remnants of the Fourth or Atlantean Race) -- based the whole of their mysteries
on number 10: the higher triangle standing for the invisible and metaphysical
world, the lower three and four, or the Septenate, for the physical realm. It
is not the Jewish Bible that brought number seven into prominence. Hesiod used
the words "The seventh is the sacred day," before the Sabbath of
"Moses" was ever heard of. The use of number seven was never confined
to any one nation. This is well testified by the seven vases in the temple of
the Sun, near the ruins of Babion in Upper Egypt; the seven fires burning
continually for ages before the altars of Mithra; the seven holy fanes of the
Arabians; the seven peninsulas, the seven islands, seven seas, mountains, and
rivers of India; and of the Zohar (See Ibn Gebirol); the Jewish Sephiroth of
the Seven splendours; the seven Gothic deities, the seven worlds of the
Chaldeans and their seven Spirits; the seven constellations mentioned by Hesiod
and Homer; and all the interminable sevens which the Orientalists find in every
MS. they discover.
What
we have to say finally is this: Enough has been brought forward to show why the
human principles were and are divided in the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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esoteric
schools into seven. Make it four and it will either leave man minus his lower
terrestrial elements, or, if viewed from a physical stand-point, make of him a
soulless animal. The Quaternary must be the higher or the lower -- the
celestial or terrestrial Tetraktis: to become comprehensible, according to the
teachings of the esoteric ancient school man must be regarded as a Septenary.
This was so well understood, that even the so-called Christian Gnostics had
adopted this time-honoured system (Vide § on "The Seven Souls"). This
remained for a long time secret as, though suspected, no MSS. of that time
spoke of it clearly enough to satisfy the sceptic. But there comes to our
rescue the literary curiosity of our age -- the oldest and best preserved
gospel of the Gnostics, Pistis Sophia [[Pictic Cophia]]. To make the proof
absolutely complete, we shall quote from an authority (C. W. King) -- the only
archaeologist who had a faint glimmer of this elaborate doctrine, and the best
writer of the day on the Gnostics and their gems.
According
to this extraordinary piece of religious literature -- a true Gnostic fossil --
the human Entity is the Septenary ray from the One,* just as our school
teaches. It is composed of seven elements, four of which are borrowed from the
four Kabalistical manifested worlds. Thus "from Asia it gets the Nephesh
or seat of the physical appetites (vital breath, also); from Jezirah, the
Ruach, or seat of the passions (? !); from Briah, the Neshamah, and from
Aziluth it obtains the Chaiah, or principle of spiritual life;" (King).
"This looks like an adaptation of the Platonic theory of the Soul's
obtaining its respective faculties from the Planets in its downward progress
through their Spheres. But the Pistis-Sophia, with its accustomed boldness, puts
this theory into a much more poetical shape (§ 282)." The Inner Man is
similarly made up of four constituents, but these are supplied by the
rebellious AEons of the Spheres, being the Power -- a particle of the Divine
light ("Divinae particula aurae") yet left in themselves; the Soul
(the fifth) "formed out of the tears of their eyes, and the sweat of their
torments; the [[Antimimon Prieumatos]], Counterfeit of the Spirit (seemingly
answering to our Conscience), (the sixth); and lastly the [[Moira]], Fate**
(Karmic Ego), whose
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Seven Centres of Energy evolved, or rendered objective by the action of
Fohat upon the one element; or, in fact, the "Seventh Principle" of
the Seven Elements which exist throughout manifested Kosmos. We may here point
out that they are in truth the Sephiroth of the Kabalists; the "Seven
gifts of the Holy Ghost" in the Christian system; and in a mystical sense,
the seven children or sons of Devaki killed before the birth of Krishna by
Kamsa. Our seven principles symbolize all of these. We have to part or separate
from them before we reach the Krishna or Christ-state, that of a Jivanmukta,
and centre ourselves entirely in the highest, the Seventh or the ONE.
**
[[Moira]] is destiny, not "Fate," in this case, as it is an
appellation, not a proper noun. (See Wolf's transl. in Odyssey 22, 413). But
Moira, the Goddess of Fate, is a deity [[Footnote continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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whose
business it is to lead the man to the end appointed for him; if he hath to die
by the fire, to lead him into the fire, if he hath to die by a wild beast, to
lead him unto the wild beast, etc."* -- the SEVENTH!
-------
C.
THE
SEPTENARY ELEMENT IN THE VEDAS.
IT
CORROBORATES THE OCCULT TEACHING CONCERNING THE SEVEN GLOBES AND THE SEVEN
RACES.
We
have to go to the very source of historical information, if we would bring our
best evidence to testify to the facts enunciated. For, though entirely
allegorical, the Rig-Vedic hymns are none the less suggestive. The seven rays
of Surya (the Sun) are made therein parallel to the Seven Worlds (of every
planetary chain), to the seven rivers of heaven and earth, the former being the
seven creative Hosts, and the latter the Seven men, or primitive human groups.
The Seven ancient Rishis -- the progenitors of all that lives and breathes on
earth -- are the seven friends of Agni, his seven "horses," or seven
"HEADS." The human race has sprung from fire and water, it is
allegorically stated; fashioned by the FATHERS, or the ancestor-sacrificers,
from Agni; for Agni, the Aswins, the Adityas (Rig-Veda III., 54, 16, II., 29,
3, 4), are all synonymous with that "sacrificer," or the fathers,
variously called Pitar (Pitris, fathers), Angirases** (Ibid, 1, 31, 17, 139, et
seq.), the Sadhyas, "divine sacrificers," the most occult of all.
They are all called deva putra rishayah or "the Sons of God" (X., 62;
1, 4). The "sacrificers," moreover, are collectively the ONE
sacrificer, the father of the gods, Visvakarman, who performed the great
Sarva-Medha ceremony, and ended by sacrificing himself. (See Rig-Vedic Hymns.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] "who like [[Aisa]] gives to all their
portion of good and evil," and is therefore Karma (Vide Liddell). By this
abbreviation, however, the subject to Destiny or Karma is meant, the SELF or
Ego, and that which is reborn. Nor is [[Antimimon Pneumatos]] our conscience,
but our Buddhi; nor is it again the "counterfeit of Spirit" but
"modelled after," or a counterpart of the Spirit -- which Buddhi is,
as the vehicle of Atma (Vide Ar. Theism, 17; and Liddell's definitions).
*
C. W. King's Gnostics, p. 38.
**
Prof. Roth (in Peter's Lexicon) defines the Angirases as an intermediate race
of higher beings between gods and men; while Prof. Weber, according to his invariable
custom of modernising and anthropomorphising the divine, sees in them the
original priests of the religion which was common to the Aryan Hindus and
Persians. Roth is right. "Angirases" was one of the names of the
Dhyanis, or Devas instructors ("guru-deva"), of the late Third, the
Fourth, and even of the Fifth Race Initiates.
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[[Vol.
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In
these Hymns the "Heavenly Man" is called purusha, "the
Man," (X. 90, 1) from whom Viraj was born (X. 90, 5); and from Viraj, the
(mortal) man. It is Varuna (now drawn from his sublime position to be the chief
of the lords-Dhyanis or Devas) who regulates all natural phenomena, who
"makes a path for the Sun, for him to follow." The seven rivers of
the sky (the descending creative gods) and the seven rivers of the earth (the
seven primitive mankinds) are under his control, as will be seen. For he who
breaks Varuna's laws (Vratani, "courses of natural action," active
laws) is punished by Indra (X. 113, 5), the Vedic powerful god, whose Vrata
(law or power) is greater than the Vratani of any other god.
Thus,
the Rig Veda, the oldest of all the known ancient records, may be shown to
corroborate the occult teachings in almost every respect. Its hymns -- the
records written by the earliest Initiates of the Fifth (our race) concerning
the primordial teachings -- speak of the Seven Races (two still to come)
allegorising them by the "seven streams" (1, 35, 8); and of the Five
Races ("panca krishtayah") which have already inhabited this world
(ibid) on the five regions "panca pradicah" (IX, 86, 29), as also of
the three continents that were.*
It
is those scholars only who will master the secret meaning of the Purushasukta
(in which the intuition of the modern Orientalist has chosen to see "one
of the very latest hymns of the Rig-Veda"), who may hope to understand how
harmonious are its teachings and how corroborative of the Esoteric doctrines.
One must study in all the abstruseness of their metaphysical meaning the
relations in it between the (Heavenly) man "Purusha," SACRIFICED for
the production of the Universe and all in it (See Visvakarman), and the
terrestrial mortal man (Hymn X. 20, 1, 16), before one realizes the hidden
philosophy of this verse:--
"15.
He ("Man," purusha, or Visvakarman) had seven enclosing logs of fuel,
and thrice seven layers of fuel; when the gods performed the sacrifice, they
bound the Man as victim" . . . . This relates to the three Septenary primeval
Races, and shows the antiquity of the Vedas, who knew of no other, probably in
this earliest oral teachings; and also
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Three submerged, or otherwise destroyed, continents -- the first
"continent" of the First Race prevailing to the last and existing to
this day -- are described in the occult Doctrine, the Hyperborean, the Lemurian
(adopting the name now known in Science), and the Atlantean. Most of Asia
issued from under the waters after the destruction of Atlantis; Africa came
still later, while Europe is the fifth and the latest -- portions of the two
Americas being far older. But of these, more anon. The Initiates who recorded
the Vedas -- or the Rishis of our Fifth Race -- wrote at a time when Atlantis
had already gone down. Atlantis is the fourth continent that appeared, but the
third that disappeared.
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[[Vol.
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to
the seven primeval groups of mankind, as Visvakarman represents divine humanity
collectively.*
The
same doctrine is found reflected in the other old religions. It may, and must
have come down to us disfigured and misinterpreted, as in the case of the
Parsis, who read it in their Vendidad and elsewhere, without understanding the
allusions they contain any better than the Orientalists do; yet the doctrine is
plainly mentioned in their old works. (See the enumeration of the seven spheres
--not the "Karshvare of the earth," as believed -- in Fargard XIX.,
30). But see further on.
Comparing
the esoteric teaching with the interpretations by James Darmesteter (the
Vendidad, edited by Prof. Max Muller), one may see at a glance where the
mistake is made, and the cause that produced it. The passage runs thus:--
"The
Indo-Iranian Asura (Ahura) was often conceived as seven-fold; by the play of
certain mythical (?) formulae and the strength of certain mythical (?) numbers,
the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians had been led to speak of seven worlds,** and
the Supreme God was often made seven-fold, as well as the worlds over which he
ruled." (Vide the foot note). "The seven worlds became in Persia the
seven Karshvare of the earth: the earth is divided into seven Karshvare, only
one of which is known and accessible to man, the one on which we live, namely,
Hvaniratha; which amounts to saying that there are seven earths.*** Parsi
mythology knows also of seven heavens. Hvaniratha itself is divided into seven
climes. (Orm. Ahr. § 72. "Vendidad Introd. p. Lx.,)" and the same
division and doctrine is to be found in the oldest and most revered of the
Hindu
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nor is this archaic teaching so very unscientific, since one of the greatest
naturalists of the age -- the late Professor Agassiz -- admitted the
multiplicity of the geographical origins of man, and supported it to the end of
his life. The unity of the human species was accepted by the illustrious
Professor of Cambridge (U.S.A.) in the same way as the Occultists do -- namely,
in the sense of their essential and original homogeneity and their origin from
one and the same source:-- e.g., Negroes, Aryans, Mongols, etc., have all
originated in the same way and from the same ancestors. The latter were all of
one essence, yet differentiated, because belonging to seven planes which
differed in degree though not in kind. That original physical difference was
but little more accentuated by that of geographical and climatic conditions,
later on. This is not the theory of Agassiz, of course, but the esoteric
version. It is fully discussed in the Addenda (Part III.).
**
The seven worlds are, as said, the seven spheres of the chain, each presided
over by one of the "Seven great gods" of every religion. When the
latter became degraded and anthropomorphized, and the metaphysical ideas nearly
forgotten, the synthesis or the highest, the seventh, was separated from the
rest, and that personification became the eighth god, whom monotheism tried to
unify but -- failed. In no exoteric religion is God really one, if analyzed
metaphysically.
***
The six invisible globes of our chain are both "worlds" and
"earths" as is our own, albeit invisible. But where could be the Six
invisible earths on this globe?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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scriptures
-- the Rig-veda. Mention is made therein of six worlds, besides our earth: the
six rajamsi above prithivi -- the earth, -- or "this" (idam) as
opposed to that which is yonder (i.e., the six globes on the three other planes
or worlds). (See Rig-veda I. 34, III. 56; VII 10, 411, and V., 60. 6).
The
italics are ours to point out the identity of the tenets with those of the
esoteric doctrine, and the mistake made. The Magi or Mazdeans only believed in
what other people believed in; namely, in seven "worlds" or globes of
our planetary chain, of which only one is accessible to man (at the present
time), our Earth; and in the successive appearance and destruction of seven
continents or earths on this our globe, each continent being divided, in
commemoration of the seven globes (one visible, six invisible), into seven
islands or continents, "seven climes," etc., etc. This was a common
belief in those days when the now Secret Doctrine was open to all. It is this
multiplicity of localities under Septenary division, that made the Orientalists
(led astray, moreover, by the oblivion of both the uninitiated Hindus and
Parsis of their primitive doctrines) feel so puzzled by this ever-recurring
seven-fold number, as to regard it as "mythical." It is that oblivion
of the first principles which has led the Orientalists off the right track and
made them commit the greatest blunders. The same failure is found in the
definition of the Gods. Those who are ignorant of the esoteric doctrine of the
earliest Aryans, can never assimilate or understand correctly the metaphysical
meaning contained in these BEINGS.
Ahura
Mazda (Ormazd) was the head and synthesis of the seven Amesha Spentas (or
Amshaspends), and, therefore, an Amesha Spenta himself. Just as
"Jehovah-Binah Arelim" was the head and synthesis of the Elohim and
no more; so Agni-Vishnu-Surya was the synthesis and head, or the focus whence
emanated in physics as in metaphysics, from the Spiritual as from the physical
Sun, the Seven Rays, the seven fiery tongues, the seven planets or gods. All
these became supreme gods and the ONE GOD, but only after the loss of the
primeval secrets, the sinking of Atlantis, or "the Flood," and the
occupation of India by the Brahmans, who sought safety on the summits of the
Himalayas, when even the high table-lands of what is now Tibet became submerged
for a time. Ahura Mazda is addressed only as "the Most Blissful Spirit,
Creator of the corporeal World" in the Vendidad. "Ahura Mazda"
in its literal translation means the "Wise Lord" (Ahura
"lord," and Mazda "wise"). Moreover, this name of Ahura, in
Sanskrit Asura, connects him with the Manasaputras, the Sons of Wisdom who
informed the mindless man, and endowed him with his mind (manas). Ahura (asura)
may be derived from the root ah "to be," but in its primal
signification it is what the Secret Teaching shows it to be.
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[[Vol.
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When
geology shall have found out how many thousands of years ago the disturbed
waters of the Indian Ocean reached the highest plateaux of Central Asia, when
the Caspian Sea and the Persian Gulf made one with it, then only will they know
the age of the Aryan Brahminical nation, and the time of its descent into the
plains of Hindostan, which it did millenniums later.
Yima,
the so-called "first man" in the Vendidad, as much as his
twin-brother Yama, the Son of Vaivasvata Manu, belongs to two epochs of the
Universal History. He is the "Progenitor" of the Second human Race,
hence the personification of the shadows of the Pitris, and the father of the
postdiluvian Humanity. The Magi said "Yima," as we say
"man" when speaking of mankind. The "fair Yima," the first
mortal who converses with Ahura Mazda, is the first "man" who dies or
disappears, not the first who is born. The "Son of Vixanghat," was,
like the Son of Vaivasvata, the symbolical man, who stood in esotericism as the
representative of the first three races and the collective Progenitor thereof.
Of these races the first two never died* but only vanished, absorbed in their
progeny, and the third knew death only towards its close, after the separation
of the sexes and its "Fall" into generation. This is plainly alluded
to in the II. Fargard of the Vendidad. Yima refuses to become the bearer of the
law of Ahura Mazda, saying "I was not born, I was not taught to be the
preacher and the bearer of thy law." And then Ahura Mazda asks him to make
his men increase and "watch over his world" (3 and 4).
He
refuses to become the priest of Ahura Mazda, because he is his own priest and
sacrificer, but he accepts the second proposal. He is made to answer:--
"Yes!
. . . yes, I will rule and watch over thy world. There shall be, while I am
King, neither cold wind nor hot wind, neither disease nor death."
Then
Ahura Mazda brings him a golden ring and a poniard, the emblems of sovereignty,
and under the sway of Yima --
"Three
hundred winters passed away, and the earth was replenished with flocks and
herds, with men, and dogs, and birds, and with red blazing fires," etc.
(300 winters mean 300 periods or cycles.)
"Replenished,"
mark well, that is to say, all this had been on it before; and thus is proven
the knowledge of the doctrine about the successive destructions of the world
and its life cycles. Once the "300 winters" were over, Ahura Mazda
warns Yima that the earth is becoming too full, and men have nowhere to live.
Then Yima steps forward, and with the help of Spenta Armaita (the female
genius, or Spirit of the Earth) makes that earth stretch out and become larger
by
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Death came only after man had become a physical creature, vide supra. The men
of the First Race and also of the Second, dissolved and disappeared in their
progeny.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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one-third,
after which "new herds and flocks and men" appear upon it. Ahura
Mazda warns him again, and Yima makes the earth by the same magic power to become
larger by two-thirds. "Nine hundred winters" pass away, and Yima has
to perform the ceremony for the third time. The whole of this is allegorical.
The three processes of stretching the earth, refer to the three successive
continents and races issuing one after and from the other, as explained more
fully elsewhere. After the third time, Ahura Mazda warns Yima in an assembly of
"celestial gods and excellent mortals" that upon the material world
the fatal winters are going to fall, and all life will perish. This is the old
Mazdean symbolism for the "flood," and the coming cataclysm to
Atlantis, which sweeps away every race in its turn. Like Vaivasvata Manu and
Noah, Yima makes a vara (an enclosure, an ark) under the God's direction, and
brings thither the seed of every living creature, animals and
"fires."
It
is of this "earth" or new continent that Zarathustra became the
law-giver and ruler. This was the Fourth Race in its beginning, after the men
of the Third began to die out. Till then, as said (vide supra, foot note) there
had been no regular death, but only a transformation, for men had no
personality as yet. They had monads -- breaths of the ONE Breath, and as
impersonal as the source from which they proceeded. They had bodies, or rather
shadows of bodies, which were sinless, hence Karmaless. Therefore, as there was
no Kamaloka -- least of all Nirvana or even Devachan -- for the
"souls" of men who had no personal Egos, there could be no
intermediate periods between the incarnations. Like the Phoenix, primordial man
resurrected out of his old into a new body. Each time, and with each new
generation, he became more solid, more physically perfect, agreeably with the
evolutionary law, which is the Law of Nature. Death came with the complete
physical organism, and with it -- moral decay.
This
explanation shows one more old religion agreeing in its symbology with the
universal Doctrine.
Elsewhere
the oldest Persian traditions, the relics of Mazdeism of the still older
Magians, are given, and some of them explained. Mankind did not issue from one
solitary couple. Nor was there ever a first man -- whether Adam or Yima -- but
a first mankind.
It
may, or may not be, "mitigated polygenism." Once that both creation
ex-nihilo -- an absurdity -- and a superhuman Creator or creators -- a fact --
are made away with by science, polygenism presents no more difficulties or
inconveniences (rather fewer from a scientific point of view) than monogenism
does.
Nevertheless,
it is as scientific as any other claim. For in his Introduction to Nott's and
Gliddon's "Types of Mankind," Agassiz declares
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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his
belief in an indefinite number of "primordial races of men created
separately"; and remarks that, "whilst in every zoological province
animals are of different species, man, in spite of the diversity of his races,
always forms one and the same human being."
Occultism
defines and limits the number of primordial races to seven, because of the
"seven progenitors," or prajapatis, the evolvers of beings. These are
neither gods, nor supernatural Beings, but advanced Spirits from another and
lower planet, reborn on this one, and giving birth in their turn in the present
Round to present Humanity. This doctrine is again corroborated by one of its
echoes -- the Gnostic. In their Anthropology and Genesis of man they taught
that "a certain company of Seven angels," formed the first men, who
were no better than senseless, gigantic, shadowy forms -- "a mere
wriggling worm" (!) writes Irenaeus (I., 24, 1), who takes, as usual, the
metaphor for reality.
-------
D.
THE
SEPTENARY IN THE EXOTERIC WORKS.
We
may now examine other ancient Scriptures and see whether they contain the
septenary classification, and, if so, to what degree.
As
much, if not much more, even than in the Jewish Bible, scattered about in the
thousands of Sanskrit texts, some still unopened, others yet unknown, as well
as in all the Puranas, the numbers seven and forty-nine (7 x 7) play a most
prominent part. They are found from the Seven creations in Chapter I., down to
the seven rays of the Sun at the final Pralaya, which expand into Seven Suns
and absorb the material of the whole Universe. Thus the Matsya Purana has:
"For the sake of promulgating the Vedas, Vishnu, in the beginning of a
Kalpa, related to Manu the story of Narasimha and the events of seven
Kalpas." Then again the same Purana shows that "in all the Manvantaras,
classes of Rishis* appear by seven and seven, and having established a code of
law and morality depart to felicity" -- the Rishis representing many other
things besides living Sages.
In
Hymn xix., 53, of Atharva Veda (Dr. Muir's translation) one reads:--
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"These are the seven persons by whom in the several Manvantaras" --
says Parasara -- "created beings have been protected. Because the whole
world has been pervaded by the energy of the deity, he is entitled Vishnu, from
the root Vis 'to enter' or 'pervade,' for all the gods, the Manus, the Seven
Rishis, the Sons of the Manu, the Indras, all are but the impersonated
potencies (Vibhutayah) of Vishnu" (Vish. Purana). Vishnu is the Universe;
and the Universe itself is divided in the Rig Veda into seven regions -- which
ought to be sufficient authority, for the Brahmins, at all events.
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[[Vol.
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"1.
Time carries (us) forward, a steed, with seven rays, a thousand eyes,
undecaying, full of fecundity. On him intelligent sages mount; his wheels are
all the worlds."
"2.
Thus Time moves on seven wheels; he has seven naves; immortality is his axle.
He is at present all these worlds. Time hastens onward the first God."
"3.
A full jar is contained in Time. We behold him existing in many forms. He is
all these worlds in the future. They call him 'Time in the highest Heaven'
" . . . .
Now
add to this the following verse from the Esoteric volumes:--
"Space
and Time are one. Space and Time are nameless, for they are the incognizable
THAT, which can be sensed only through its seven rays -- which are the Seven
Creations, the Seven Worlds, the Seven Laws," etc., etc., etc. . . .
Remembering
that the Puranas insist on the identity of Vishnu with Time and Space*; and
that even the Rabbinical symbol for God is MAQOM, "Space," it becomes
clear why, for purposes of a manifesting Deity -- Space, Matter, and Spirit --
the one central point became the Triangle and Quaternary (the perfect Cube),
hence Seven. Even the Pravaha wind (the mystic and occult Force that gives the
impulse to, and regulates the course of the stars and planets) is septenary.
The Kurma and Linga Puranas enumerate seven principal winds of that name, which
winds are the principles of Cosmic Space. They are intimately connected with
Dhruva** (now Alpha), the Pole-Star, which is connected in its turn with the
production of various phenomena through cosmic forces.
Thus,
from the Seven Creations, seven Rishis, Zones, Continents, Principles, etc.,
etc. in the Aryan Scriptures, the number has passed through Indian, Egyptian,
Chaldaic, Greek, Jewish, Roman, and finally Christian mystic thought, until it
landed in and remained impressed indelibly on every exoteric theology. The
seven old books stolen out of Noah's ark by Ham, and given to Cush, his son,
and the seven Brazen columns of Ham and Cheiron, are a reflection and a remem-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vishnu is all -- the worlds, the stars, the seas, etc., etc. "Vishnu is
all that is, all that is not . . . . but is not Vastubhuta," "a
substance" (Vishnu Purana, Book II. ch. xii). "That which people call
the highest God is not a substance but the cause of it; not one that is here,
there, or elsewhere, not what we see, but that in which all is -- SPACE."
**
Therefore it is said in the Puranas that the view of Dhruva (the polar star) at
night, and of the celestial porpoise (Sisumara, a constellation) "expiates
whatever sin has been committed during the day." The fact is that the rays
of the four stars in the circle of perpetual apparition -- the Agni, Mahendra,
Kasyapa, and Dhruva, placed in the tail of Ursa Minor (Sisumara) -- focussed in
a certain way and on a certain object produce extraordinary results. The
astro-magians of India will understand what is meant.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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brance
of the Seven primordial mysteries instituted according to the "Seven
secret emanations," the "Seven Sounds," and seven rays -- the
spiritual and sidereal models of the seven thousand times seven copies of them
in later aeons.
The
mysterious number is once more prominent in the no less mysterious Maruts. The
Vayu Purana shows, and Harivansa corroborates, that the Maruts -- the oldest as
the most incomprehensible of all the secondary or lower gods in the Rig Veda --
"are born in every manvantara (Round) seven times seven (or 49); that in
each Manvantara, four times seven (or twenty-eight) they obtain emancipation,
but their places are filled up by persons reborn in that character." What
are the Maruts in their esoteric meaning, and who those persons "reborn in
that character"? In the Rig and other Vedas, the Maruts are represented as
the storm gods and the friends and allies of Indra; they are the "Sons of
heaven and of earth." This led to an allegory that makes them the children
of Siva, the great patron of the Yogis, "the MAHA-YOGI, the great ascetic,
in whom is centred the highest perfection of austere penance and abstract
meditation, by which the most unlimited powers are obtained, marvels and
miracles are worked, the highest spiritual knowledge is acquired, and union
with the great spirit of the universe is eventually gained." In the Rig
Veda the name Siva is unknown, but the god is called Rudra, which is a word
used for Agni, the fire god, the Maruts being called therein his sons. In the
Ramayana and the Puranas, their mother, Diti -- the sister, or complement of,
and a form of Aditi -- anxious to obtain a son who would destroy Indra, is told
by Kasyapa the Sage, that "if, with thoughts wholly pious and person entirely
pure, she carrys the babe in her womb for a hundred years" she will get
such a son. But Indra foils her in the design. With his thunderbolt he divides
the embryo in her womb into seven portions, and then divides every such portion
into seven pieces again, which become the swift-moving deities, the Maruts.*
These deities are only another aspect, or a development of the Kumaras, who are
Rudras in their patronymic, like many others.**
Diti,
being Aditi, unless the contrary is proven to us, Aditi, we say, or Akasa in
her highest form, is the Egyptian seven-fold heaven. Every true Occultist will
understand what this means. Diti, we repeat, is the sixth
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In the Ramayana it is Bala-Rama, Krishna's elder brother, who does it.
**
With regard to the origin of Rudra, it is stated in several Puranas that his
(spiritual) progeny, created in him by Brahma, was not confined to either the
seven Kumaras or the eleven Rudras, etc., but "comprehends infinite numbers
of beings in person and equipments like their (virgin) father. Alarmed at their
fierceness, numbers, and immortality, Brahma desires his son Rudra to form
creatures of a different and mortal nature." Rudra refusing to create,
desists, etc., hence Rudra is the first rebel. (Linga, Vayu, Matsya, and other
Puranas.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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principle
of metaphysical nature, the Buddhi of Akasa. Diti, the mother of the Maruts, is
one of her terrestrial forms, made to represent, at one and the same time, the
divine Soul in the ascetic, and the divine aspirations of mystic Humanity
toward deliverance from the webs of Maya, and final bliss in consequence.
Indra, now degraded, because of the Kali Yuga, when such aspirations are no
more general but have become abnormal through a general spread of Ahamkara (the
feeling of Egotism, Self, or I-AM-NESS) and ignorance -- was, in the beginning,
one of the greatest gods of the Hindu Pantheon, as the Rig Veda shows.
Sura-dhipa, "the chief of the gods," has fallen down from Jishnu,
"the leader of the celestial host," -- the Hindu St. Michael -- to an
opponent of asceticism, the enemy of every holy aspiration. He is shown married
to Aindri (Indrani), the personification of Aindri-yaka, the evolution of the
element of senses, whom he married "because of her voluptuous
attractions"; after which he began sending celestial female demons to
excite the passions of holy men, Yogis, and "to beguile them from the
potent penances which he dreaded." Therefore, Indra, now characterized as
"the god of the firmament, the personified atmosphere" -- is in
reality the cosmic principle Mahat, and the fifth human -- Manas in its dual
aspect: as connected with Buddhi; and as allowing himself to be dragged down by
his Kama-principle (the body of passions and desires). This is demonstrated by
Brahma telling the conquered god that his frequent defeats were due to Karma,
and were a punishment for his licentiousness, and the seduction of various
nymphs. It is in this latter character that he seeks, to save himself from
destruction, to destroy the coming "babe" destined to conquer him:--
the babe, of course, allegorizing the divine and steady will of the Yogi --
determined to resist all such temptations, and thus destroy the passions within
his earthly personality. Indra succeeds again, because flesh conquers spirit --
(Diti is shown frustrated in the Dvapara Yug, during that period when the
Fourth Race was flourishing). He divides the "Embryo" (of new divine
adeptship, begotten once more by the Ascetics of the Aryan Fifth Race), into
seven portions -- a reference not alone to the seven sub-races of the new
Root-Race, in each of which there will be a "Manu,"* but also to the
seven degrees of adeptship -- and then each
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Notwithstanding the terrible, and evidently purposed, confusion of Manus,
Rishis, and their progeny in the Puranas, one thing is made clear: there have
been and there will be seven Rishis in every Root-Race (called also Manvantara
in the sacred books) as there are fourteen Manus in every Round, the
"presiding gods, the Rishis and Sons of the Manus" being identical.
(See Book III. ch. 1 of Vishnu Purana.) "Six" Manvantaras are given,
the Seventh being our own in the Vishnu Purana. The Vayu Purana furnishes the
nomenclature of the Sons of the fourteen Manus in every Manvantara, and the
Sons of the seven Sages or Rishis. The latter are the progeny [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
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[[Vol.
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portion
into seven pieces -- alluding to the Manu-Rishis of each Root-Race, and even
sub-race.
It
does not seem difficult to perceive what is meant by the Maruts obtaining
"four times seven" emancipations in every "manvantara," and
by those persons who, being reborn in that character (of the Maruts in their
esoteric meaning), "fill up their places." The Maruts represent (a)
the passions that storm and rage within every candidate's breast, when
preparing for an ascetic life -- this mystically; (b) the occult potencies
concealed in the manifold aspects of Akasa's lower principles -- her body, or
sthula sarira, representing the terrestrial, lower, atmosphere of every
inhabited globe -- this mystically and sidereally; (c) actual conscious
Existences, Beings of a cosmic and psychic nature.
At
the same time "Maruts" is, in occult parlance, one of the names given
to those EGOS of great Adepts who have passed away, and who are known also as
Nirmanakayas; of those Egos for whom -- since they are beyond illusion -- there
is no Devachan, and who, having either voluntarily renounced it for the good of
mankind, or not yet reached Nirvana, remain invisible on earth. Therefore are
the Maruts* shown firstly -- as the sons of Siva-Rudra -- the "Patron
Yogi," whose "third eye," mystically, must be acquired by the
ascetic before he becomes an adept; then, in their cosmic character, as the
subordinates of Indra and his opponents -- variously. The "four times
seven" emancipations have a reference to the four Rounds, and the four
Races that preceded ours, in each of which Marut-Jivas (monads) have been
re-born, and have obtained final liberation, if they have only availed
themselves of it. Instead of which, preferring the good of mankind, which would
struggle still more hopelessly in the meshes of ignorance and misery, were it
not for this extraneous help -- they are re-born over and over again "in
that character," and thus "fill up their own places." Who they
are, "on earth" -- every student of Occult science knows. And he also
knows that the Maruts are Rudras, among whom also the family of Twashtri, a
synonym of Visvakarman -- the great patron of the Initiates -- is included.
This gives us an ample knowledge of their true nature.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] of the Progenitors of mankind. All the Puranas
speak of the seven Prajapatis of this period (Round).
*
"Chakshuba was the Manu of the sixth period (Third Round and Third Race),
in which Indra was Manojava" (Mantradruma in the Bhagavata Purana). As
there is a perfect analogy between the "great Round" (Mahakalpa),
each of the seven Rounds, and each of the seven great Races in every one of the
Rounds -- therefore, Indra of the sixth period, or Third Round, corresponds to
the close of the Third Race (at the time of the Fall or the separation of
sexes). Rudra, as the father of the Maruts, has many points of contact with
Indra, the Marutwan, or "lord of the Maruts." To receive a name Rudra
is said to have wept for it. Brahma called him Rudra; but he wept seven times
more and so obtained seven other names -- of which he uses one during each
"period."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 616 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
same for the Septenary Division of Kosmos and human principles. The Puranas,
along with other sacred texts, teem with allusions to this. First of all, the
mundane Egg which contained Brahma, or the Universe, "was externally
invested with seven natural elements, at first loosely enumerated as Water,
Air, Fire, Ether, and three secret elements" (Book I.); then the
"World" is said to be "encompassed on every side" by seven
elements, also within the egg -- as explained, "the universe is
encompassed on every side, above and below by the Andakat'aha -- the shell of
the egg of Brahma." . . . Around the shell flows water, which is
surrounded with fire; fire by air; air by ether; ether by the origin of the
elements (Ahamkara); the latter by Universal Mind ("Intellect" in the
Texts) (Book II., ch. VII. Vishnu Purana). It relates to spheres of being as
much as to principles. Prithivi is not our Earth, but the World, the Solar
system, and means the broad, the Wide. In the Vedas -- the greatest of all
authorities, though needing the key to read it correctly -- three terrestrial
and three celestial earths are mentioned as having been called into existence
simultaneously with Bhumi -- our earth. We have often been told that six, not
seven, appears to be the number of spheres, principles, etc. We answer that
there are, in fact, only six principles in man; since his body is no principle,
but the covering, the shell thereof. So with the planetary chain; speaking of
which, esoterically, the Earth (as well as the seventh, or rather fourth plane,
one that stands as the seventh if we count from the first triple kingdom of the
Elementals that begin the formation) may be left out of consideration, being
(to us) the only distinct body of the seven. The language of occultism is
varied. But supposing that three earths only, instead of seven, are meant in
the Vedas, what are those three, since we still know of but one? Evidently
there must be an occult meaning in the statement under consideration. Let us
see. The "Earth that floats" on the Universal Ocean (of Space), which
Brahma divides in the Puranas into seven zones, is Prithivi, the world divided
into seven principles; a cosmic division looking metaphysical enough, but, in
reality, physical in its occult effects. Many Kalpas later, our Earth is
mentioned, and, in its turn, is divided into seven zones* on that same law of
analogy that guided ancient philosophers. After which one finds on it seven
continents, seven isles, seven oceans, seven seas and rivers, seven mountains,
and seven climates, etc., etc., etc.**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See the Puranas.
**
In Vishnu Purana, Book II., chap. iv., it is stated that the EARTH, "with its
continents, mountains, oceans, and exterior shell, is fifty crores (500
millions) of yojanas in extent," to which the commentator remarks that
"this comprises the planetary spheres; for the diameter of the seven zones
and oceans -- each ocean being of the same diameter as the continent it
encloses, and each successive continent being twice the [[Footnot continued on
next page]]
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[[Vol.
2, Page]] 617 PERSIAN SYMBOLOGY.
Furthermore,
it is not only in the Hindu Scriptures and philosophy that one finds references
to the Seven Earths, but in the Persian, Phoenician, Chaldean, and Egyptian
Cosmogonies, and even in Rabbinical literature. The Phoenix* -- called by the
Hebrews Onech [Heb char] (from Phenoch, Enoch, symbol of a secret cycle and
initiation), and by the Turks, Kerkes -- lives a thousand years, after which,
kindling a flame, it is self-consumed; and then, reborn from itself -- it lives
another thousand years, up to seven times seven: (See "Book of Ali"
-- Russian transl.), when comes the day of Judgment. The "seven times
seven," 49, are a transparent allegory, and an allusion to the forty-nine
"Manus," the Seven Rounds, and the seven times seven human cycles in
each Round on each globe. The Kerkes and the Onech stand for a race cycle, and
the mystical tree Ababel -- the "Father Tree" in the Kuran -- shoots
out new branches and vegetation at every resurrection of the Kerkes or Phoenix;
the "Day of judgment" meaning a "minor Pralaya" (See
"Esoteric Buddhism"). The author of the "Book of God" and
the "Apocalypse" believes that "the Phoenix is very plainly the
same as the Simorgh, the Persian roc, and the account which is given us of this
last bird, yet more decisively establishes the opinion that the death and
revival of the Phoenix exhibit the successive destruction and reproduction of
the world, which many believed to be effected by the agency of a fiery
deluge" -- (p. 175); and a watery one in turn. "When the Simorgh was
asked her age, she informed Caherman that this world is very ancient, for it
has been already seven times replenished with beings different from men, and
seven times depopulated;** that the age of the human race, in which we now are,
is to endure seven thousand numbers, and that she herself had seen twelve of
these revolutions, and knew not how many more she had to see." (Oriental
Collections, ii., 119.)
The
above, however, is no new statement. From Bailly, in the last century, down to
Dr. Kenealy, in this one, these facts have been noticed by several writers, but
now a connection can be established between
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] diameter of that which precedes it -- amounts to
but two crores or fifty-four lakhs etc. . . . Whenever any contradictions in
different Puranas occur, they have to be ascribed . . . to differences of
Kalpas and the like." "The like" ought to read "Occult
meaning," which explanation is withheld by the commentator, who wrote for
exoteric, sectarian purposes, and was misunderstood by the translator for
various other reasons, the least of which is -- ignorance of the esoteric
philosophy.
*
The Phoenix, connected with the Solar Cycle of 600 years (with ciphers taken
out or with more added according to which cycle is meant), the Western cycle of
the Greeks and other nations -- is a generic symbol for several kinds of
cycles. Fuller details will be given in the section on "Kalpas and
Cycles."
**
The tense is the "past" because the book is allegorical, and has to
veil the truths contained.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 618 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Persian oracle and the Nazarene prophet. Says the author of the "Book of
God":--
"The
Simorgh is in reality the same as the winged Singh of the Hindus, and the
Sphinx of the Egyptians. It is said that the former will appear at the end of
the world . . . . as a monstrous lion-bird. From these the Rabbins have borrowed
their mythos of an enormous Bird, sometimes standing on the Earth, sometimes
walking in the ocean . . . while its head props the sky; and with the symbol,
they have also adopted the doctrine to which it relates. They teach that there
are to be seven successive renewals of the globe, that each reproduced system
will last seven thousand years; (?) and that the total duration of the universe
will be 49,000 years. This opinion, which involves the doctrine of the
pre-existence of each renewed creature, they may either have learned during
their Babylonian captivity, or it may have been part of the primeval religion
which their priests had preserved from remote times" (p. 176). It shows
rather that the initiated Jews borrowed, and their non-initiated successors,
the Talmudists, lost the sense, and applied the Seven Rounds, and the
forty-nine races, etc., to the wrong end.
Not
only "their priests," but those of every other country. The Gnostics,
whose various teachings are the many echoes of the one primitive and universal
doctrine, put the same numbers, under another form, in the mouth of Jesus in
the very occult Pistis Sophia. We say more: even the Christian editor or author
of Revelation has preserved this tradition and speaks of the Seven RACES, four
of which, with part of the fifth, are gone, and two have to come. It is stated
as plainly as could be stated in chapter xvii., verses 9 and 10. Thus saith the
angel: "And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven
mountains, on which the woman sitteth. And there are SEVEN Kings, five are
fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come . . . . " Who,
acquainted in the least with the symbolical language of old, will fail to
discern in the five Kings that have fallen, the four Root-Races that were, and
part of the fifth, the one that is; and in the other, that "is not yet
come," the sixth and seventh coming root races, as also the sub-races of
this, our present race? Another still more forcible allusion to the Seven
Rounds and the forty-nine root-races in Leviticus, will be found elsewhere in
the Addenda, Part III.
-------
E.
SEVEN
IN ASTRONOMY, SCIENCE, AND MAGIC.
Again,
number seven is closely connected with the occult significance of the Pleiades,
those seven daughters of Atlas, "the six present, the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 619 THE CYCLE OF THE NAROS.
seventh
hidden." In India they are connected with their nursling, the war god,
Karttikeya. It is the Pleiades (in Sanskrit, Krittika) who gave the god their
name, for Karttikeya is the planet Mars, astronomically. As a god he is the son
of Rudra, born without the intervention of a woman. He is a Kumara, a "virgin
youth" again, generated in the fire from the Seed of Siva -- the holy
spirit -- hence called Agni-bhu. The late Dr. Kenealy believed that, in India,
Karttikeya is the secret symbol of the cycle of Naros, composed of 600, 666,
and 777 years, according to whether it is solar or lunar, divine or mortal,
years that are counted; and the six visible, or the seven actual sisters, the
Pleiades, are needed for the completion of this most secret and mysterious of
all the astronomical and religious symbols. Therefore, when made to commemorate
one particular event, Karttikeya appeared, of old, as a Kumara, an ascetic,
with six heads -- one for each century of the Naros. When the symbolism was
needed for another event, then, in conjunction with the seven sidereal sisters,
Karttikeya is seen accompanied by Kaumara (or Sena) his female aspect. He is
then riding on a peacock -- the bird of Wisdom and Occult Knowledge, and the
Hindu Phoenix, whose Greek relation with the 600 years of Naros is well-known.
A six-rayed star (double triangle) a Swastica, a six and occasionally
seven-pointed crown is on his brow; the peacock's tail represents the sidereal
heavens; and the twelve signs of the Zodiac are hidden on his body; for which
he is also called Dwadasa Kara," ("the twelve-handed"), and
Dwadasaksha, "twelve-eyed." It is as Sakti-dhara, however, the
"Spear-holder," and the conqueror of Taraka, "Taraka-jit,"
that he is shown most famous.
The
years of the Naros, being (in India) counted in two ways -- either "100
years of the gods," (divine years) -- or 100 mortal years -- one can see
the tremendous difficulty for the non-initiated in comprehending correctly this
cycle, which plays such an important part in St. John's Revelation. It is the
truly apocalyptic Cycle; yet in none of the numerous speculations about it have
we found anything but a few approximate truths, because of its being of various
lengths and relating to various pre-historic events.
It
has been urged against the duration claimed by the Babylonians for their divine
ages, that Suidas shows the ancients counting, in their chronological
computations, days for years. Dr. Sepp in his ingenious plagiarism -- exposed
elsewhere -- of the Hindu 432 in thousands and millions of years (the duration
of the Yugas) which he dwarfed to 4,320 lunar years before the "birth of
Christ" -- as "foreordained" in the sidereal (besides the
invisible) heavens, and proved "by the apparition of the Star of
Bethlehem" -- appeals to Suidas and his authority. But Suidas had no other
warrant for it than his own speculations, and he
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[[Vol.
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was
no Initiate. He cites, as a proof, Vulcan, in showing him as having, according
to chronological claim, reigned 4,477 years, i.e., 4,477 days, as he thinks, or
rendered in years, 12 years, 3 months, and 7 days; he has 5 days in his
original -- thus committing an error even in such an easy calculation. (See
Suidas, art. [[Heelios]].) True, there are other ancient writers guilty of like
fallacious speculations -- Calisthenes, for instance, who assigns to the
astronomical observations of the Chaldeans only 1,903 years, whereas Epigenes
recognises 720,000 years (Pliny. Histor. Natur. Lib. VII. c. 56.) The whole of
these hypotheses made by profane writers are based upon and due to a
misunderstanding. The chronology of all the Western peoples, ancient Greeks and
Romans, was borrowed from India. Now, it is said in the Tamil edition of
Bagavadam that 15 solar days make a Paccham; two paccham (or 30 days) are a
month of the mortals, adding that such a month is only one day of the Pitar
Devata (Pitris). Again, two of these months constitute a roodoo, three roodoo
make an ayanam, and two ayanams a year -- which year of the mortals is but a
day of the gods. It is on such misunderstood teachings that some Greeks have
imagined that all the initiated priests had transformed days into years!
This
mistake of the ancient Greek and Latin writers became pregnant with results in
Europe. At the close of the past and the beginning of this century, relying
upon the purposely mutilated accounts of Hindu chronology, brought from India
by certain too zealous and as unscrupulous missionaries, Bailly, Dupuis, and
others built quite a fantastic theory upon the subject. Because the Hindus had
made half a revolution of the moon, a measure of time; and because a month
composed of only fifteen days -- of which Quint. Curtius speaks (Menses in
quinos dies descriperunt dies. Quint. Curt. LVIII., c. 9) -- is found mentioned
in Hindu literature, therefore, it is a verified fact that their year was only
half a year, when it was not called a day. The Chinese, too, divided their
Zodiac into twenty-four parts, hence their year into twenty-four fortnights,
but such computation did not, nor does it prevent their having an astronomical
year just the same as ours. And they have a period of sixty days -- the
Southern Indian Roodoo, to this day in some provinces. Moreover, Diodorus
Siculus (Lib. I. § 26, p. 30) calls "thirty days an Egyptian year,"
or that period during which the moon performs a complete revolution. Pliny and
Plutarch both speak of it (Hist. Nat. Lib. VII., c. 48, Vol. III., p. 185, and
Life of Numa, § 16); but does it stand to reason that the Egyptians, who knew
astronomy as well as any other people did, made the lunar month consist of
thirty days, when it is only twenty-eight days with fractions? This lunary
period had an occult meaning surely as much as the Ayanam and the roodoo of the
Hindus had. The year of two months' duration, and the period of sixty days
also,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 621 VARIOUS CYCLIC CALCULATIONS.
was
a universal measure of time in antiquity, as Bailly himself shows in his Traite
de l'Astronomie Orientale. The Chinamen, according to their own books, divided
their year into two parts, from one equinox to the other (Mem. Acad. Ins. T.
XVI., c. 48, Tom. III., p. 183); the Arabs anciently divided the year into six
seasons, each composed of two months; in the Chinese astronomical work called
Kioo-tche, it is said that two moons make a measure of time, and six measures a
year; and to this day the aborigines of Kamschatka have their years of six
months, as they had when visited by Abbe Chappe (Voyage to Siberia, Vol. III.,
p. 19). But is all this a reason to say that when the Hindu Puranas say "a
solar year" they mean one solar day! It is the knowledge of the natural
laws that make of seven the root nature-number, so to say, in the manifested
world -- at any rate in our present terrestrial life-cycle -- and the wonderful
comprehension of its workings, that unveiled to the ancients so many of the
mysteries of nature. It is these laws, again, and their processes on the
sidereal, terrestrial, and moral planes, which enabled the old astronomers to
calculate correctly the duration of the cycles and their respective effects on
the march of events; to record beforehand (prophecy, it is called) the
influence which they will have on the course and development of the human
races. The Sun, Moon, and planets being the never-erring time measurers, whose
potency and periodicity were well known, became thus the great Ruler and rulers
of our little system in all its seven domains, or "spheres of
action."*
This
has been so evident and remarkable, that even many of the modern men of
Science, Materialists as well as Mystics, had their attention called to this
law. Physicians and theologians, mathematicians and psychologists have drawn
the attention of the world repeatedly to this fact of periodicity in the
behaviour of "Nature." These numbers are explained in the
"Commentaries" in these words.
THE
CIRCLE IS NOT THE "ONE" BUT THE ALL.
IN
THE HIGHER [heaven] THE IMPENETRABLE RAJAH ["ad Mutant," see
Atharva-Veda X., 105], IT [the Circle] BECOMES ONE, BECAUSE [it is] THE
INDIVISIBLE, AND THERE CAN BE NO TAU IN IT.
IN
THE SECOND [of the three "Rajamsi" (tritiya), or the three
"Worlds"] THE ONE BECOMES TWO [male and female]; AND THREE [add the
Son or logos]; AND THE SACRED FOUR ["tetractis," or the
"Tetragrammaton."]
IN
THE THIRD [the lower world or our earth] THE NUMBER BECOMES FOUR, AND THREE,
AND TWO. TAKE THE FIRST TWO, AND THOU WILT
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The spheres of action of the combined Forces of Evolution and Karma are (1) the
Super-spiritual or noumenal; (2) the Spiritual; (3) the Psychic; (4) the
Astro-ethereal; (5) the Sub-astral; (6) the Vital; and (7) the purely physical
spheres.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 622 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
OBTAIN
SEVEN, THE SACRED NUMBER OF LIFE; BLEND [the latter] WITH THE MIDDLE RAJAH, AND
THOU WILT HAVE NINE, THE SACRED NUMBER OF BEING AND BECOMING."*
When
the Western Orientalists have mastered the real meaning of the Rig Vedic
divisions of the World -- the two-fold, three-fold, six and seven-fold, and
especially the nine-fold division, the mystery of the cyclic divisions applied
to heaven and earth, gods and men, will become clearer to them than it is now.
For --
"THERE
IS A HARMONY OF NUMBERS IN ALL NATURE; in the force of gravity, in the
planetary movements, in the laws of heat, light, electricity, and chemical
affinity, in the forms of animals and plants, in the perception of the mind.
The direction, indeed, of modern natural and physical science, is towards a
generalization which shall express the fundamental laws of all, by one simple
numerical ratio. We would refer to Professor Whewell's 'Philosophy of the
Inductive Sciences,' and to Mr. Hay's researches into the laws of harmonious
colouring and form. From these it appears that the number seven is
distinguished in the laws regulating the harmonious Perception of forms,
colours, and sounds, and probably of taste also, if we could analyse our
sensations of this kind with mathematical accuracy." ("Medical
Review," July, 1844).
So
much so, indeed, that more than one physician has stood aghast at the
periodical septenary return of the cycles in the rise and fall of various
complaints, and naturalists have felt themselves at an utter loss to explain
this law. "The birth, growth, maturity, vital functions . . . . change,
diseases, decay and death, of insects, reptiles, fishes, birds, mammals, and
even of man, are more or less controlled by a law of completion in weeks,"
or seven days.** Dr. Laycock (Lancet, 1842-3), writing on the Periodicity of
Vital Phenomena, records a "most remarkable illustration and confirmation
of the law in insects."***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In Hinduism, as understood by the Orientalists from the Atharvaveda, the three rajamsi
refer to the three strides of Vishnu; his ascending higher step, being taken in
the highest world (A. V., VII., 99, 1, cf. I 155, 5). It is the divo rajah, or
the "sky," as they take it. But it is something besides this in
Occultism. The sentence pareshu, guhyeshu, vrateshu, cf. I, 155, 3, and IX.,
75, 2; or again, verse X., 114, in Atharvaveda -- has yet to be explained.
**
H. Grattan Guinness, F.R.G.S., in his "Approaching End of the Age."
***
Having given a number of illustrations from natural history, the doctor adds:
"The facts I have briefly glanced at are general facts, and cannot happen
day after day in so many millions of animals of every kind, FROM THE LARVA OR
OVUM OF A MINUTE INSECT UP TO MAN, at definite periods, from a mere chance or coincidence
. . . I think it impossible to come to any less general conclusion than this,
that in animals, changes occur every three and a half, seven, fourteen,
twenty-one, or twenty-eight days, or at some definite number of weeks" or
septenary cycles. Again, the same Dr. Laycock states that:-- "Whatever
type the fever may exhibit, there will be a paroxysm on the seventh day . . .
the fourteenth will be remarkable as a day of amendment . . . " (either
cure or death taking place). "If the fourth (paroxysm) be severe, and the
fifth less so, the disease will end at the seventh paroxysm, and . . . change
for the better . . . will be seen on the fourteenth day, [[Footnote continued
on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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To
all of which Mr. Grattan Guinness, the author of "The Approaching End of
the Age," says very pertinently, as he defends Biblical Chronology,
"And man's life . . . is a week, a week of decades. 'The days of our years
are threescore years and ten.' Combining the testimony of all these facts, we
are bound to admit that there prevails in organic mature a law of septiform
periodicity, a law of completion in weeks" (p. 269). Without accepting the
conclusions, and especially the premises of the learned Founder of "the
East London Institute for Home and Foreign Missions," the writer accepts
and welcomes his researches in the occult chronology of the Bible. Just as,
while rejecting the theories and hypotheses of modern Science and its
generalizations, we bow before its great achievements in the world of the
physical, or in all the minor details of material nature.
There
is most assuredly an occult "chronological system in Hebrew
Scripture" -- the Kabala being its warrant; there is in it "a system
of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] namely, about three or four o'clock a.m., when
the system is most languid." (See "Approaching End of the Age,"
by Grattan Guinness, pp. 258 to 269, wherein this is quoted.)
This
is pure "sooth-saying" by cyclic calculations, and it is connected
with Chaldean astrolatry and astrology. Thus materialistic Science -- medicine,
the most materialistic of all -- applies our occult laws to diseases, studies
natural history with its help, recognizes its presence as a fact in nature, and
yet must needs pooh-pooh the same archaic knowledge when claimed by the
Occultists. For if the mysterious Septenary Cycle is a law in nature, and it is
one, as proven; if it is found controlling the evolution and involution (or
death) in the realms of entomology, icthyology and ornithology, as in the
Kingdom of the Animal, mammalia and man -- why cannot it be present and acting
in Kosmos, in general, in its natural (though occult) divisions of time, races,
and mental development? And why, furthermore, should not the most ancient
adepts have studied and thoroughly mastered these cyclic laws under all their
aspects? Indeed, Dr. Stratton states as a physiological and pathological fact,
that "in health the human pulse is more frequent in the morning than in
the evening for six days out of seven; and that on the seventh day it is
slower." (Ibid. Edinb. Med. and Surg. Journal, Jan. 1843.) Why, then,
should not an Occultist show the same in cosmic and terrestrial life in the
pulse of the planet and races? Dr. Laycock divides life by three great
septenary periods; the first and last, each stretching over 21 years, and the
central period or prime of life lasting 28 years, or four times seven. He
subdivides the first into seven distinct stages, and the other two into three
minor periods, and says that "The fundamental unit of the greater periods
is one week of seven days, each day being twelve hours"; and that
"single and compound multiples of this unit, determine the length of these
periods by the same ratio, as multiples of the unit of twelve hours determine
the lesser periods. This law binds all periodic vital phenomena together, and
links the periods observed in the lowest annulose animals, with those of man
himself, the highest of the vertebrate." If Science does this, why should
the latter scorn the Occult information, namely, that (speaking Dr. Laycock's
language) "one week of the manvantaric (lunar) fortnight, of fourteen days
(or seven manus), that fortnight of twelve hours in a day representing seven
periods or seven races -- is now passed?" This language of science fits
our doctrine admirably. We (mankind) have lived over "a week of seven
days, each day being twelve hours," since three and a half races are now
gone for ever, the fourth is submerged, and we are now in the Fifth Race.
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[[Vol.
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weeks"
-- which is based on the archaic Indian system, which may still be found in the
old Jyotisha.* And there are in it cycles of "the week of days," of
the "week of months," of years, of centuries, and even of
millenniums, decamillenniums, and more, or "the week of years of
years."** But all this can be found in the archaic doctrine. And if this
common source of the chronology in every Scripture, however veiled, is denied
in the case of the Bible, then the six days, and a Sabbath, the seventh, can
hardly disconnect Genesis from the Puranic Cosmogonies. For the first
"Week of Creation" shows the septiformity of its chronology and thus
connects it with Brahma's "Seven Creations." The able volume from the
pen of Mr. Grattan Guinness, in which he has collected on some 760 pages every
proof of that septiform calculation, is good evidence. For if the Bible
chronology is, as he says, "regulated by the law of weeks," and if it
is septenary, whatever the measures of the creation week and the length of its days;
and if, finally, "the Bible system includes weeks on a great variety of
scales," then this system is shown to be identical with all the pagan
systems. Moreover, the attempt to show that 4,320 years (in lunar months)
elapsed between "Creation" and the Nativity, is a clear and
unmistakable connection with the 4,320,000 of the Hindu Yugas. Otherwise, why
make such efforts to prove that these figures, which are pre-eminently Chaldean
and Indo-Aryan, play such a part in the New Testament? We shall prove it now
still more forcibly.
Let
the impartial critic compare the two accounts -- the Vishnu Purana and the
Bible -- and he will find that the "seven creations" of Brahma are at
the foundation of the "week" of creation in Genesis i. The two
allegories are different, but the systems are all built on the same
foundation-stone. The Bible can be understood only by the light of the Kabala.
Take the Zohar, the "Book of Concealed Mystery," however now
disfigured, and compare. The seven Rishis and the fourteen Manus of the seven
Manvantaras -- issue from Brahma's head; they are his "mind-born
sons," and it is with them that begins the division of mankind and its
races from the Heavenly man, "the Logos" (the manifested), who is
Brahma Prajapati. Says (V. 70 in) the "Ha Idra Rabba Qadisha" (the
Greater Holy Assembly) of the skull (head)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See for the length of such cycles or Yugas in Vriddha Garga and other ancient
astronomical Sections (Jyotisha). They vary from the cycle of five years --
which Colebrooke calls "the cycle of the Vedas," specified in the
institutes of Parasara, "and the basis of calculation for larger
cycles" (Miscell. Essays, Vol. I., pp. 106 and 108) -- up to the Mahayuga
or the famous cycle of 4,320,000 years.
**
The Hebrew word for "week" is Seven; and any length of time divided
by Seven would have been a "week" in their day, even 49,000,000
years, as it is seven times seven millions. But their calculation is throughout
septiform.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 625 THE HAIRY SYMBOL.
of
Macroprosopus, the ancient One* (Sanat, an appellation of Brahma), that in
every one of his hairs is a "hidden fountain issuing from the concealed
brain." "And it shineth and goeth forth through that hair unto the
hair of Microprosopus, and from it (which is the manifest QUATERNARY, the
Tetragrammaton) his brain is formed; and thence that brain goeth into THIRTY
and TWO paths" (or the triad and the duad, or again 432). And again: (V.
80) "Thirteen curls of hair exist on the one side and on the other of the
skull" -- i.e., six on one and six on the other, the thirteenth being also
the fourteenth, as it is male-female, "and through them commenceth the
division of the hair" (the division of things, Mankind and Races).
"We
six are lights which shine forth from a seventh (light)," saith Rabbi
Abba; "thou art the seventh light" (the synthesis of us all, he adds,
speaking of Tetragrammaton and his seven "companions," whom he calls
"the eyes of Tetragrammaton.")
TETRAGRAMMATON
is Brahma Prajapati, who assumed four forms, in order to create four kinds of
supernal creatures, i.e., made himself fourfold, or the manifest Quaternary
(see Vishnu Purana, Book I. ch. V.); and who, after that, is re-born in the
seven Rishis, his Manasaputras, "mind-born sons," who became later,
9, 21 and so on, who are all said to be born from various parts of Brahma**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Brahma creates in the first Kalpa (day one) various "sacrificial
animals" pasu -- or the celestial bodies and the Zodiacal signs, and
plants which he uses in sacrifices at the opening of Treta Yuga. The esoteric
meaning of it shows him proceeding cyclically and creating astral prototypes on
the descending spiritual arc and then on the ascending physical arc. The latter
is the sub-division of a two-fold creation, subdivided again into seven
descending and seven ascending degrees of spirit falling, and of matter
ascending -- the inverse of what takes place (as in a mirror which reflects the
right on the left side) in this manvantara of ours. It is the same,
esoterically, in the Elohistic Genesis (chap. i.), and in the Jehovistic copy,
as in Hindu cosmogony.
**
It is very surprising to see theologians and Oriental scholars express
indignation at the "depraved taste of the Hindu mystics" who, not
content with having invented the "Mind-born" Sons of Brahma, make the
Rishis, Manus, and Prajapatis of every kind spring from various parts of the
body of their primal Progenitor -- Brahma (see Wilson's footnote in his Vishnu
Purana, Vol. I., p. 102). Because the average public is unacquainted with the
Kabala, the key to, and glossary of, the much veiled Mosaic Books, therefore,
the clergy imagines the truth will never out. Let any one turn to the English,
Hebrew, or Latin texts of the Kabala, now so ably translated by several
scholars, and he will find that the Tetragrammaton, which is the Hebrew IHVH,
is also both the "Sephirothal Tree"-- i.e., it contains all the
Sephiroth except Kether, the crown -- and the united body of the "Heavenly
man" (Adam Kadmon) from whose limbs emanate the Universe and everything in
it. Furthermore, he will find that the idea in the Kabalistic Books (the chief
of which in the Zohar are the "Books of Concealed Mystery," of the
"Greater," and the "Lesser Holy Assembly") is entirely
phallic and far more crudely expressed than is the four-fold Brahma in any of
the Puranas. (See "Kabala Unveiled," by Mr. S. L. Mathers, Chap.
xxii., concerning the remaining members of Microprosopus). [[Footnote continued
on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 626 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
There
are two Tetragrammatons: the Macro and the Microprosopus. The first is the
absolute perfect Square, or the TETRACTIS within the Circle, both abstract
conceptions, and is therefore called AIN -- the Non-being, i.e., illimitable or
absolute Be-ness. But when viewed as Microprosopus, or the "Heavenly
man," the manifested Logos, he is the triangle in the square -- the
sevenfold cube not the fourfold, or the plane Square. For it is written in the
same "Greater Holy Assembly" -- (83): "And concerning this, the
children of Israel wished to know in their minds, like as it is written (Exod.
xvii. 7.): 'Is the Tetragrammaton in the midst of us, or the Negatively
Existent One?'* (Where did they distinguish between Microprosopus, who is
called Tetragrammaton, and between Macroprosopus, who is called AIN, Ain the
negatively existent?)"**
Therefore,
Tetragrammaton is the THREE made four and the FOUR made three, and is
represented on this Earth by his seven "companions," or
"Eyes" -- the "Seven eyes of the Lord." Microprosopus is,
at best, only a secondary manifested Deity. For, verse 1,152 of the
"Greater Holy Assembly" (Kabala) says --
"We
have learned that there were ten (companions) who entered into the Sod,
('mysterious assembly or mystery'), and that seven only came forth"***
(i.e., 10 for the unmanifested, 7 for the manifested Universe.)
1,158.
"And when Rabbi Shimeon revealed the Arcana there were found none present
there save those (seven companions) . . . . 1,159. And Rabbi Shimeon called
them the seven eyes of Tetragrammaton, like as it is written, Zach. iii., 9,
'These are the seven eyes (or principles) of Tetragrammaton," ' -- i.e.,
the four-fold Heavenly man, or pure spirit, is resolved into Septenary man,
pure matter and Spirit.
Thus
the Tetrad is Microprosopus, and the latter is the male-female Chochmah-Binah,
the 2d and 3d Sephiroth. The Tetragrammaton is the very essence of number
Seven, in its terrestrial significance. Seven stands between four and nine --
the basis and foundation (astrally) of our physical world and man, in the
kingdom of Malkuth.
For
Christians and believers, this reference to Zaccharias and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] For, this "Tree of Life" is also the
"tree of knowledge of good and evil," whose chief mystery is that of
human procreation. It is a mistake to regard the Kabala as explaining the
mysteries of Kosmos or Nature; it explains and unveils only a few allegories in
the Bible, and is more esoteric than is the latter.
*
Simplified in the English Bible to: "Is the Lord (! !) among us, or
not?" (See Exodus xvii. 7.)
**
See Kabala Denudata, by S. Liddell MacGregor Mathers, F.T.S., p. 121.
***
Translators often render the word "companion" (angel, also adept) by
"Rabbi," as the Rishis are called gurus. The "Zohar" is, if
possible, more occult than the Books of Moses; to read the "Book of
Concealed Mystery" one requires the keys furnished by the genuine
"Chaldean Book of Numbers," which is not extant.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 627 THE NUMBER SEVEN IN CHEMISTRY.
especially
to the Epistle of Peter (I P. ii. 2-5) ought to be conclusive. In the old
symbolism, man, chiefly the inner Spiritual man is called "a stone."
Christ is the corner-stone, and Peter refers to all men as "lively"
(living) stones. Therefore a "stone with seven eyes" on it can only
mean what we say, i.e., a man whose constitution or ("principles,")
is septenary.
To
demonstrate more clearly the seven in Nature, it may be added that not only
does the number seven govern the periodicity of the phenomena of life, but that
it is also found dominating the series of chemical elements, and equally
paramount in the world of sound and in that of colour as revealed to us by the
spectroscope. This number is the factor, sine qua non, in the production of
occult astral phenomena.
Thus,
if the chemical elements are arranged in groups according to their atomic
weights, they will be found to constitute a series of groups of seven; the
first, second, etc., members of each group bearing a close analogy in all their
properties to the corresponding members of the next group. The following table,
copied from Hellenbach's Magie der Zahlen, exhibits this law and fully warrants
the conclusion he draws in the following words: "We thus see that chemical
variety, so far as we can grasp its inner nature, depends upon numerical
relations, and we have further found in this variety a ruling law for which we
can assign no cause; we find a law of periodicity governed by the number
seven."
[[diagram]]
The
eighth column in this list is, as it were, the octave of the first, containing
elements almost identical in chemical and other properties with those in the
first; a phenomenon which accentuates the septenary law of periodicity. For
further details the reader is referred to Hellenbach's
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 628 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
work,
where it is also shown that this classification is confirmed by the
spectroscopic peculiarities of the elements.
It
is needless to refer in detail to the number of vibrations constituting the
notes of the musical scale; they are strictly analogous to the scale of
chemical elements, and also to the scale of colour as unfolded by the
spectroscope, although in the latter case we deal with only one octave, while
both in music and chemistry we find a series of seven octaves represented
theoretically, of which six are fairly complete and in ordinary use in both
sciences. Thus, to quote Hellenbach:--
"It
has been established that, from the standpoint of phenomenal law, upon which
all our knowledge rests, the vibrations of sound and light increase regularly,
that they divide themselves into seven columns, and that the successive numbers
in each column are closely allied; i.e., that they exhibit a close relationship
which not only is expressed in the figures themselves, but also is practically
confirmed in chemistry as in music, in the latter of which the ear confirms the
verdict of the figures. . . . . . The fact that this periodicity and variety is
governed by the number seven is undeniable, and it far surpasses the limits of
mere chance, and must be assumed to have an adequate cause, which cause must be
discovered."
Verily,
then, as Rabbi Abbas said: "We are six lights which shine forth from a
seventh (light); thou (Tetragrammaton) art the seventh light (the origin) of us
all;" (V. 1,160) and -- "For assuredly there is no stability in those
six, save what they derive from the seventh. For ALL THINGS DEPEND FROM THE
SEVENTH." (V. 1,161. Kabala, "The Greater Holy Assembly.")
The
(ancient and modern) Western American Zuni Indians seem to have entertained
similar views. Their present-day customs, their traditions and records, all
point to the fact that, from time immemorial, their institutions -- political,
social and religious -- were (and still are) shaped according to the septenary
principle. Thus all their ancient towns and villages were built in clusters of
six, around a seventh. It is always a group of seven, or of thirteen, and
always the six surround the seventh. Again, their sacerdotal hierarchy is
composed of six "Priests of the House" seemingly synthesized in the
seventh, who is a woman, the "PRIESTESS MOTHER." Compare this with
the "seven great officiating priests" spoken of in Anugita, the name
given to the "seven senses," exoterically, and to the seven human
principles, esoterically. Whence this identity of symbolism? Shall we still
doubt the fact of Arjuna going over to Patala (the Antipodes, America) and
there marrying Ulupi, the daughter of the Naga (or rather Nargal) King? But to
the Zuni priests.
These
receive an annual tribute, to this day, of corn of seven colours.
Undistinguished from other Indians during the whole year, on a certain day,
they come out (the six priests and one priestess) arrayed in their
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 629 THE SEVEN PRIESTS OF THE ZUNIS.
priestly
robes, each of a colour sacred to the particular God whom the priest serves and
personifies; each of them representing one of the seven regions, and each
receiving corn of the colour corresponding to that region. Thus, the white
represents the East, because from the East comes the first Sun-light; the
yellow, corresponds to the North, from the colour of the flames produced by the
aurora borealis; the red, the South, as from that quarter comes the heat; the
blue stands for the West, the colour of the Pacific Ocean, which lies to the
West; black is the colour of the nether underground region -- darkness; corn
with grains of all colours on one ear represents the colours of the upper
region -- of the firmament, with its rosy and yellow clouds, shining stars,
etc. The "speckled" corn -- each grain containing all the colours --
is that of the "Priestess-Mother": woman containing in herself the
seeds of all races past, present and future; Eve being the mother of all
living.
Apart
from these was the Sun -- the Great Deity -- whose priest was the spiritual
head of the nation. These facts were ascertained by Mr. F. Hamilton Cushing,
who, as many are aware, became an Indian Zuni, lived with them, was initiated
into their religious mysteries, and has learned more about them than any other
man now living.
Seven
is also the great magic number. In the occult records the weapon mentioned in
the Puranas and the Mahabharata -- the Agneyastra or "fiery weapon"
bestowed by Aurva upon his chela Sagara -- is said to be built of seven
elements. This weapon -- supposed by some ingenious Orientalists to have been a
"rocket" (!) -- is one of the many thorns in the side of our modern
Sanskritists. Wilson exercises his penetration over it, on several pages in his
Specimens of the Hindu Theatre, and finally fails to explain it. He can make
nothing out of the Agneyastra.
"These
weapons," he argues, "are of a very unintelligible character. Some of
them are wielded as missiles; but, in general, they appear to be mystical
powers exercised by the individual -- such as those of paralysing an enemy, or
locking his senses fast in sleep, or bringing down storm, and rain, and fire,
from heaven. (Vide supra, pp. 427 and 428.) . . . . They assume celestial
shapes, endowed with human faculties. . . . . The Ramayana calls them the Sons
of Krisaswa" (p. 297).
The
Sastra-devatas, "gods of the divine weapons," are no more Agneyastra,
the weapon, than the gunners of modern artillery are the cannon they direct.
But this simple solution did not seem to strike the eminent Sanskritist.
Nevertheless, as he himself says of the armiform progeny of Krisaswa, "the
allegorical origin of the (Agneyastra) weapons is, undoubtedly, the more ancient."*
It is the fiery javelin of Brahma.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is. But Agneyastra are fiery "missile weapons," not
"edged" weapons, as there is some difference between Sastra and Astra
in Sanskrit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 630 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
seven-fold Agneyastra, like the seven senses and the "seven
principles," symbolized by the seven priests, are of untold antiquity. How
old is the doctrine believed in by Theosophists, the following section will
tell.
-------
F.
THE
SEVEN SOULS OF THE EGYPTOLOGISTS.
If
one turns to those wells of information, "The Natural Genesis" and
the Lectures of Mr. Gerald Massey, the proofs of the antiquity of the doctrine
under analysis become positively overwhelming. That the belief of the author
differs from ours can hardly invalidate the facts. He views the symbol from a
purely natural standpoint, one perhaps a trifle too materialistic, because too
much that of an ardent Evolutionist and follower of the modern Darwinian
dogmas. Thus he shows that "the student of Bohme's books finds much in
them concerning these Seven Fountain Spirits and primary powers, treated as
seven properties of nature in the alchemistic and astrological phase of the
mediaeval mysteries;"* and adds --
"The
followers of Bohme look on such matter as divine revelation of his inspired
Seership. They know nothing of the natural genesis, the history and persistence
of the Wisdom** of the past (or of the broken links), and are unable to
recognise the physical features of the ancient Seven Spirits beneath their
modern metaphysical or alchemist mask. A second connecting link between the
Theosophy of Bohme and the physical origins of Egyptian thought, is extant in
the fragments of Hermes Trismegistus.*** No matter whether these teachings are
called Illuminatist, Buddhist, Kabalist, Gnostic, Masonic, or Christian, the
elemental types can only be truly known in their beginnings.**** When the
prophets or visionary showmen of cloudland come to us claiming original
inspiration, and utter something new, we judge of its value by what it is in
itself. But if we find they bring us the ancient matter which they cannot
account for, and we can, it is natural that we should judge it by the primary
significations rather than the latest pretensions.***** It is useless for us to
read our
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Natural Genesis, Vol. I.. pp, 318-319.
**
Yet there are some, who may know something of these, even outside the author's
lines, wide as they undeniably are.
***
This connecting link, like others, was pointed out by the present writer nine
years before the appearance of the work from which the above is quoted, namely
in Isis Unveiled, a work full of such guiding links between ancient, mediaeval,
and modern thought, but, unfortunately, too loosely edited.
****
Ay; but how can the learned writer prove that these "beginnings" were
precisely in Egypt, and nowhere else; and only 50,000 years ago?
*****
Precisely: and this is just what the Theosophists do. They have never
claimed," (original inspiration," not even as mediums, but have
always pointed, and do now point to the "primary signification" of the
symbols, which they trace to other [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 631 THE SIDEREAL SEVEN.
later
thought into the earliest types of expression, and then say the ancients meant
that.* Subtilized interpretations which have become doctrines and dogmas in
theosophy have now to be tested by their genesis in physical phenomena, in
order that we may explode their false pretensions to supernatural origin or
supernatural knowledge.**
But
the able author of the "Book of the Beginnings" and of "The
Natural Genesis" does -- very fortunately, for us -- quite the reverse. He
demonstrates most triumphantly our Esoteric (Buddhist) teachings, by showing
them identical with those of Egypt. Let the reader judge from his learned
lecture on "The Seven Souls of Man."*** Says the author:--
"The
first form of the mystical SEVEN was seen to be figured in heaven by the Seven
large stars of the great Bear, the constellation assigned by the Egyptians to
the Mother of Time, and of the Seven Elemental Powers."
Just
so, for the Hindus place in the great Bear their seven primitive Rishis and
call this constellation the abode of the Saptarishi, Riksha and
Chitra-Sikhandinas. But whether it is only an astronomical myth or a primordial
mystery, having a deeper meaning than it bears on its surface, is what their
adepts claim to know. We are also told that "the Egyptians divided the
face of the sky by night into seven parts. The primary Heaven was
seven-fold." So it was with the Aryans. One has but read the Puranas about
the beginnings of Brahma, and his "Egg" to see it. Have the Aryans
taken the idea from the Egyptians? -- "The earliest forces," proceeds
the lecturer, "recognized in nature were reckoned as seven in number.
These became seven elementals, devils (?) or later, divinities. Seven
properties were assigned to nature, as
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] countries, older even than Egypt;
significations, moreover, which emanate from a hierarchy (or hierarchies, if
preferred) of living wise men, mortals, notwithstanding that Wisdom, who reject
every approach to supernaturalism.
*
But where is the proof that the ancients did not mean precisely that which the
theosophists claim? Records exist for what they say, just as other records
exist for what Mr. G. Massey says. His interpretations are very correct, but equally
one-sided. Surely nature has more than one physical aspect; for astronomy,
astrology, and so on, are all on the physical, not the spiritual plane.
**
It is to be feared that Mr. Massey has not succeeded. We have our followers as
he has his followers, and materialistic Science steps in and takes little
account of both his and our speculations!
***
The fact that this learned Egyptologist does not recognise in the doctrine of
the "Seven Souls," as he terms our principles, or "metaphysical
concepts," but "the primitive biology or physiology of the
Soul," does not invalidate our argument. The lecturer touches on only two
keys, those that unlock the astronomical and the physiological mysteries of
esotericism, and leaves out the other five. Otherwise he would have promptly
understood that what he calls the physiological divisions of the living Soul of
man, are regarded by theosophists as also psychological and spiritual.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 632 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
matter,
cohesion, fluxion, coagulation, accumulation, station, and division and seven
elements or souls to man."
All
this was taught in the esoteric doctrine, but it was interpreted and its
mysteries unlocked, as already stated, with seven, not two, or at the utmost,
three keys; hence the causes and their effects worked in invisible or mystic as
well as psychic nature, and were made referable to metaphysics and psychology
as much as to physiology. "The principle of sevening" -- as the
author says -- "was introduced, and the number seven supplied a sacred
type that could be used for manifold purposes"; and it was so used. For
"the seven Souls of the Pharaoh are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts.
. . . Seven Souls or principles in man were identified by our British Druids. .
. . . The Rabbins also ran the number of souls up to seven; so, likewise, do
the Karens of India. . . ."
And
then, the author tabulates the two teachings -- the Esoteric and the Egyptian,
-- and shows that the latter had the same series and in the same order.
(Esoteric)
Indian. Egyptian.
1.
Rupa, body or element of form. 1. Kha, body.
2.
Prana, the breath of life. 2. Ba, the Soul of Breath.
3.
Astral body. 3. Khaba, the shade.
4.
Manas -- or Intelligence.* 4. Akhu, Intelligence or Perception.
5.
Kama -- rupa, or animal soul. 5. Seb, ancestral Soul.
6.
Buddhi, Spiritual Soul. 6. Putah, the first intellectual father.
7.
Atma, pure spirit. . . . 7. Atmu, a divine or eternal soul.
Further
on, the lecturer formulates these seven (Egyptian) souls, as (1) The Soul of
Blood -- the formative; (2) The Soul of Breath -- "that breathes";
(3) The Shade or Covering Soul -- "that envelopes"; (4) The Soul of
Perception -- "that perceives;" (5) The Soul of Pubescence "that
procreates"; (6) The Intellectual Soul -- "that reproduces
intellectually"; and (7) The Spiritual Soul -- "that is perpetuated
permanently."
From
the exoteric and physiological standpoint this may be very correct; it becomes
less so from the esoteric point of view. To maintain this, does not at all mean
that the "Esoteric Buddhists" resolve men into a number of elementary
Spirits, as Mr. G. Massey, in the same lecture, accuses them of maintaining. No
"Esoteric Buddhist" has ever been guilty of any such absurdity. Nor
has it been ever imagined that these shadows "become spiritual beings in
another world," or "seven potential spirits or elementaries of
another life." What is maintained is simply that every time the immortal
Ego incarnates it becomes, as a total, a com-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This is a great mistake made in the Esoteric enumeration. Manas is the fifth,
not the fourth; and Manas corresponds precisely with Seb, the Egyptian fifth
principle, for that portion of Manas, which follows the two higher principles,
is the ancestral soul, indeed, the bright, immortal thread of the higher Ego,
to which clings the Spiritual aroma of all the lives or births.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 633 THE "PRINCIPLES" IN THE EGYPTIAN METAPHYSICS.
pound
unit of Matter and Spirit, which together act on seven different planes of
being and consciousness. Elsewhere, Mr. G. Massey adds:-- "The seven souls
(our "Principles") are often mentioned in the Egyptian texts. The
moon god, Taht-Esmun, or the later sun god, expressed the seven nature-powers
that were prior to himself, and were summed up in him as his seven souls (we
say "principles") . . . . The seven stars in the hand of Christ in
the Revelation, have the same significance," etc.
And
a still greater one, as these stars represent also the seven keys of the Seven
Churches or the SODALIAN MYSTERIES, cabalistically. However, we will not stop
to discuss, but add that other Egyptologists have also found out that the
septenary constitution of man was a cardinal doctrine with the old Egyptians.
In a series of remarkable articles in the "Sphinx" (Munich) Herr
Franz Lambert gives incontrovertible proof of his conclusions from the
"Book of the Dead" and other Egyptian records. For details the reader
must be referred to the articles themselves, but the following diagram, summing
up the author's conclusions, is demonstrative evidence of the identity of
Egyptian psychology with the septenary division in "Esoteric
Buddhism."
On
the left hand side the Kabalistic names of the corresponding human principles
are placed, and on the right the hieroglyphic names with their renderings as in
the diagram of F. Lambert.
Kabala.
Hieroglyphics.
[[diagram]]
Upper
circle: Tzelem of Neschamah.
Jeshida
VII. Chu -- Divine Spirit.
Chayah
VI. Cheybi -- Spiritual Soul.
Neschamah
V. Bai {Intellectual Soul, the intelligence.
Middle
circle: Tzelem of Ruach.
Ruach*
IV. Ab Hati {The Heart: Feeling: Animal Soul.
Lower
circle: Tzelem of Nephesch.
Nephesch
III. Ka {The Astral Body: Evestrum: Sidereal man.
Coach
ha Guf. II. Anch {Vital Force: Archaeus: Mumia.
Guf.
I. Chat -- The Elementary Body.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There seems a confusion -- lasting for many centuries -- in the minds of
Western Kabalists. They call Ruach (Spirit) what we call Kama-rupa; whereas,
with us Ruach would be the "Spiritual Soul" Buddhi, and Nephesh the
4th principle, the Vital, Animal Soul. Eliphas Levi falls into the same error.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 634 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
This
is a very fair representation of the number of the "principles" of
Occultism, but much confused; and this is what we call the 7 principles in man,
and what Mr. Massey calls "Souls," giving the same name to the Ego or
the Monad which reincarnates and resurrects, so to speak, at each rebirth, as
the Egyptians did, namely -- "the Renewed." But how can Ruach
(Spirit) be lodged in Kama-rupa? What does Bohme, the Prince of all the
mediaeval Seers, say?
"We
find Seven especial properties in nature whereby this only Mother works all
things" (which he calls -- fire, light, sound (the upper three) and
desire, bitterness, anguish, and substantiality, thus analysing the lower in
his own mystic way) . . . "whatever the six forms are spiritually, that
the seventh, the body (or substantiality), is essentially." These are the
seven forms of the Mother of all Beings from whence all that is in this world
is generated,* and again in Aurora xxiv. p. 27 (quoted in Natural Genesis) --
"The Creator hath in the body of this world generated himself as it were
creaturely in his qualifying Fountain Spirits, and all the stars are . . .
God's powers, and the whole body of the world consisteth in the seven
qualifying or Fountain Spirits."
This
is rendering in mystical language our theosophical doctrine. . . But how can we
agree with Mr. G. Massey when he states that --
"The
Seven Races of men that have been sublimated and made Planetary (?) by Esoteric
Buddhism,** may be met with in the Bundahish as (1) the earth-men; (2)
water-men; (3) breast-eared men; (4) breast-eyed men; (5) one-legged men; (6)
bat-winged men; (7) men with tails." . . . Each of these descriptions,
allegorical and even perverted in their later form -- is, nevertheless, an echo
of the Secret Doctrine teaching. They all refer to the pre-Human evolution of
the water-men "terrible and bad" by unaided Nature through millions
of years, as previously described. But we deny point blank the assertion made
that "these were never real races," and point to the Archaic Stanzas
for our answer. It is easy to infer and to say that our "instructors have
mistaken these shadows of the Past, for things human and spiritual"; but
that "they are neither, and never were either," it is less easy to
prove. The assertion must ever remain on a par with the Darwinian claim that
man and the ape had a common pithecoid ancestor. What the Lecturer takes for a
"mode of expression" and nothing more, in the Egyptian Ritual, we
take as having quite another and an important meaning. Here is one instance.
Says the Ritual, the "Book of the Dead" --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Signatura rerum xiv. ps. 10, 15 et seq.
**
This is indeed news! It makes us fear that the Lecturer had never read
"Esoteric Buddhism" before criticising it, as there are too many such
misconceptions in his notices of it.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 635 MAN, THE PARENT OF ALL THE MAMMALS.
"I
am the mouse." "I am the hawk." "I am the ape." . . .
"I am the crocodile whose Soul Comes FROM MEN." "I am the Soul
of the Gods." Of these last two sentences, one: "whose soul comes
from men" -- is explained by the Lecturer, who says parenthetically,
"that is, as a type of intelligence," and the other: "I am the
Soul of the Gods," as meaning, "the Horus, or Christ, as the outcome
of all."
The
occult teaching answers: "It means far more." . . .
It
gives first of all a corroboration of the teaching that, while the human monad
has passed on globe A and others, in the First Round, through all the three
kingdoms -- the mineral, the vegetable, and the animal -- in this our Fourth
Round, every mammal has sprung from Man if the semi-ethereal, many-shaped
creature with the human Monad in it, of the first two races, can be regarded as
Man. But it must be so called; for, in the esoteric language, it is not the
form of flesh, blood, and bones, now referred to as Man, which is in any way
the MAN, but the inner divine MONAD with its manifold principles or aspects.
The
lecture referred to, however, much as it opposes "Esoteric Buddhism"
and its teachings, is an eloquent answer to those who have tried to represent
the whole as a newfangled doctrine. And there are many such, in Europe,
America, and even India. Yet, between the esotericism of the old Arhats, and
that which has now survived in India among the few Brahmins who have seriously
studied their Secret Philosophy, the difference does not appear so very great.
It seems centred in, and limited to, the question of the order of the evolution
of cosmic and other principles, more than anything else. At all events it is no
greater divergence than the everlasting question of the filioque dogma, which
since the XIIth. century has separated the Roman Catholic from the older Greek
Eastern Church. Yet, whatever the differences in the forms in which the
septenary dogma is presented, the substance is there, and its presence and
importance in the Brahminical system may be judged by what one of India's
learned metaphysicians and Vedantic scholars says of it:--
"The
real esoteric seven-fold classification is one of the most important, if not
the most important classification, which has received its arrangement from the
mysterious constitution of this eternal type. I may also mention in this
connection that the four-fold classification claims the same origin. The light
of life, as it were, seems to be refracted by the treble-faced prism of
Prakriti, having the three Gunams for its three faces, and divided into seven
rays, which develop in course of time the seven principles of this
classification. The progress of development presents some points of similarity
to the gradual development of the rays of the spectrum. While the four-fold
classification is amply
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 636 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
sufficient
for all practical purposes, this real seven-fold classification is of great
theoretical and scientific importance. It will be necessary to adopt it to
explain certain classes of phenomena noticed by occultists; and it is perhaps
better fitted to be the basis of a perfect system of psychology. It is not the
peculiar property of 'the trans-Himalayan esoteric doctrine.' In fact, it has a
closer connection with the Brahminical Logos than with the Buddhist Logos. In
order to make my meaning clear I may point out here that the Logos has seven
forms. In other words, there are seven kinds of Logoi in the Cosmos. Each of
these has become the central figure of one of the seven main branches of the
ancient Wisdom-religion. This classification is not the seven-fold
classification we have adopted. I make this assertion without the slightest
fear of contradiction. The real classification has all the requisites of a
scientific classification. It has seven distinct principles, which correspond
with seven distinct states of Pragna or consciousness. It bridges the gulf
between the objective and subjective, and indicates the mysterious circuit
through which ideation passes. The seven principles are allied to seven states
of matter, and to seven forms of force. These principles are harmoniously
arranged between two poles, which define the limits of human
consciousness."*
The
above is perfectly correct, save, perhaps, one point. The "sevenfold
classification" in the esoteric system has never been claimed (to the
writer's knowledge) by any one belonging to it, as "the peculiar property
of the Trans-Himalayan esoteric doctrine"; but only as having survived in
that old school alone. It is no more the property of the trans, than it is of
the cis-Himalayan esoteric doctrine, but is simply the common inheritance of
all such schools, left to the sages of the Fifth Root Race by the great
Siddhas** of the Fourth. Let us remember that the Atlanteans became the
terrible sorcerers, now celebrated in so many of the oldest MSS. of India, only
toward their fall, the submersion of their continent having been brought on by
it. What is claimed is simply the fact that the wisdom imparted by the
"Divine Ones" -- born through the Kriyasakti powers of the Third Race
before its Fall and Separation into sexes -- to the adepts of the early Fourth
Race, has remained in all its pristine purity in a certain Brotherhood. The
said
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Theosophist, 1887 (Madras).
**
According to Svetasvatara-Upanishad (357) the Siddhas are those who are
possessed from birth of superhuman powers, as also of "knowledge and
indifference to the world." According to the Occult teachings, however,
Siddhas are the Nirmanakayas or the "spirits" (in the sense of an
individual, or conscious spirit) of great sages from spheres on a higher plane
than our own, who voluntarily incarnate in mortal bodies in order to help the
human race in its upward progress. Hence their innate knowledge, wisdom and
powers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 637 AN ALLEGORY IN THE ANUGITA.
School
or Fraternity being closely connected with a certain island of an inland sea,
believed in by both Hindus and Buddhists, but called "mythical" by
geographers and Orientalists, the less one talks of it, the wiser he will be.
Nor can one accept the said "sevenfold classification" as having
"a closer connection with the Brahminical Logos than with the Buddhist
Logos," since both are identical, whether the one "Logos" is
called Eswara or Avalokiteswara, Brahma or Padmapani. These are, however, very
small differences, more fanciful than real, in fact. Brahmanism and Buddhism,
both viewed from their orthodox aspects, are as inimical and as irreconcilable
as water and oil. Each of these great bodies, however, has a vulnerable place
in its constitution. While even in their esoteric interpretation both can agree
but to disagree, once that their respective vulnerable points are confronted,
every disagreement must fall, for the two will find themselves on common
ground. The "heel of Achilles" of orthodox Brahmanism is the Adwaita
philosophy, whose followers are called by the pious "Buddhists in disguise";
as that of orthodox Buddhism is Northern mysticism, as represented by the
disciples of the philosophies of Aryasanga (the Yogacharya School) and
Mahayana, who are twitted in their turn by their correligionists as
"Vedantins in disguise." The esoteric philosophy of both these can be
but one if carefully analysed and compared, as Gautama Buddha and Sankaracharya
are most closely connected, if one believes tradition and certain esoteric
teachings. Thus every difference between the two will be found one of form
rather than of substance.
A
most mystic discourse, full of septenary symbology, may be found in the
Anugita.* There the Brahmana narrates the bliss of having crossed beyond the
regions of illusion, "in which fancies are the gadflies and mosquitoes, in
which grief and joy are cold and heat, in which delusion is the blinding
darkness, avarice, the beasts of prey and reptiles, and desire and anger are
the obstructors." . . . . The sage describes the entrance into and exit
from the forest (a symbol for man's life-time) and also that forest itself:**
"In
that forest are seven large trees (the Senses, Mind and Understanding, or Manas
and Buddhi included), seven fruits and seven guests; seven hermitages, seven
(forms of) concentration, and seven (forms of) initiation. This is the
description of the forest. That forest is filled with trees producing splendid
flowers and fruits of five colours."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Sacred Books of the East," vol. viii. Anugita, p. 284, et seq.
**
I propose to follow here the text and the editor's commentaries, who accepts
Arjuna Misra and Nilakantha's dead-letter explanations. Our Orientalists never
trouble to think that if a native commentator is a non-initiate, he could not
explain correctly, and if an Initiate, would not.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 638 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"The
senses," says the commentator, "are called trees, as being producers
of the fruits . . . . pleasures and pains; the guests are the powers of each
sense personified -- they receive the fruits above described; the hermitages
are the trees, in which the guests take shelter. The seven forms of
concentration are the exclusion from the self of the seven functions of the
seven senses, etc., already referred to; the seven forms of initiation refer to
the initiation into the higher life . . . by repudiating as not one's own the
actions of each member out of the group of seven." (See Khandagya, p. 219,
and Com.)
The
explanation is harmless, if unsatisfactory.
Says
the Brahmana continuing his description:--
"That
forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of four colours. That
forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of three colours, and
mixed. That forest is filled with trees producing flowers and fruits of two
colours, and of beautiful colours. That forest is filled with trees producing
flowers and fruits of one colour and fragrant. That forest is filled (instead
of seven) with two large trees producing numerous flowers and fruits of
undistinguished colours (mind and understanding -- the two higher senses, or
theosophically, 'Manas-Buddhi'). Here is one Fire (Self) here connected with
the Brahman* and having a good mind (or true knowledge, according to Arjuna
Misra). And there is fuel here, namely, the five senses (or human passions).
The Seven (forms of) emancipation from them are the Seven (forms of)
initiation. The qualities are the fruits. . . . There, the great Sages receive
hospitality. And when they have been worshipped and have disappeared, another
forest shines forth, in which intelligence is the tree, and emancipation the
fruit, and which possesses shade (in the form of) tranquillity, which depends
on Knowledge, which has contentment for its water, and the KSHETRAGNA (the
"Supreme SELF," says Krishna, in the Bhagavad Gita, p. 102 et seq.)
within for the Sun."
Now,
all the above is very plain, and no theosophist, even among the least learned, could
fail to understand the allegory. And yet, we see great Orientalists making a
perfect mess of it in their explanations. The "great sages" who
"receive hospitality" are explained as meaning the senses,
"which, having worked as unconnected with the self are finally absorbed
into it." But one fails to understand, if the senses are
"unconnected" with the "Higher Self," in what manner can
they be
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The English editor explains here, saying, "I presume devoted to the
Brahman." This would be a very poor devotion, indeed, in the
accomplishment of the gradually emancipating process of Yoga. We venture to say
that the "Fire" or Self is the higher real SELF "connected with,"
that is to say one with Brahma, the One Deity. The "Self" separates
itself no longer from the universal Spirit.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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"absorbed
into it." One would think, on the contrary, that just because the personal
senses gravitate and strive to be connected with the impersonal Self, that the
latter, which is FIRE, burns the lower five and purifies thereby the higher
two, "mind and understanding" or the higher aspects of Manas* and
Buddhi. This is quite apparent from the text. The "great sages"
disappear after having "been worshipped." Worshipped by whom if they
(the presumed senses) are "unconnected with the self"? By MIND, of
course; by Manas (in this case merged in the sixth sense) which is not, and
cannot be, the Brahman, the SELF, or Kshetragna -- the soul's spiritual sun.
Into the latter, in time, Manas itself must be absorbed. It has worshipped
"great sages" and given hospitality to terrestrial wisdom: but once that
"another forest shone forth" upon it, it is Intelligence (Buddhi, the
7th sense, but 6th principle) which is transformed into the tree -- that tree
whose fruit is emancipation -- which finally destroys the very roots of the
Aswattha tree, the symbol of life and of its illusive joys and pleasures. And
therefore, those who attain to that state of emancipation have, in the words of
the above-cited sage, "no fear afterwards." In this state "the
end cannot be perceived because it extends on all sides."
"There
always dwell seven females there," he goes on to say, carrying out the
imagery. These females, who, according to Arjuna Misra, are the Mahat, Ahamkara
and five Tanmatras, have always their faces turned downwards, as they are
obstacles in the way of spiritual ascension.
".
. . . In that same (Brahman, the 'Self') the Seven perfect Sages, together with
their chiefs, abide and again emerge from the same. Glory, brilliance and
greatness, enlightenment, victory, perfection and power -- these seven rays
follow after this same Sun (Kshetragna, the Higher Self). . . . Those whose
wishes are reduced (unselfish). . . . whose sins (passions) are burnt up by
restraint, merging the Self in the Self,** devote themselves to Brahman. Those
people who understand the forest of Knowledge (Brahman, or SELF) praise
tranquillity. And aspiring to that forest, they are (re-) born so as not to
lose courage.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
As Mahat (universal intelligence) is first born, or manifests, as Vishnu, and
then, when it falls into matter and develops self-consciousness, it becomes
Egoism, Selfishness, so Manas is of a dual nature. It is respectively under the
sun and moon, for as Sankaracharya says "The moon is the mind, and the sun
the understanding." The sun and moon are the deities of our planetary
Macrocosmos, and therefore Sankara adds that "the mind and the
understanding are the respective deities of the (human) organs" (vide
Brihadaranyaka, pp. 521, et seq.) This is perhaps why Arjuna Misra says that
the moon and the Fire (the self, the sun) constitute the universe.
**
"The body in the Soul," as Arjuna Misra is credited with saying, or
rather the "Soul in the Spirit," and on a still higher plane of
development: "the SELF or Atman in the Universal Self."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 640 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Such
indeed, is this holy forest . . . . and understanding it, they (the Sages) act
accordingly, being directed by the KSHETRAGNA. . . . "
No
translator among the Western Orientalists has yet perceived in the foregoing
allegory anything higher than mysteries connected with sacrificial ritualism,
penance, or ascetic ceremonies, and Hatha Yoga. But he who understands
symbolical imagery, and hears the voice of SELF WITHIN SELF, will see in this
something far higher than mere ritualism, however often he may err in minor
details of the philosophy.
And
here, we must be allowed a last remark. No true theosophist, from the most ignorant
up to the most learned, ought to claim infallibility for anything he may say or
write upon occult matters. The chief point is to admit that, in many a way, in
the classification of either cosmic or human principles, in addition to
mistakes in the order of evolution, and especially on metaphysical questions,
those of us who pretend to teach others more ignorant than ourselves -- are all
liable to err. Thus mistakes have been made in "Isis Unveiled," in
"Esoteric Buddhism," in "Man," in "Magic: White and
Black," etc., etc.; and more than one mistake is likely to be found in the
present work. This cannot be helped. For a large or even a small work on such
abstruse subjects to be entirely exempt from error and blunder, it would have
to be written from its first to its last page by a great adept, if not by an
Avatar. Then only should we say, "This is verily a work without sin or
blemish in it!" But, so long as the artist is imperfect, how can his work
be perfect? "Endless is the search for truth!" Let us love it and
aspire to it for its own sake, and not for the glory or benefit a minute
portion of its revelation may confer on us. For who of us can presume to have
the whole truth at his fingers' ends, even upon one minor teaching of
Occultism?
Our
chief point in the present subject, however, was to show that the Septenary
doctrine, or division of the constitution of man, was a very ancient one, and
was not invented by us. This has been successfully done, for we are supported
in this, consciously and unconsciously, by a number of ancient, mediaeval, and
modern writers. What the former said, was well said; what the latter repeated,
was generally distorted. An instance: Read the "Pythagorean
Fragments," and compare the Septenary man as given by the Rev. G. Oliver,
the learned mason, in his "Pythagorean Triangle" (ch. on
"Science of Numbers," p. 179).
He
speaks as follows:--
"The
Theosophic Philosophy counted SEVEN properties (or principles), in Man, viz.:--
(1.)
The divine golden Man;
(2.)
The inward holy body from fire and light, like pure silver;
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 641 HYPNOTISM IS -- SATANISM.
(3.)
The elemental man;
(4.)
The mercurial paradisiacal man;
(5.)
The martial Soul-like man;
(6.)
The passionate man of desires;
(7.)
The Solar man; a witness to and inspector of the wonders of the Universe. They
had also seven fountain Spirits, or Powers of Nature."
Compare
this jumbled account and distribution of Western theosophic philosophy with the
latest theosophic explanations by the Eastern School of Theosophy, and then
decide which is the more correct. Verily:--
"Wisdom
hath builded her house,
She
hath hewn out her seven pillars." -- (Prov. ix, 1.)
As
to the charge that our School has not adopted the Seven-fold classification of
the Brahmins, but has confused it, it is quite unjust. To begin with, the
"School" is one thing, its exponents (to Europeans) quite another.
The latter have first to learn the A B C of practical Eastern Occultism, before
they can be made to understand correctly the tremendously abstruse
classification based on the seven distinct states of Pragna (consciousness);
and, above all, to realize thoroughly what Pragna is, in the Eastern
metaphysics. To give a Western student that classification is to try to make
him suppose that he can account for the origin of consciousness, by accounting
for the process by which a certain knowledge, through only one of the states of
that consciousness, came to him; in other words, it is to make him account for
something he knows on this plane, by something he knows nothing about on the
other planes; i.e., to lead him from the spiritual and the psychological,
direct to the ontological. This is why the primary, old, classification was
adopted by the Theosophists, of which classifications there are many.
To
busy oneself, after such a tremendous number of independent witnesses and
proofs have been brought before the public, with an additional enumeration from
theological sources, would be quite useless. The seven capital sins and seven
virtues of the Christian scheme are far less philosophical than even the Seven
Liberal and the Seven Accursed Sciences -- or the Seven Arts of enchantment of
the Gnostics. For one of the latter is now before the public, pregnant with
danger in the present as for the future. The modern name for it is HYPNOTISM.
In the ignorance of the seven principles, and used by scientific and ignorant
materialists, it will soon become SATANISM in the full acceptation of the term.
------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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[[blank]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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BOOK
II. -- PART III.
ADDENDA.
SCIENCE
AND THE SECRET
DOCTRINE
CONTRASTED.
"The
knowledge of this nether world --
Say,
friend, what is it, false or true?
The
false, what mortal cares to know?
The
true, what mortal ever knew?"
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 644]]
-------
§§
PAGE
I.
ARCHAIC OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY? ... 645
-------
II.
THE ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE ... 656
Plastidular
Souls, and Conscious Nerve-Cells ... 670
-------
III.
THE FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE ... 675
Western
Evolutionism: the comparative Anatomy of Man and Ape ... 680
Darwinism
and the Antiquity of Man: the Anthropoids and their Ancestry ... 685
-------
IV.
ON THE DURATION OF GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, RACE CYCLES, AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN
... 690
Modern
Scientific Speculations thereon ... 694
On
Chains of Planets and their Plurality ... 699
Esoteric
Geological Chronology ... 709
-------
V.
ORGANIC EVOLUTION -- CREATIVE CENTRES ... 731
The
Origin and Evolution of the Mammalia ... 734
The
European Palaeolithic Races ... 738
-------
VI.
GIANTS, CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS TRACED IN HISTORY ... 742
-------
VII.
SCIENTIFIC AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED
CONTINENTS ... 778
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 645 THE NEW MASTERS OF PROTESTANTISM.
ADDENDA
TO BOOK II.
§
I.
ARCHAIC,
OR MODERN ANTHROPOLOGY?
WHENEVER
the question of the origin of man is offered seriously to an unbiassed, honest,
and earnest man of science, the answer comes invariably:-- "WE DO NOT
KNOW." De Quatrefages, in his agnostic attitude, is one of such
anthropologists.
This
does not imply that the rest of the men of science are neither fair-minded nor
honest, as in such case our remark would be questionably discreet. But, it is
estimated that 75 per cent. of European Scientists are Evolutionists. Are these
representatives of modern thought all guilty of flagrant misrepresentation of
the facts? No one says this -- but there are a few very exceptional cases.
However, the Scientists in their anti-clerical enthusiasm and despair of any
alternative theory to Darwinism, except that of "special creation,"
are unconsciously insincere in "forcing" a hypothesis the elasticity
of which is inadequate, and which resents the severe strain to which it is now
subjected. Insincerity on the same subject is, however, patent in
ecclesiastical circles. Bishop Temple has come forward as a thorough-going
supporter of Darwinism in his "Religion and Science." This clerical
writer goes so far as to regard Matter -- after receiving its "primal
impress" -- as the unaided evolver of all cosmic phenomena. This view only
differs from that of Haeckel, in postulating a hypothetical deity at "the
back of beyont," a deity which stands entirely aloof from the interplay of
forces. Such a metaphysical entity is no more the Theological God than that of
Kant. Bishop Temple's truce with Materialistic Science is, in our opinion,
impolitic -- apart from the fact that it involves a total rejection of the
Biblical cosmogony. In the presence of this display of flunkeyism before the
materialism of our "learned" age, we Occultists can but smile. But
how about loyalty to the Masters such theological truants profess to serve,
Christ, and Christendom at large?
However,
we have no desire, for the present, to throw down the gauntlet to the clergy,
our business being now with materialistic Science alone. The latter answers to
our question, in the person of its best representatives "We do not
know;" -- yet the majority of these act as though Omniscience was their
heirloom, and they knew all things.
For,
indeed, this negative reply has not prevented the majority of Scientists from
speculating on that question, each seeking to have his
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 646 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
own
special theory accepted to the exclusion of all others. Thus, from Maillet in 1748
down to Haeckel in 1870, theories on the origin of the human Race have differed
as much as the personalities of their inventors themselves. Buffon, Bory de St.
Vincent, Lamarck, E. G. St. Hilaire, Gaudry, Naudin, Wallace, Darwin, Owen,
Haeckel, Filippi, Vogt, Huxley, Agassiz, etc., etc., each evolved a more or
less scientific hypothesis of genesis. De Quatrefages arranges them in two
principal groups -- one holding to a rapid, and the other to a very gradual
transmutation; the former, favouring a new type (man) produced by a being
entirely different; the latter teaching the evolution of man by progressive
differentiation.
Strangely
enough, it is from the most scientific of these authorities that the most
unscientific of all the theories upon the subject of the origin of man has
hitherto emanated. This is so evident, that the hour is rapidly approaching
when the current teaching about the descent of man from an Ape-like mammal will
be regarded with less respect than the formation of Adam out of clay, and of
Eve out of Adam's rib. For --
"It
is evident, especially after the most fundamental principles of Darwinism, that
an organized being cannot be a descendant of another whose development is in an
inverse order to his own. . . . Consequently, in accordance with these
principles man cannot be considered as the descendant of any simian type
whatever."*
Lucae's
argument versus the Ape-theory, based on the different flexures of the bones
constituting the axis of the skull in the cases of Man and the Anthropoids, is
fairly discussed by Schmidt ("Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p.
290). He admits that "the ape as he grows becomes more bestial; man . . .
more human," and seems, indeed, to hesitate a moment before he passes on:
e.g., "This flexure of the cranial axis may, therefore, still be
emphasized as a human character, in contradistinction to the apes; the peculiar
characteristic of an order can scarcely be elicited from it; and especially as
to the doctrine of descent, this circumstance seems in no way decisive."
The writer evidently is not a little disquieted at the argument. He assures us
that it upsets any possibility of the present apes having been the progenitors
of mankind. But does it not also negative the bare possibility of the man and
anthropoid having had a common -- though, so far, an absolutely theoretical --
ancestor.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The Human Species," p. 111, by de Quatrefages. The respective
developments of the human and Simian brains are referred to. "In the ape
the temporo-spheroidal convolutions, which form the middle lobe, make their
appearance and are completed before the anterior convolutions which form the
frontal lobe. In man, the frontal convolutions are, on the contrary, the first
to appear, and those of the middle lobe are formed later." (Ibid.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 647 THE FALLACIES OF MODERN SCIENTISTS.
Even
"Natural Selection" itself is with every day more threatened. The
deserters from the Darwinian camp are many, and those who were at one time its
most ardent disciples are, owing to new discoveries, slowly but steadily
preparing to turn over a new leaf. In the "Journal of the Royal
Microscopical Society" for October, 1886, one can read as follows:--
"PHYSIOLOGICAL
SELECTION. -- Mr. G. J. Romanes finds certain difficulties in regarding natural
selection as a theory for the origin of adaptive structures. He proposes to
replace it by what he calls physiological selection, or the segregation of the
fit. His view is based on the extreme sensitiveness of the reproductive system
to small changes in the conditions of life, and he thinks that variations in
the direction of greater or less sterility must frequently occur in wild
species. If the variation be such that the reproductive system, while showing
some degree of sterility with the parent form, continues to be fertile within
the limits of the varietal form, the variation would neither be swamped by
intercrossing nor die out on account of sterility. When a variation of this
kind occurs, the physiological barrier must divide the species into two parts.
. . . . The author, in fine, regards mutual sterility, not as one of the
effects of specific differentiation, but as the cause of it."*
An
attempt is made to show the above to be a complement of, and sequence to, the
Darwinian theory. This is a clumsy attempt at best. The public will soon be
made to believe that Mr. C. Dixon's "Evolution without Natural Selection"
is also Darwinism -- expanded, as the author certainly claims it to be!
But
it is like splitting the body of a man into three pieces or various portions of
man, and then maintaining that each portion is the identical man as he was
before; only -- expanded. Yet the author states on p. 79:-- "Let it be
clearly understood that not one single syllable in the foregoing pages has been
written antagonistic to Darwin's theory of Natural Selection. All I have done
is to explain certain phenomena . . . . the more one studies Darwin's works,
the more one is convinced of the truth of his hypothesis." (!!)
And
before this, on p. 48, he alludes to:-- "the overwhelming array of facts
which Darwin gave in support of his hypothesis, and which triumphantly carried
the theory of Natural Selection over all obstacles and objections."
This
does not prevent the learned author, however, from upsetting this theory as
"triumphantly," and from even openly calling his work
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To this an editorial remark adds that an "F.J.B.," in the Athenaeum
-- (No. 3069, Aug. 21, 1886, pp. 242-3) points out that naturalists have long
recognised that there are "morphological" and "physiological"
species. The former have their origin in men's minds, the latter in a series of
changes sufficient to affect the internal as well as the external organs of a
group of allied individuals. The "physiological selection" of
morphological species is a confusion of ideas; that of physiological species
"a redundancy of terms."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 648 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
"Evolution
without a Natural Selection," or, in so many words, with Darwin's
fundamental idea knocked to atoms in it.
As
to Natural Selection itself, the utmost misconception prevails among many
present-day thinkers who tacitly accept the conclusions of Darwinism. It is,
for instance, a mere device of rhetoric to credit "Natural Selection"
with the power of originating species. "Natural Selection" is no
Entity; but a convenient phrase for describing the mode in which the survival
of the fit and the elimination of the unfit among organisms is brought about in
the struggle for existence. Every group of organisms tends to multiply beyond
the means of subsistence, the constant battle for life -- the "struggle to
obtain enough to eat and to escape being eaten" added to the environmental
conditions -- necessitating a perpetual weeding out of the unfit. The elite of
any stock thus sorted out, propagate the species and transmit their organic
characteristics to their descendants. All useful variations are thus
perpetuated, and a progressive improvement is effected. But Natural Selection,
in the writer's humble opinion, "Selection, as a Power," is in
reality a pure myth; especially when resorted to as an explanation of the
origin of species. It is merely a representative term expressive of the manner
in which "useful variations" are stereotyped when produced. Of
itself, "it" can produce nothing, and only operates on the rough
material presented to "it." The real question at issue is: what CAUSE
-- combined with other secondary causes -- produces the "variations"
in the organisms themselves. Many of these secondary causes are purely
physical, climatic, dietary, etc., etc. Very well. But beyond the secondary
aspects of organic evolution, a deeper principle has to be sought for. The
materialist's "spontaneous variations," and "accidental divergencies"
are self-contradictory terms in a universe of "Matter, Force and
NECESSITY." Mere variability of type, apart from the supervisory presence
of a quasi-intelligent impulse, is powerless to account for the stupendous
complexities and marvels of the human body for instance. The insufficiency of
the Darwinists' mechanical theory has been exposed at length by Dr. Von
Hartmann among other purely negative thinkers. It is an abuse of the reader's
intelligence to write, as does Haeckel, of blind indifferent cells,
"arranging themselves into organs." The esoteric solution of the
origin of animal species is given elsewhere.
Those
purely secondary causes of differentiation, grouped under the head of sexual
selection, natural selection, climate, isolation, etc., etc., mislead the
Western Evolutionist and offer no real explanation whatever of the
"whence" of the "ancestral types" which served as the
starting point for physical development. The truth is that the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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differentiating
"causes" known to modern science only come into operation after the
physicalization of the primeval animal root-types out of the astral. Darwinism
only meets Evolution at its midway point -- that is to say when astral
evolution has given place to the play of the ordinary physical forces with
which our present senses acquaint us. But even here the Darwinian Theory, even
with the "expansions" recently attempted, is inadequate to meet the
facts of the case. The underlying physiological variation in species -- one to
which all other laws are subordinate and secondary -- is a sub-conscious
intelligence pervading matter, ultimately traceable to a REFLECTION of the Divine
and Dhyan-Chohanic wisdom.* A not altogether dissimilar conclusion has been
arrived at by so well known a thinker as Ed. von Hartmann, who, despairing of
the efficacy of unaided Natural Selection, regards evolution as intelligently
guided by the UNCONSCIOUS (the Cosmic Logos of Occultism). But the latter acts
only mediately through FOHAT, or Dhyan-Chohanic energy, and not quite in the
direct manner which the great pessimist describes.
It
is this divergence among men of Science, their mutual, and often their
self-contradictions, that gave the writer of the present volumes the courage to
bring to light other and older teachings -- if only as hypotheses for future
scientific appreciation. Though not in any way very learned in modern sciences,
so evident, even to the humble recorder of this archaic clearing, are the said
scientific fallacies and gaps, that she determined to touch upon all these, in
order to place the two teachings on parallel lines. For Occultism, it is a
question of self-defence, and nothing more.
So
far, the "Secret Doctrine" has concerned itself with metaphysics,
pure and simple. It has now landed on Earth, and finds itself within the domain
of physical science and practical anthropology, or those branches of study
which materialistic Naturalists claim as their rightful domain, coolly
asserting, furthermore, that the higher and more perfect the working of the
Soul, the more amenable it is to the analysis and explanations of the zoologist
and the physiologist alone. (Haeckel on "Cell-Souls and Soul-Cells.")
This stupendous pretension comes from one, who, to prove his pithecoid descent,
has not hesitated to include among the ancestors of man the Lemuridae; which
have been promoted by him to the rank of Prosimiae, indeciduate mammals, to
which he very incorrectly attributes a decidua
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The "principle of perfectibility" of Nageli; von de Baer's
"striving towards the purpose"; Braun's "Divine breath as the
inward impulse in the evolutionary history of Nature"; Professor Owen's
"tendency to perfectibility, etc.," are all veiled manifestations of
the universal guiding FOHAT, rich with the Divine and Dhyan-Chohanic thought.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 650 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
and
a discoidal placenta.* For this Haeckel was taken severely to task by de
Quatrefages, and criticised by his own brother materialists and agnostics, as great,
if not greater, authorities than himself, namely, by Virchow and du
Bois-Reymond.**
Such
opposition notwithstanding, Haeckel's wild theories are, to this day, called
scientific and logical by some. The mysterious nature of Consciousness, of
Soul, Spirit in Man being now explained as a mere advance on the functions of
the protoplasmic molecules of the lively Protista, and the gradual evolution
and growth of human mind and "social instincts" toward civilization
having to be traced back to their origin in the civilization of ants, bees, and
other creatures, the chances left for an impartial hearing of the doctrines of
archaic Wisdom, are few indeed. The educated profane is told that "the
social instincts of the lower animals have, of late, been regarded as being
clearly the origin of morals, even of those of man" (!) and that our
divine consciousness, our soul, intellect, and aspirations have "worked
their way up from the lower stages of the simple cell-soul" of the
gelatinous Bathybius -- (See Haeckel's "Present Position of
Evolution" Notes), -- and he seems to believe it. For such men, the
metaphysics of Occultism must produce the effect that our grandest orchestral
and vocal oratorios produce on the Chinaman: a sound that jars upon their nerves.
Yet,
are our esoteric teachings about "angels," the first three pre-animal
human Races, and the downfall of the Fourth, on a lower level of fiction and
self-delusion than the Haeckelian "plastidular," or the inorganic
"molecular Souls of the Protista"? Between the evolution of the
spiritual nature of man from the above Amoebian Souls, and the alleged
development of his physical frame from the protoplastic dweller in the Ocean
slime, there is an abyss which will not be easily crossed by any man in the
full possession of his intellectual faculties. Physical evolution, as modern
Science teaches it, is a subject for open controversy; spiritual and moral
development on the same lines is the insane dream of a crass materialism.
Furthermore,
past as well as present daily experience teaches that no truth has ever been
accepted by the learned bodies unless it dovetailed
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide infra, M. de Quatrefages' expose of Haeckel, in § ii., "The Ancestors
Mankind is offered by Science."
**
Strictly speaking du Bois-Reymond is an agnostic, and not a materialist. He has
protested most vehemently against the materialistic doctrine, which affirms
mental phenomena to be merely the product of molecular motion. The most accurate
physiological knowledge of the structure of the brain leaves us "nothing
but matter in motion," he asserts; "we must go further, and admit the
utterly incomprehensible nature of the psychical principle which it is
impossible to regard as a mere outcome of material causes."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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with
the habitual preconceived ideas of their professors. "The crown of the
innovator is a crown of thorns":-- said G. St. Hilaire. It is only that
which fits in with popular hobbies and accepted notions that as a general rule
gains ground. Hence the triumph of the Haeckelian ideas, notwithstanding their
being proclaimed by Virchow, du Bois-Reymond, and others as the
"testimonium paupertatis of natural Science."
Diametrically
opposed as may be the materialism of the German Evolutionists to the spiritual
conceptions of Esoteric philosophy, radically inconsistent as is their accepted
anthropological system with the real facts of nature, -- the pseudo-idealistic
bias now colouring English thought is almost more pernicious. The pure
materialistic doctrine admits of a direct refutation and appeal to the logic of
facts. The idealism of the present day, not only contrives to absorb, on the
one hand, the basic negations of Atheism, but lands its votaries in a tangle of
unreality, which culminates in a practical Nihilism. Argument with such writers
is almost out of the question. Idealists, therefore, will be still more
antagonistic to the Occult teachings now given than even the Materialists. But
as no worse fate can befall the exponents of Esoteric Anthropo-Genesis than
being openly called by their foes by their old and time-honoured names of
"lunatics" and "ignoramuses," the present archaic theories
may be safely added to the many modern speculations, and bide their time for
their full or even partial recognition. Only, as the existence itself of these
"archaic theories" will probably be denied, we have to give our best
proofs and stand by them to the bitter end.
In
our race and generation the one "temple in the Universe" is in rare
cases -- within us; but our body and mind have been too defiled by both Sin and
Science to be outwardly now anything better than a fane of iniquity and error.
And here our mutual position -- that of Occultism and Modern Science -- ought
to be once for all defined.
We,
Theosophists, would willingly bow before such men of learning as the late Prof.
Balfour Stewart, Messrs. Crookes, Quatrefages, Wallace, Agassiz, Butlerof, and
several others, though we may not agree, from the stand-point of esoteric
philosophy, with all they say. But nothing could make us consent to even a show
of respect for the opinions of other men of science, such as Haeckel, Carl
Vogt, or Ludwig Buchner, in Germany; or even of Mr. Huxley and his co-thinkers
in materialism in England -- the colossal erudition of the first named,
notwithstanding. Such men are simply the intellectual and moral murderers of
future generations; especially Haeckel, whose crass materialism often rises to
the height of idiotic naivetes in his reasonings. One has but to read his
"Pedigree of Man, and Other Essays" (Aveling's transl.) to feel a
desire, in the words of Job, that his
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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remembrance
should perish from the earth, and that he "shall have no name in the
streets." Hear him deriding the idea of the origin of the human race
"as a supernatural (?) phenomenon," as one "that could not
result from simple mechanical causes, from physical and chemical forces, but
requires the direct intervention of a creative personality. . . "
.
. . . "Now the central point of Darwin's teaching," . . goes on the
creator of the mythical Sozura, "lies in this, that it demonstrates the
simplest mechanical causes, purely physico-chemical phenomena of nature, as
wholly sufficient to explain the highest and most difficult problems. Darwin
puts in the place of a conscious creative force, building and arranging the
organic bodies of animals and plants on a designed plan, a series of natural
forces working blindly (or we say) without aim, without design. In place of an
arbitrary act of operation, we have a necessary law of Evolution . . . . "
(So had Manu and Kapila, and, at the same time, guiding, conscious and
intelligent Powers). . . "Darwin had very wisely . . . put on one side the
question as to the first appearance of life. But very soon that consequence, so
full of meaning, so wide reaching, was openly discussed by able and brave
scientific men, such as Huxley, Carl Vogt, Ludwig Buchner. A mechanical origin
of the earliest living form, was held as the necessary sequence to Darwin's
teaching . . and we are at present concerned with a single consequence of the
theory, the natural origin of the human race through ALMIGHTY EVOLUTION"
(pp. 34, 37).
To
which, unabashed by this scientific farrago, Occultism replies: in the course
of Evolution, when the physical triumphed over, and nearly crushed under its
weight, spiritual and mental evolutions, the great gift of Kriyasakti* remained
the heirloom of only a few elect men in every age . . . . Spirit strove vainly
to manifest itself in its fulness in purely organic forms (as has been
explained in Part I. of this Volume), and the faculty, which had been a natural
attribute in the early humanity of the Third Race, became one of the class
regarded as simply phenomenal by the Spiritualists and Occultists, and as scientifically
impossible by the materialists.
In
our modern day the mere assertion that there exists a power which can create
human forms -- ready-made sheaths for the "conscious monads" or
Nirmanakayas of past Manvantaras to incarnate within -- is, of course, absurd,
ridiculous! That which is regarded as quite natural, on the other hand, is the
production of a Frankenstein's monster, plus moral consciousness, religious
aspirations, genius, and a feeling of one's own immortal nature within one's
self -- by "physico-chemical forces, guided by blind Almighty
Evolution" ("Pedigree of Man").
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For explanation of the term Kriyasakti, see Com. 2 in Stanza 26.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 653 SCIENCE IS SILENT ON EVERY PROBLEM.
As
to the origin of that man, not ex-nihilo, cemented by a little red clay, but
from a living divine Entity consolidating the astral body with surrounding
materials -- this conception is too absurd even to be mentioned in the opinion
of the materialists. Nevertheless, Occultists and Theosophists are ready to
have their claims and theories -- however unscientific and superstitious at
first glance -- compared as to their intrinsic value and probability, with
those of the modern evolutionists. Hence the esoteric teaching is absolutely
opposed to the Darwinian evolution, as applied to man, and partially so with
regard to other species.
It
would be interesting to obtain a glimpse of the mental representation of
Evolution in the Scientific brain of a materialist. What is EVOLUTION? If asked
to define the full and complete meaning of the term, neither Huxley nor Haeckel
will be able to do it any better than Webster does: "the act of unfolding;
the process of growth, development; as the evolution of a flower from a bud, or
an animal from the egg." Yet the bud must be traced through its
parent-plant to the seed, and the egg to the animal or bird that laid it; or at
any rate to the speck of protoplasm from which it expanded and grew. And both
the seed and the speck must have the latent potentialities in them for the
reproduction and gradual development, the unfolding of the thousand and one
forms or phases of evolution, through which they must pass before the flower or
the animal are fully developed? Hence, the future plan, if not a DESIGN, must
be there. Moreover, that seed has to be traced, and its nature ascertained.
Have the Darwinists been successful in this? Or will the Moneron be cast in our
teeth? But this atom of the Watery Abysses is not homogeneous matter; and there
must be something or somebody that had moulded and cast it into being.
Here
Science is once more silent. But since there is no Self-consciousness as yet in
either speck, seed, or germ, according to both Materialists and Psychologists
of the modern school -- Occultists agreeing in this for once with their natural
enemies -- what is it that guides the force or forces so unerringly in this
process of evolution? Blind force? As well call blind the brain which evolved
in Haeckel his "Pedigree of Man" and other lucubrations. We can
easily conceive that the said brain lacks an important centre or two. For,
whoever knows anything of the anatomy of the human, or even of any animal,
body, and is still an atheist and a materialist, must be "hopelessly
insane," according to Lord Herbert, who rightly sees in the frame of man's
body and the coherence of its parts, something so strange and paradoxical that
he holds it "to be the greatest miracle of nature." Blind forces,
"and no design" in anything under the Sun; when no sane man of
Science would hesitate to say that, even from the little he knows and has
hitherto discovered of the forces at work in Kosmos, he sees very plainly
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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that
every part, every speck and atom are in harmony with their fellow atoms, and
these with the whole, each having its distinct mission throughout the
life-cycle. But, fortunately, the greatest, the most eminent thinkers and
Scientists of the day are now beginning to rise against this
"Pedigree," and even Darwin's natural selection theory, though its
author had never, probably, contemplated such widely stretched conclusions. The
remarkable work of the Russian Scientist N. T. Danilevsky -- "Darwinism, a
Critical Investigation of the Theory" -- upsets it completely and without
appeal, and so does de Quatrefages in his last work. Our readers are
recommended to examine the learned paper by Dr. Bourges -- read by its author,
a member of the Paris Anthropological Society at a recent official meeting of
the latter -- called "Evolutionary Psychology; the Evolution of Spirit,
etc." in which he reconciles entirely the two teachings -- namely, those
of the physical and spiritual evolutions. He explains the origin of the variety
of organic forms, made to fit their environments with such evident intelligent
design, by the existence and the mutual help and interaction of two principles
in (manifest) nature, the inner Conscious Principle adapting itself to physical
nature and the innate potentialities in the latter. Thus the French Scientist
has to return to our old friend -- Archaeus, or the life-Principle -- without
naming it, as Dr. Richardson has done in England in his
"Nerve-Force," etc. The same idea was recently developed in Germany
by Baron Hellenbach, in his remarkable work, "Individuality in the light
of Biology and modern Philosophy."
We
find the same conclusions arrived at in still another excellent volume of
another Russian deep thinker, N. N. Strachof -- who says in his
"Fundamental Conceptions of Psychology and Physiology":-- "The
most clear, as the most familiar, type of development may be found in our own
mental or physical evolution, which has served others as a model to follow . .
. . If organisms are entities . . . then it is only just to conclude and assert
that the organic life strives to beget psychic life; but it would be still more
correct and in accordance with the spirit of these two categories of evolution
to say, that the true cause of organic life is the tendency of spirit to
manifest in substantial forms, to clothe itself in substantial reality. It is
the highest form which contains the complete explanation of the lowest, never
the reverse." This is admitting, as Bourges does in the Memoire above
quoted, the identity of this mysterious, integrally acting and organizing
Principle with the Self-Conscious and Inner Subject, which we call the EGO and
the world at large -- the Soul. Thus, gradually, all the best Scientists and
Thinkers are approaching the Occultists in their general conclusions.
But
such metaphysically inclined men of Science are out of court and will hardly be
listened to. Schiller, in his magnificent poem on
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Veil of Isis, makes the mortal youth who dared to lift the impenetrable covering
fall down dead after beholding naked Truth in the face of the stern goddess.
Have some of our Darwinians, so tenderly united in natural selection and
affinity, also gazed at the Saitic Mother bereft of her veils? One might almost
suspect it after reading their theories. Their great intellects must have
collapsed while gauging too closely the uncovered face of Nature, leaving only
the grey matter and ganglia in their brain, to respond to blind
physico-chemical forces. At any rate Shakespeare's lines apply admirably to our
modem Evolutionist who symbolizes that "proud man," who --
"Dress'd
in a little brief authority;
Most
ignorant of what he's most assured,
His
glassy essence -- like an angry ape,
Plays
such fantastic tricks before high heaven,
As
make the Angels weep! . . . . "
These
have nought to do with the "angels." Their only concern is the human
ancestor, the pithecoid Noah who gave birth to three sons -- the tailed
Cynocephalus, the tailless Ape, and the "arboreal" Palaeolithic man.
On this point, they will not be contradicted. Every doubt expressed is
immediately set down as an attempt to cripple scientific inquiry. The
insuperable difficulty at the very foundation of the evolution theory, namely,
that no Darwinian is able to give even an approximate definition of the period
at which, and the form in which, the first man appeared, is smoothed down to a
trifling impediment, which is "really of no account." Every branch of
knowledge is in the same predicament, we are informed. The chemist bases his
most abstruse calculations simply "upon a hypothesis of atoms and
molecules, of which not one has ever been seen isolated, weighed, or defined.
The electrician speaks of magnetic fluids which have never tangibly revealed
themselves. No definite origin can be assigned either to molecules or
magnetism. Science cannot and does not pretend to any knowledge of the
beginnings of law, matter or life, . . ." etc., etc. (Knowledge, January,
1882.)
And,
withal, to reject a scientific hypothesis, however absurd, is to commit the one
unpardonable sin! We risk it.
-------
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[[Vol.
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§
II.
THE
ANCESTORS MANKIND IS OFFERED BY SCIENCE.
---------------------
"The
question of questions for mankind -- the problem which underlies all others,
and is more deeply interesting than any other -- is the ascertainment of the
place which man occupies in Nature, and of his relations to the Universe of
things." -- HUXLEY.
---------------------
THE
world stands divided this day, and hesitates between divine progenitors -- be
they Adam and Eve or the lunar Pitris -- and Bathybius Haeckelii, the
gelatinous hermit of the briny deep. Having explained the occult theory, it may
now be compared with that of the modem Materialism. The reader is invited to
choose between the two after having judged them on their respective merits.
We
may derive some consolation for the rejection of our divine ancestors, in
finding that the Haeckelian speculations receive no better treatment at the
hands of strictly exact Science than do our own. Haeckel's phylogenesis is no
less laughed at by the foes of his fantastic evolution, by other and greater
Scientists, than our primeval races will be. As du Bois-Reymond puts it, we may
believe him easily when he says that "ancestral trees of our race sketched
in the 'Schopfungs-geschichte' are of about as much value as are the pedigrees
of the Homeric heroes in the eyes of the historical critic."
This
settled, everyone will see that one hypothesis is as good as another. And as we
find that German naturalist (Haeckel) himself confessing that neither geology
(in its history of the past) nor the ancestral history of organisms will ever
"rise to the position of a real exact Science,"* a large margin is
thus left to Occult Science to make its annotations and lodge its protests. The
world is left to choose between the teachings of Paracelsus, the "Father
of Modern Chemistry," and those of Haeckel, the Father of the mythical
Sozura. We demand no more.
Without
presuming to take part in the quarrel of such very learned naturalists as du
Bois-Reymond and Haeckel a propos of our blood relationship to "those
ancestors (of ours) which have led up from the unicellular classes, Vermes,
Acrania, Pisces, Amphibia, Reptilia to the Aves" -- one may put in a few
words, a question or two, for the information of our readers. Availing
ourselves of the opportunity, and bearing
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Pedigree of Man." -- "The Proofs of Evolution," p. 273.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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in
mind Darwin's theories of natural selection, etc., we would ask Science -- with
regard to the origin of the human and animal species -- which theory of
evolution of the two herewith described is the more scientific, or the more
unscientific, if so preferred.
(1).
Is it that of an Evolution which starts from the beginning with sexual
propagation?
(2).
Or that teaching which shows the gradual development of organs; their
solidification, and the procreation of each species, at first by simple easy
separation from one into two or even several individuals. Then follows a fresh
development -- the first step to a species of separate distinct sexes -- the
hermaphrodite condition; then again, a kind of Parthenogenesis, "virginal
reproduction," when the egg-cells are formed within the body, issuing from
it in atomic emanations and becoming matured outside of it; until, finally,
after a definite separation into sexes, the human beings begin procreating
through sexual connection?
Of
these two, the former "theory," -- rather, a "revealed
fact" -- is enunciated by all the exoteric Bibles (except the Puranas),
preeminently by the Jewish Cosmogony. The last one, is that which is taught by
the Occult philosophy, as explained all along.
An
answer is found to our question in a volume just published by Mr. S. Laing --
the best lay exponent of Modern Science.* In chapter viii. of his latest work,
"A Modern Zoroastrian," the author begins by twitting "all
ancient religions and philosophies" for "assuming a male and female
principle for their gods." At first sight, he says "the distinction
of sex appears as fundamental as that of plant and animal." . . . .
"The Spirit of god brooding over Chaos and producing the world," he
goes on to complain, "is only a later edition, revised according to monotheistic
ideas, of the far older Chaldean legend which describes the creation of Kosmos
out of Chaos by the co-operations of great gods, male and female . . "
Thus, in the orthodox Christian creed we are taught to repeat "begotten,
not made," a phrase which is absolute nonsense, an instance of using words
like counterfeit notes, which have no solid value of an idea behind them. For
"begotten" is a very definite term which "implies the
conjunction of two opposite sexes to produce a new individual."
However
we may agree with the learned author as to the inadvisability of using wrong
words, and the terrible anthropomorphic and phallic element in the old
Scriptures -- especially in the orthodox Christian Bible -- nevertheless, there
may be two extenuating circumstances in the case. Firstly, all these
"ancient philosophies" and "modern
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Author of "Modern Science and Modern Thought."
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[[Vol.
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religions"
are -- as sufficiently shown in these two volumes -- an exoteric veil thrown
over the face of esoteric truth; and -- as the direct result of this -- they
are allegorical, i.e., mythological in form; but still they are immensely more
philosophical in essence than any of the new scientific theories, so-called.
Secondly, from the Orphic theogony down to Ezra's last remodelling of the
Pentateuch, every old Scripture having in its origin borrowed its facts from the
East, it has been subjected to constant alterations by friend and foe, until of
the original version there remained but the name, a dead shell from which the
Spirit had been gradually eliminated.
This
alone ought to show that no religious work now extant can be understood without
the help of the Archaic wisdom, the primitive foundation on which they were all
built.
But
to return to the direct answer expected from Science to our direct question. It
is given by the same author, when, following his train of thought on the
unscientific euhemerization of the powers of Nature in ancient creeds, he
pronounces a condemnatory verdict upon them in the following terms:--
"Science,
however, makes sad havoc with this impression of sexual generation being the
original and only mode of reproduction,* and the microscope and dissecting
knife of the naturalist introduce us to new and altogether unsuspected (?)
worlds of life. . . ."
So
little "unsuspected," indeed, that the original a-sexual "modes
of reproduction" must have been known -- to the ancient Hindus, at any
rate -- Mr. Laing's assertion to the contrary, notwithstanding. In view of the
statement in the Vishnu Purana, quoted by us elsewhere, that Daksha
"established sexual intercourse as the means of multiplication," only
after a series of other "modes," which are all enumerated therein,
(Vol. II., p. 12, Wilson's Transl.), it becomes difficult to deny the fact.
This assertion, moreover, is found, note well, in an EXOTERIC work. Then, Mr.
S. Laing goes on to tell us that:--
.
. . . "By far the larger proportion of living forms, in number . . . .
have come into existence, without the aid of sexual propagation." He then
instances Haeckel's monera . . . . "multiplying by self-division."
The next stage the author shows in the nucleated cell, "which does exactly
the same thing." The following stage is that in "which the organism
does not divide into two equal parts, but a small portion of it swells out . .
. . and finally parts company and starts on separate existence, which grows to
the size of the parent by its inherent faculty of manufacturing fresh
protoplasm from surrounding inorganic materials."**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide Part I. of this volume, page 183, Stanza VIII.
**
In this, as shown in Part I., Modern Science was again anticipated, far beyond
its own speculations in this direction, by Archaic Science.
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[[Vol.
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This
is followed by a many-celled organism which is formed by "germ-buds
reduced to spores, or single cells, which are emitted from the parent". .
. . when "we are at the threshold of that system of sexual propagation,
which has (now) become the rule in all the higher families of animals" . .
. . It is when an "organism, having advantages in the struggle for life,
established itself permanently" . . . . that special organs developed to
meet the altered condition . . . . . when a distinction "would be firmly
established of a female organ or ovary containing the egg or primitive cell
from which the new being was to be developed." . . . . "This is
confirmed by a study of embryology, which shows that in the HUMAN and higher
animal species the distinction of sex is not developed until a considerable
progress has been made in the growth of the embryo . . . . " In the great
majority of plants, and in some lower families of animals . . . the male and
female organs are developed within the same being . . . . . a hermaphrodite.
Moreover, in the "virginal reproduction -- germ-cells apparently similar
in all respects to egg-cells, develop themselves into new individuals without
any fructifying element," etc., etc. (pp. 103-107).
Of
all which we are as perfectly well aware as of this -- that the above was never
applied by the very learned English popularizer of Huxleyo-Haeckelian theories
to the genus homo. He limits this to specks of protoplasm, plants, bees,
snails, and so on. But if he would be true to the theory of descent, he must be
as true to ontogenesis, in which the fundamental biogenetic law, we are told,
runs as follows: "the development of the embryo (ontogeny) is a condensed
and abbreviated repetition of the evolution of the race (phylogeny). This
repetition is the more complete, the more the true original order of evolution
(palingenesis) has been retained by continual heredity. On the other hand, this
repetition is the less complete, the more by varying adaptations the later
spurious development (caenogenesis) has obtained." (Anthrop. 3rd edition,
p. 11.)
This
shows to us that every living creature and thing on earth, including man,
evolved from one common primal form. Physical man must have passed through the
same stages of the evolutionary process in the various modes of procreation as
other animals have: he must have divided himself; then, hermaphrodite, have
given birth parthenogenetically (on the immaculate principle) to his young
ones; the next stage would be the oviparous -- at first "without any
fructifying element," then "with the help of the fertilitary
spore"; and only after the final and definite evolution of both sexes,
would he become a distinct "male and female," when reproduction
through sexual union would grow into universal law. So far, all this is
scientifically proven. There remains but one thing to be ascertained: the plain
and comprehensively described
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[[Vol.
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processes
of such ante-sexual reproduction. This is done in the Occult books, a slight
outline of which was attempted by the writer in Part I. of this Volume.
Either
this, or -- man is a distinct being. Occult philosophy may call him that, because
of his distinctly dual nature. Science cannot do so, once that it rejects every
interference save mechanical laws, and admits of no principle outside matter.
The former -- the archaic Science --allows the human physical frame to have
passed through every form, from the lowest to the very highest, its present
one, or from the simple to the complex -- to use the accepted terms. But it
claims that in this cycle (the fourth), the frame having already existed among
the types and models of nature from the preceding Rounds -- that it was quite
ready for man from the beginning of this Round.* The Monad had but to step into
the astral body of the progenitors, in order that the work of physical
consolidation should begin around the shadowy prototype.**
What
would Science say to this? It would answer, of course, that as man appeared on
earth as the latest of the mammalians, he had no need, no more than those
mammals, to pass through the primitive stages of procreation as above
described. His mode of procreation was already established on Earth when he
appeared. In this case, we may reply: since to this day not the remotest sign
of a link between man and the animal has yet been found, then (if the Occultist
doctrine is to be repudiated) he must have sprung miraculously in nature, like
a fully armed Minerva from Jupiter's brain. And in such case the Bible is
right, along with other national "revelations." Hence the scientific
scorn, so freely lavished by the author of "A Modern
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Theosophists will remember that, according to Occult teaching, Cyclic pralayas
so-called are but obscurations, during which periods Nature, i.e., everything
visible and invisible on a resting planet -- remains in statu quo. Nature rests
and slumbers, no work of destruction going on on the globe even if no active
work is done. All forms, as well as their astral types, remain as they were at
the last moment of its activity. The "night" of a planet has hardly
any twilight preceding it. It is caught like a huge mammoth by an avalanche,
and remains slumbering and frozen till the next dawn of its new day -- a very
short one indeed in comparison to the "Day of Brahma."
**
This will be pooh-poohed, because it will not be understood by our modern men
of science; but every Occultist and theosophist will easily realize the
process. There can be no objective form on Earth (nor in the Universe either),
without its astral prototype being first formed in Space. From Phidias down to
the humblest workman in the ceramic art -- a sculptor has had to create first
of all a model in his mind, then sketch it in one and two dimensional lines,
and then only can he reproduce it in a three dimensional or objective figure.
And if human mind is a living demonstration of such successive stages in the
process of evolution -- how can it be otherwise when NATURE'S MIND and creative
powers are concerned?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Zoroastrian"
upon ancient philosophies and exoteric creeds, becomes premature and uncalled
for. Nor would the sudden discovery of a "missing-link" -- like
fossil mend matters at all. For neither one such solitary specimen nor the
scientific conclusions thereupon, could insure its being the long-sought-for
relic, i.e., that of an undeveloped, still a once speaking MAN. Something more
would be required as a final proof (vide infra, Note). Besides which, even
Genesis takes up man, her Adam of dust, only where the Secret Doctrine leaves
her "Sons of God and Wisdom" and picks up the physical man of the
THIRD Race. Eve is not "begotten," but is extracted out of Adam on
the manner of "Amoeba, A," contracting in the middle and splitting
into Amoeba B -- by division. (See p. 103, in "The Modern
Zoroastrian.") Nor has human speech developed from the various animal
sounds.
Haeckel's
theory that "speech arose gradually from a few simple, crude animal sounds
. . . ." as such "speech still remains amongst a few races of lower
rank" (Darwinian theory in "Pedigree of Man," p. 22) is
altogether unsound, as argued by Professor Max Muller, among others. He
contends that no plausible explanation has yet been given as to how the
"roots" of language came into existence. A human brain is necessary
for human speech. And figures relating to the size of the respective brains of
man and ape show how deep is the gulf which separates the two. Vogt says that
the brain of the largest ape, the gorilla, measures no more than 30.51 cubic
inches; while the average brains of the flat-headed Australian natives -- the
lowest now in the human races -- amount to 99.35 cubic inches! Figures are
awkward witnesses and cannot lie. Therefore, as truly observed by Dr. F. Pfaff,
whose premises are as sound and correct as his biblical conclusions are
silly:-- "The brain of the apes most like man, does not amount to quite a
third of the brain of the lowest races of men: it is not half the size of the
brain of a new-born child." ("The Age and Origin of Man.") From
the foregoing it is thus very easy to perceive that in order to prove the
Huxley-Haeckelian theories of the descent of man, it is not one, but a great
number of "missing links" -- a true ladder of progressive evolutionary
steps -- that would have to be first found and then presented by Science to
thinking and reasoning humanity, before it would abandon belief in gods and the
immortal Soul for the worship of Quadrumanic ancestors. Mere myths are now
greeted as "axiomatic truths." Even Alfred Russel Wallace maintains
with Haeckel that primitive man was a speechless ape-creature. To this Joly
answers:-- "Man never was, in my opinion, this pithecanthropus alalus
whose portrait Haeckel has drawn as if he had seen and known him, whose singular
and completely hypothetical genealogy he has even given, from the mere mass of
living protoplasm to the man endowed with speech and a civilization analo-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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gous
to that of the Australians and Papuans." ("Man before Metals,"
p. 320, N. Joly. Inter. Scient. Series.)
Haeckel,
among other things, often comes into direct conflict with the Science of languages.
In the course of his attack on Evolutionism (1873, "Mr. Darwin's
Philosophy of Language"), Prof. Max Muller stigmatized the Darwinian
theory as "vulnerable at the beginning and at the end." The fact is,
that only the partial truth of many of the secondary "laws" of
Darwinism is beyond question -- M. de Quatrefages evidently accepting
"Natural Selection," the "struggle for existence" and
transformation within species, as proven not once and for ever, but pro. tem. But
it may not be amiss, perhaps, to condense the linguistic case against the
"Ape ancestor" theory:--
Languages
have their phases of growth, etc., like all else in nature. It is almost
certain that the great linguistic families pass through three stages.
(1)
All words are roots and merely placed in juxtaposition (Radical languages).
(2)
One root defines the other, and becomes merely a determinative element
(Agglutinative).
(3)
The determinative element (the determinating meaning of which has long lapsed)
unites into a whole with the formative element (Inflected).
The
problem then is: Whence these ROOTS? Max Muller argues that the existence of
these ready-made materials of speech is a proof that man cannot be the crown of
a long organic series. This potentiality of forming roots is the great crux
which materialists almost invariably avoid.
Von
Hartmann explains it as a manifestation of the "Unconscious," and
admits its cogency versus mechanical Atheism. Hartmann is a fair representative
of the Metaphysician and Idealist of the present age.
The
argument has never been met by the non-pantheistic Evolutionists. To say with
Schmidt: "Forsooth are we to halt before the origin of language?" is
an avowal of dogmatism and of speedy defeat. (Cf. his "Doctrine of Descent
and Darwinism," p. 304.)
We
respect those men of science who, wise in their generation, say:
"Prehistoric Past being utterly beyond our powers of direct observation,
we are too honest, too devoted to the truth -- or what we regard as truth -- to
speculate upon the unknown, giving out our unproven theories along with facts
absolutely established in modern Science." . . . . "The borderland of
(metaphysical) knowledge is best left to time, which is the best test as to
truth" (A Modern Zoroastrian, p. 136).
This
is a wise and an honest sentence in the mouth of a materialist. But when a
Haeckel, after just saying that "historical events of
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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past
time . . " having "occurred many millions of years ago,* . . . are
for ever removed from direct observation," and that neither geology nor
phylogeny** can or will "rise to the position of a real exact
science," then insists on the development of all organisms -- "from
the lowest vertebrate to the highest, from Amphioxus to man" -- we ask for
a weightier proof than he can give. Mere "empirical sources of
knowledge," so extolled by the author of "Anthropogeny" -- when
he has to be satisfied with the qualification for his own views -- are not
competent to settle problems lying beyond their domain; nor is it the province
of exact science to place any reliance on them.*** If "empirical" --
and Haeckel declares so himself repeatedly -- then they are no better, nor any
more reliable, in the sight of exact research, when extended into the remote
past, than our Occult teachings of the East, both having to be placed on quite
the same level. Nor are his phylogenetic and palingenetic speculations treated
in any better way by the real scientists, than are our cyclic repetitions of
the evolution of the Great in the minor races, and the original order of
evolutions. For the province of exact, real Science, materialistic though it
be, is to carefully avoid anything like guess-work, speculation which cannot be
verified; in short, all suppressio veri and all suggestio falsi. The business
of the man of exact Science is to observe, each in his chosen department, the
phenomena of nature; to record, tabulate, compare and classify the facts, down
to the smallest minutiae which are presented to the observation of the senses
with the help of all the exquisite mechanism that modern invention supplies,
not by the aid of metaphysical flights of fancy. All that he has a legitimate
right to do, is to correct by the assistance of physical instruments the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It thus appears that in its anxiety to prove our noble descent from the
catarrhine "baboon," Haeckel's school has pushed the times of pre-historic
man millions of years back. (See "Pedigree of Man," p. 273.)
Occultists, render thanks to science for such corroboration of our claims!
**
This seems a poor compliment to pay Geology, which is not a speculative but as
exact a science as astronomy -- save, perhaps its too risky chronological
speculations. It is mainly a "Descriptive" as opposed to an
"Abstract" Science.
***
Such newly-coined words as "perigenesis of plastids,"
"plastidule Souls" (!), and others less comely, invented by Haeckel,
may be very learned and correct in so far as they may express very graphically
the ideas in his own vivid fancy. As a fact, however, they remain for his less
imaginative colleagues painfully caenogenetic -- to use his own terminology;
i.e., for true Science they are spurious speculations so long as they are
derived from "empirical sources." Therefore, when he seeks to prove
that "the origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the
catarrhine ape, is a deductive law that follows necessarily from the inductive
law of the theory of descent" ("Anthropogeny," p. 392) -- his no
less learned foes (du Bois-Reymond -- for one) have a right to see in this
sentence a mere jugglery of words; a "testimonium paupertatis of natural
science" -- as he himself complains, calling them, in return, ignoramuses
(see "Pedigree of Man," Notes).
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[[Vol.
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defects
or illusions of his own coarser vision, auditory powers, and other senses. He
has no right to trespass on the grounds of metaphysics and psychology. His duty
is to verify and to rectify all the facts that fall under his direct
observation; to profit by the experiences and mistakes of the Past in endeavouring
to trace the working of a certain concatenation of cause and effects, which,
but only by its constant and unvarying repetition, may be called A LAW. This it
is which a man of science is expected to do, if he would become a teacher of
men and remain true to his original programme of natural or physical sciences.
Any side-way path from this royal road becomes speculation.
Instead
of keeping to this, what does many a so-called man of science do in these days?
He rushes into the domains of pure metaphysics, while deriding it. He delights
in rash conclusions and calls it "a deductive law from the inductive
law" of a theory based upon and drawn out of the depths of his own
consciousness: that consciousness being perverted by, and honeycombed with, one-sided
materialism. He attempts to explain the "origin" of things, which are
yet embosomed only in his own conceptions. He attacks spiritual beliefs and
religious traditions millenniums old, and denounces everything, save his own
hobbies, as superstition. He suggests theories of the Universe, a Cosmogony
developed by blind, mechanical forces of nature alone, far more miraculous and
impossible than even one based upon the assumption of fiat lux out of nihil --
and tries to astonish the world by such a wild theory; which, being known to
emanate from a scientific brain, is taken on blind faith as very scientific and
the outcome of SCIENCE.
Are
those the opponents Occultism would dread? Most decidedly not. For such
theories are no better treated by real (not empirical) Science than our own.
Haeckel, hurt in his vanity by du Bois-Reymond, never tires of complaining
publicly of the latter's onslaught on his fantastic theory of descent.
Rhapsodizing on "the exceedingly rich storehouse of empirical
evidence," he calls those "recognised physiologists" who oppose
every speculation of his drawn from the said "storehouse" -- ignorant
men. "If many men," he declares -- "and among them even some
scientists of repute -- hold that the whole of phylogeny is a castle in the
air, and genealogical trees (from monkeys?) are empty plays of phantasy, they
only in speaking thus demonstrate their ignorance of that wealth of empirical
sources of knowledge to which reference has already been made"
("Pedigree of Man," p. 273).
We
open Webster's Dictionary and read the definitions of the word
"empirical": "Depending upon experience or observation alone,
without due regard to modern science and theory." This applies to the
Occultists, Spiritualists, Mystics, etc., etc. Again, "an Empiric -- One
who confines himself to applying the results of his own observations"
(only)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 665 MR. HUXLEY APPLIES AN "EXTINGUISHER."
(which
is Haeckel's case); "one wanting Science . . . . an ignorant and
unlicensed practitioner; a quack; a CHARLATAN."
No
Occultist or "magician," has ever been treated to any worse epithets.
Yet the Occultist remains on his own metaphysical grounds, and does not
endeavour to rank his knowledge, the fruits of his personal observation and
experience, among the exact sciences of modern learning. He keeps within his
legitimate sphere, where he is master. But what is one to think of a rank
materialist, whose duty is clearly traced before him, who uses such an
expression as this:--
"The
origin of man from other mammals, and most directly from the catarrhine ape, is
a deductive law, that follows necessarily from the inductive law of the THEORY
OF DESCENT." ("Anthropogeny," p. 392).
A
"theory" is simply a hypothesis, a speculation, and no law. To say
otherwise is only one of the many liberties taken now-a-days by scientists.
They enunciate an absurdity, and then hide it behind the shield of Science. Any
deduction from theoretical speculation is no better than a speculation on a
speculation. Now Sir W. Hamilton has already shown that the word theory is now
used "in a very loose and improper sense" . . . . "that it is
convertible into hypothesis, and hypothesis is commonly used as another term for
conjecture, whereas the terms 'theory' and 'theoretical' are properly used in
opposition to the term practice and practical."
But
modern Science puts an extinguisher on the latter statement, and mocks at the idea.
Materialistic philosophers and Idealists of Europe and America may be agreed
with the Evolutionists as to the physical origin of man -- yet it will never
become a general truth with the true metaphysician, and the latter defies the
materialists to make good their arbitrary assumptions. That the ape-theory
theme* of Vogt and Darwin, on which the Huxley-Haeckelians have composed of
late such extraordinary variations, is far less scientific -- because clashing
with the fundamental laws of that theme itself -- than ours can ever be
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The mental barrier between man and ape, characterized by Huxley as an
"enormous gap, a distance practically immeasurable"! ! is, indeed, in
itself conclusive. Certainly it constitutes a standing puzzle to the
materialist, who relies on the frail reed of "natural selection." The
physiological differences between Man and the Apes are in reality -- despite a
curious community of certain features -- equally striking. Says Dr.
Schweinfurth, one of the most cautious and experienced of naturalists:--
"In
modern times there are no animals in creation that have attracted more
attention from the scientific student than the great quadrumana (the
anthropoids), bearing such a striking resemblance to the human form as to have
justified the epithet of anthropomorphic being conferred on them. . . . But all
investigation at present only leads human intelligence to a confession of its
insufficiency; and nowhere is caution more to be advocated, nowhere is
premature judgment more to be deprecated than in the attempt to bridge over the
MYSTERIOUS CHASM which separates man and beast." "Heart of
Africa" i., 520.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 666 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
shown
to be, is very easy of demonstration. Let the reader only turn to the excellent
work on "Human Species" by the great French naturalist de
Quatrefages, and our statement will at once be verified.
Moreover,
between the esoteric teaching concerning the origin of man and Darwin's
speculations, no man, unless he is a rank materialist, will hesitate. This is
the description given by Mr. Darwin of "the earliest ancestors of
man."
"They
were without doubt once covered with hair; both sexes having beards; their ears
were pointed and capable of movement; and their bodies were provided with a
tail, having the proper muscles. Their limbs and bodies were acted on by many
muscles which now only occasionally reappear in man, but which are still
normally present in the quadrumana. . . . The foot, judging from the condition
of the great toe in the foetus, was then prehensile, and our progenitors, no
doubt, were arboreal in their habits, frequenting some warm forest-clad land,
and the males were provided with canine teeth which served as formidable
weapons. . . ."*
Darwin
connects him with the type of the tailed catarrhines, "and consequently
removes him a stage backward in the scale of evolution. The English naturalist
is not satisfied to take his stand upon the ground of his own doctrines, and,
like Haeckel, on this point places himself in direct variance with one of the
fundamental laws which constitute the principal charm of Darwinism . . . "
And then the learned French naturalist proceeds to show how this fundamental
law is broken. "In fact," he says, "in the theory of Darwin,
transmutations do not take place, either by chance or in every direction. They
are ruled by certain laws which are due to the organization itself. If an
organism is once modified in a given direction, it can undergo secondary or
tertiary transmutations, but will still preserve the impress of the original.
It is the law of permanent characterization, which alone permits Darwin to
explain the filiation of groups, their characteristics, and their numerous
relations. It is by virtue of this law that all the descendants of the first
mollusc have been molluscs; all the descendants of the first vertebrate have
been vertebrates. It is clear that this constitutes one of the foundations of
the doctrine. . . . It follows that two beings belonging to two distinct types
can be referred to a common ancestor, but the one cannot be the descendant of
the other"; (p. 106).
"Now
man and ape present a very striking contrast in respect to type. Their organs .
. . correspond almost exactly term for term: but these
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A ridiculous instance of evolutionist contradictions is afforded by Schmidt
("Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," on page 292). He says,
"Man's kinship with the apes is not impugned by the bestial strength of
the teeth of the male orang or gorilla." Mr. Darwin, on the contrary,
endows this fabulous being with teeth used as weapons!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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organs
are arranged after a very different plan. In man they are so arranged that he
is essentially a walker, while in apes they necessitate his being a climber. .
. . There is here an anatomical and mechanical distinction. . . . A glance at
the page where Huxley has figured side by side a human skeleton and the
skeletons of the most highly developed apes is a sufficiently convincing
proof."
The
consequence of these facts, from the point of view of the logical application
of the law of permanent characterizations, is that man cannot be descended from
an ancestor who is already characterized as an ape, any more than a catarrhine
tailless ape can be descended from a tailed catarrhine. A walking animal cannot
be descended from a climbing one.
"Vogt,
in placing man among the primates, declares without hesitation that the lowest
class of apes have passed the landmark (the common ancestor), from which the
different types of this family have originated and diverged." (This
ancestor of the apes, occult science sees in the lowest human group during the
Atlantean period, as shown before.) . . . "We must, then, place the origin
of man beyond the last apes," goes on de Quatrefages, thus corroborating
our Doctrine, "if we would adhere to one of the laws most emphatically
necessary to the Darwinian theory. We then come to the prosimiae of Haeckel,
the loris, indris, etc. But those animals also are climbers; we must go
further, therefore, in search of our first direct ancestor. But the genealogy
by Haeckel brings us from the latter to the marsupials. . . . From men to the
Kangaroo the distance is certainly great. Now neither living nor extinct fauna
show the intermediate types which ought to serve as landmarks. This difficulty
causes but slight embarrassment to Darwin.* We know that he considers the want
of information upon similar questions as a proof in his favour. Haeckel
doubtless is as little embarrassed. He admits the existence of an absolutely
theoretical pithecoid man."
"Thus,
since it has been proved that, according to Darwinism itself, the origin of man
must be placed beyond the eighteenth stage, and since it becomes, in
consequence, necessary to fill up the gap between marsupials and man, will
Haeckel admit the existence of four unknown intermediate groups instead of
one?" asks de Quatrefages. "Will he complete his genealogy in this
manner? It is not for me to answer." ("The Human Species," p.
107-108.)
But
see Haeckel's famous genealogy, in "The Pedigree of Man," called by
him "Ancestral Series of Man." In the "Second Division"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
According even to a fellow-thinker, Professor Schmidt, Darwin has evolved
"a certainly not flattering, and perhaps in many points an incorrect,
portrait of our presumptive ancestors in the dawn of humanity."
("Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p. 284.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 668 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
(Eighteenth
Stage) he describes "Prosimiae, allied to the Loris (Stenops) and Makis
(Lemur) as without marsupial bones and cloaca, but with placenta." And now
turn to de Quatrefages' "The Human Species," pp. 109, 110, and see
his proofs, based on the latest discoveries, to show that "the prosimiae
of Haeckel have no decidua and a diffuse placenta." They cannot be the
ancestors of the apes even, let alone man, according to a fundamental law of
Darwin himself, as the great French Naturalist shows. But this does not dismay
the "animal theorists" in the least, for self-contradiction and
paradoxes are the very soul of modern Darwinism. Witness -- Mr. Huxley. Having
himself shown, with regard to fossil man and the "missing link," that
"neither in quaternary ages nor at the present time does any intermediary
being fill the gap which separates man from the Troglodyte"; and that to
"deny the existence of this gap would be as reprehensible as absurd,"
the great man of Science denies his own words in actu by supporting with all
the weight of his scientific authority that most "absurd" of all
theories -- the descent of man from an ape!
"This
genealogy," says de Quatrefages, "is wrong throughout, and is founded
on a material error." Indeed, Haeckel bases his descent of man on the 17th
and 18th stages (See Aveling's "Pedigree of Man," p. 77), the
marsupialia and prosimiae -- (genus Haeckelii?). Applying the latter term to
the Lemuridae -- hence making of them animals with a placenta -- he commits a
zoological blunder. For after having himself divided mammals according to their
anatomical differences into two groups: the indeciduata, which have no decidua
(or special membrane uniting the placentae), and the deciduata, those who
possess it: he includes the prosimiae in the latter group. Now we have shown
elsewhere what other men of science had to say to this. As de Quatrefages says,
"The anatomical investigations of . . . Milne Edwards and Grandidier upon
these animals . . . place it beyond all doubt that the prosimiae of Haeckel
have no decidua and a diffuse placenta. They are indeciduata. Far from any
possibility of their being the ancestors of the apes, according to the
principles laid down by Haeckel himself, they cannot be regarded even as the
ancestors of the zonoplacental mammals . . . and ought to be connected with the
pachydermata, the edentata, and the cetacea"; (p. 110). And yet Haeckel's
inventions pass off with some as exact science!
The
above mistake, if indeed, one, is not even hinted at in Haeckel's
"Pedigree of Man," translated by Aveling. If the excuse may stand
good that at the time the famous "genealogies" were made, "the
embryogenesis of the prosimiae was not known," it is familiar now. We
shall see whether the next edition of Aveling's translation will have this
important error rectified, or if the 17th and 18th stages remain
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 669 A PITHECOID MAN WANTED.
as
they are to blind the profane, as one of the real intermediate links. But, as
the French naturalist observes -- "their (Darwin's and Haeckel's) process
is always the same, considering the unknown as a proof in favour of their
theory." (Ibid.)
It
comes to this. Grant to man an immortal Spirit and Soul; endow the whole
animate and inanimate creation with the monadic principle gradually evolving
from the latent and passive into active and positive polarity -- and Haeckel
will not have a leg to stand upon, whatever his admirers may say.
But
there are important divergences even between Darwin and Haeckel. While the
former makes us proceed from the tailed catarrhine, Haeckel traces our
hypothetical ancestor to the tailless ape, though, at the same time, he places him
in a hypothetical "stage" immediately preceding this: "Menocerca
with tails" (19th stage).
Nevertheless,
we have one thing in common with the Darwinian school: it is the law of gradual
and extremely slow evolution, embracing many million years. The chief quarrel,
it appears, is with regard to the nature of the primitive "Ancestor."
We shall be told that the Dhyan Chohan, or the "progenitor" of Manu,
is a hypothetical being unknown on the physical plane. We reply that it was
believed in by the whole of antiquity, and by nine-tenths of the present
humanity; whereas not only is the pithecoid man, or "ape-man," a
purely hypothetical creature of Haeckel's creation, unknown and untraceable on
this earth, but further its genealogy -- as invented by him -- clashes with
scientific facts and all the known data of modern discovery in Zoology. It is
simply absurd, even as a fiction. As de Quatrefages demonstrates in a few
words, Haeckel "admits the existence of an absolutely theoretical
pithecoid man" -- a hundred times more difficult to accept than any Deva
ancestor. And it is not the only instance in which he proceeds in a similar
manner in order to complete his genealogical table; and he admits very naively
his inventions himself. Does he not confess the non-existence of his sozura
(14th stage) -- a creature entirely unknown to science -- by confessing over
his own signature, that -- "The proof of its existence arises from the
necessity of an intermediate type between the 13th and the 14th stages"!
If
so, we might maintain with as much scientific right, that the proof of the
existence of our three ethereal races, and the three-eyed men of the Third and
Fourth Root-Races "arises also from the necessity of an intermediate
type" between the animal and the gods. What reason would the Haeckelians
have to protest in this special case?
Of
course there is a ready answer: "Because we do not grant the presence of
the monadic essence." The manifestation of the Logos as individual
consciousness in the animal and human creation is not accepted
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 670 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
by
exact science, nor does it cover the whole ground, of course. But the failures
of science and its arbitrary assumptions are far greater on the whole than* any
"extravagant" esoteric doctrine can ever furnish. Even thinkers of
the school of Von Hartmann have become tainted with the general epidemic. They
accept the Darwinian Anthropology (more or less), though they also postulate
the individual Ego as a manifestation of the Unconscious (the Western
presentation of the Logos or Primeval Divine Thought). They say the evolution
of the physical man is from the animal, but that mind in its various phases is
altogether a thing apart from material facts, though organism (as an upadhi) is
necessary for ITS manifestation.
-------
PLASTIDULAR
SOULS, AND CONSCIOUS NERVE-CELLS.
But
one can never see the end of such wonders with Haeckel and his school, whom the
Occultists and Theosophists have every right to consider as materialistic
tramps trespassing on private metaphysical grounds. Not satisfied with the
paternity of Bathybius (Haeckelii), "plastidule souls,"** and
"atom-souls" are now invented by them, on the basis of purely blind mechanical
forces of matter. We are informed that "the study of the evolution of
soul-life shows that this has worked its way up from the lower stages of the
simple cell-soul, through an astonishing series of gradual stages in evolution,
up to the soul of man." ("Present Position of Evolution," p.
266.)
"Astonishing"
-- truly, based as this wild speculation is on the Consciousness of the
"nerve cells." For as he tells us, "Little as we are in a
position, at the present time, to explain fully the nature of consciousness,***
yet the comparative and genetic observation of it clearly shows that it is only
a higher and more complex function of the nerve cells." (Ibid, note 22.)
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Of course the Esoteric system of Fourth Round Evolution is much more complex
than the paragraph and quotations referred to categorically assert. It is
practically a reversal -- both in embryological inference and succession in
time of species -- of the current Western conception.
**
According to Haeckel, there are also cell-souls; "an inorganic molecular
soul" without, and a "plastidular soul with (or possessing)
memory". What are our esoteric teachings to this? The divine and human
soul of the seven principles in man must, of course, pale and give away before
such a stupendous revelation!
***
A valuable confession, this. Only it makes the attempt to trace the descent of
Consciousness in man as well as of his physical body from Bathybius Haeckelii
still more humorous and empirical, in the sense of Webster's second definition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 671 HAECKEL CREATES SOULS.
Mr.
Herbert Spencer's song on Consciousness -- is sung, it seems, and may henceforth
be safely stored up in the lumber room of obsolete speculations. Where,
however, do Haeckel's "complex functions" of his scientific
"nerve-cells" land him? Once more right into the Occult and mystic
teachings of the Kabala about the descent of souls as conscious and unconscious
atoms; among the Pythagorean MONAD and the monads of Leibnitz -- and the
"gods, monads, and atoms" of our esoteric teaching;* into the dead
letter of Occult teachings, left to the amateur Kabalists and professors of
ceremonial magic. For this is what he says, while explaining his newly-coined
terminology:--
"Plastidule-Souls;
the plastidules or protoplasmic molecules, the smallest, homogeneous parts of
the protoplasm are, on our plastic theory, to be regarded as the active factors
of all life-functions. The plastidular soul differs from the inorganic
molecular soul in that it possesses memory." ("Pedigree of Man,"
Note, p. 296.)
This
he develops in his mirific lecture on the "Perigenesis of the Plastidule,
or the wave-motions of living particles." It is an improvement on Darwin's
theory of "Pangenesis," and a further approach, a cautious move
towards "magic." The former is a conjecture that certain of the
actual and identical atoms which had belonged to ancestral bodies "are
thus transmitted through their descendants for generation after generation, so
that we are literally 'flesh of the flesh' of the primeval creature who has
developed into man in the later . . . period" -- explains the author of
"The Modern Zoroastrian" (in "Primitive Polarities," etc.).
The latter (Occultism) teaches that -- (a) the life-atoms of our (Prana)
life-principle are never entirely lost when a man dies. That the atoms best
impregnated with the life-principle (an independent, eternal, conscious factor)
are partially transmitted from father to son by heredity, and partially are
drawn once more together and become the animating principle of the new body in
every new incarnation of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Those who take the opposite view and look upon the existence of the human soul,
-- "as a supernatural, a spiritual phenomenon, conditioned by forces
altogether different from ordinary physical forces," . . .
"mock," he thinks, "in consequence, all explanation that is
simply scientific." They have no right it seems, to assert that
"psychology is, in part, or in whole, a spiritual science, not a physical
one." . . . The new discovery by Haeckel (one taught for thousands of
years in all the Eastern religions, however), that the animals have souls,
will, and sensation, hence soul-functions, leads him to make of psychology the
science of the zoologists. The archaic teaching that the "Soul" (the
animal and human souls, or Kama and Manas) "has its developmental history"
-- is claimed by Haekel as his own discovery and innovation on an
"untrodden (?) path"! He (Haeckel) will work out the comparative
evolution of the soul in man and in other animals. . . . "The comparative
morphology of the soul-organs, and the comparative physiology of the
soul-functions, both founded on Evolution, thus become the psychological
(really materialistic) problem of the scientific man." (Cell-souls and
Soul-cells, p. 137, "Pedigree of Man.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 672 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
Monads. Because (b), as the individual Soul is ever the same, so are the atoms
of the lower principles (body, its astral, or life double, etc.), drawn as they
are by affinity and Karmic law always to the same individuality in a series of
various bodies, etc., etc.*
To
be just, and, to say the least, logical, our modern Haeckelians ought to pass a
resolution that henceforth the "Perigenesis of the Plastidule," and
like lectures, should be bound up with those on "Esoteric Buddhism,"
and "The Seven Principles in Man." Thus the public will have a
chance, at any rate, of judging after comparison which of the two teachings is
the most or the least ABSURD, even from the standpoint of materialistic and
exact Science!
Now
the Occultists, who trace every atom in the universe, whether an aggregate or
single, to One Unity, or Universal Life; who do not recognize that anything in
Nature can be inorganic; who know of no such thing as dead matter -- the
Occultists are consistent with their doctrine of Spirit and Soul when speaking
of memory in every atom, of will and sensation. But what can a materialist mean
by the qualification? The law of biogenesis, in the sense applied to it by the
Haeckelians -- "is the result of the ignorance on the part of the man of
science of occult physics." We know and speak of "life-atoms" --
and of "sleeping-atoms" -- because we regard these two forms of
energy -- the kinetic and the potential -- as produced by one and the same
force or the ONE LIFE, and regard the latter as the source and mover of all.
But what is it that furnished with energy, and especially with memory, the
"plastidular souls" of Haeckel? The "wave motion of living
particles" becomes comprehensible on the theory of a Spiritual ONE LIFE,
of a universal Vital principle independent of our matter, and manifesting as
atomic energy only on our plane of consciousness. It is that which,
individualized in the human cycle, is transmitted from father to son.
Now
Haeckel, modifying Darwin's theory, suggests "most plausibly," as the
author of the "Modern Zoroastrian" thinks, "that not the
identical atoms, but their peculiar motions and mode of aggregation have been
thus transmitted" (by heredity).
If
Haeckel, or any other Scientist, knew more than any of them does of the nature
of the atom, he would not have improved the occasion in this way. For he only
states, in a more metaphysical language than Darwin, one and the same thing.
The life-principle, or life energy,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
(See "Transmigration of the Life Atoms," "Five years of
Theosophy," p. 533-539). The collective aggregation of these atoms forms
thus the Anima Mundi of our Solar system, the soul of our little universe, each
atom of which is of course a soul, a monad, a little universe endowed with
consciousness, hence with memory (Vol. I., Part III., "Gods, Monads and
Atoms.")
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 673]] THE MEANING OF SOUL WITH HAECKEL.
which
is omnipresent, eternal, indestructible, is a force and a PRINCIPLE as
noumenon, atoms, as phenomenon. It is one and the same thing, and cannot be
considered as separate except in materialism.*
Further,
Haeckel enunciates concerning the Atom Souls that which, at first sight,
appears as occult as a Monad of Leibnitz. "The recent contest as to the
nature of atoms, which we must regard as in some form or other the ultimate
factors in all physical and chemical processes," he tells us --
"seems to be capable of the easiest settlement, by the conception that
these very minute masses possess, as centres of force, a persistent soul, that
every atom has sensation and the power of movement."
He
does not say a word concerning the fact that this is Leibnitz's theory, and one
pre-eminently occult. Nor does he understand the term "Soul" as we
do; for, with Haeckel it is simply, along with consciousness, the production of
the grey matter of the brain, a thing which, as the "cell-soul, is as
indissolubly bound up with the protoplasmic body as is the human soul with the
brain and spinal cord." (Ibid.) He rejects the conclusions of Kant,
Herbert Spencer, of du Bois-Reymond and Tyndall. The latter expresses the opinion
of all the great men of science, as of the greatest thinkers of this and the
past ages, in saying that "the passage from the physics of the brain to
the corresponding facts of Consciousness is unthinkable. Were our minds and
senses so . . . illuminated as to enable us to see and feel the very molecules
of the brain; were we capable of following all their motions, all their
groupings . . . electric discharges . . . we should be as far as ever from the
solution of the problem . . . The chasm between the two classes of Phenomena
would still remain intellectually impassable." But the complex function of
the nerve-cells of the great German EMPIRIC, or, in other words, his
Consciousness, will not permit him to follow the conclusions of the greatest
thinkers of our globe. He is greater than they. He asserts this, and protests
against all. "No one has the right
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In "The Transmigration of the Life-Atoms," we say, to explain better
a position which is but too often misunderstood:-- "It is omnipresent . .
. . though (on this plane of manifestation) often in a dormant state -- as in
stone. The definition which states that when this indestructible force is
disconnected with one set of atoms (molecules ought to have been said) it
becomes immediately attracted by others, does not imply that it entirely
abandons the first set (because the atoms themselves would then disappear), but
only that it transfers its vis viva, or life power -- the energy of motion, to
another set. But because it manifests itself in the next set as what is called
Kinetic energy, it does not follow that the first set is deprived of it
altogether; for it is still in it, as potential energy or life latent,"
etc., etc. Now what can Haeckel mean by his "not identical atoms but their
peculiar motion and mode of aggregation," if it is not the same Kinetic
energy we have been explaining? He must have read Paracelsus and studied
"Five Years of Theosophy," without properly digesting the teachings,
before evolving such theories.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 674 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
to
hold that in the future we (Haeckel) shall not be able to pass beyond those
limits of our knowledge that to day seem impassable"; and he quotes from
Darwin's introduction to the "Descent of Man" these words, which he
modestly applies to his scientific opponents and himself: "It is always
those who know little, and not those who know much, that positively affirm that
this or that problem will never be solved by Science."
The
world may rest satisfied. That day is not far off when the "thrice
great" Haeckel will have shown (to his own satisfaction) that the
consciousness of Sir I. Newton was, physiologically speaking, but the reflex
action (or minus consciousness) caused by the peri-genesis of the plastidules
of our common ancestor and old friend, the Moneron Haeckelii. The fact that the
said "Bathybius" has been found out and exposed as a pretender
simulating the organic substance it was not; and since, among the children of
men, Lot's wife alone (and even this, only after her disagreeable metamorphosis
into a salt pillar) could claim the pinch of salt it is, as her forefather --
will not dismay him at all. He will go on asserting, as coolly as he has always
done, that it was no more than the peculiar mode and motion of the ghost of the
long-vanished atoms of our "Father Bathybius," which, transmitted
across aeons of time into the cell-tissue of the grey matter of the brains of
every great man, caused Sophocles and AEschylus, as well as Shakespeare, to
write their tragedies, Newton, his "Principia," Humboldt, his
"Cosmos," etc. etc. It prompted Haeckel to invent Graeco-Latin names
three inches long, pretending to mean a good deal, and meaning -- nothing.
Of
course we are quite aware that the true, honest evolutionist agrees with us;
and that he is the first to say that not only is the geological record
imperfect, but that there are enormous gaps in the series of hitherto
discovered fossils, which can never be filled. He will tell us, moreover, that
"no evolutionist assumes that man is descended from any existing ape or
any extinct ape either," but that man and apes originated probably aeons
back, in some common root stock. Still, as de Quatrefages points out, he will
claim as an evidence corroborating his (the evolutionist's) claim, even this
wealth of absent proofs, saying that "all living forms have not been
preserved in the fossil series, the chances of preservation being few and far
between," even primitive man "burying or burning his dead" (A.
Wilson). This is just what we ourselves claim. It is just as possible that
future should have in store for us the discovery of the giant skeleton of an
Atlantean, 30ft. high, as the fossil of a pithecoid "missing link":
only the former is more probable.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 675 DRYOPITHECUS, THE MISSING LINK.
§
III.
THE
FOSSIL RELICS OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID APE.
-------
A.
GEOLOGICAL
FACTS BEARING ON THE QUESTION OF THEIR RELATIONSHIP.
THE
data derived from scientific research as to "primeval man" and the
ape lend no countenance to theories deriving the former from the latter.
"Where, then, must we look for primeval man?" still queries Mr.
Huxley, after having vainly searched for him in the very depths of the
quaternary strata. "Was the oldest Homo sapiens Pliocene or Miocene, or
yet more ancient? In still older strata do the fossilized bones of an ape more
anthropoid, or a man more pithecoid than any yet known, await the researches of
some unborn palaeontologist? Time will show . . . ." ("Man's Place in
Nature," p. 159).
It
will -- undeniably -- and thus vindicate the anthropology of the Occultists.
Meanwhile, in his eagerness to vindicate Mr. Darwin's Descent of Man, Mr. Boyd
Dawkins believes he has all but found the "missing link" -- in
theory. It was due to theologians more than to geologists that, till nearly 1860,
man had been considered a relic no older than the Adamic orthodox 6,000 years.
As Karma would have it though, it was left to a French Abbe -- l'abbe Bourgeois
-- to give this easy-going theory even a worse blow than had been given to it
by the discoveries of Boucher de Perthes. Everyone knows that the Abbe
discovered and brought to light good evidence that man already existed during
the Miocene period; for flints of undeniably human making were excavated from
Miocene strata. In the words of the author of "Modern Science and Modern
Thought":--
"They
must either have been chipped by man, or, as Mr. Boyd Dawkins supposes, by the
Dryopithecus or some other anthropoid ape which had a dose of intelligence so
much superior to the gorilla, or chimpanzee, as to be able to fabricate tools.
But in this case the problem would be solved and the missing link discovered,
for such an ape might well have been the ancestor of Palaeolithic man."
Or
-- the descendant of Eocene Man, which is a variant offered to the theory. Meanwhile,
the Dryopithecus with such fine mental endowments is yet to be discovered. On
the other hand, Neolithic and even Palaeolithic man having become an absolute
certainty, -- and, as the same author justly observes: "If 100,000,000
years have elapsed since
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
earth became sufficiently solidified to support vegetable and animal life, the
Tertiary period may have lasted for 5,000,000; or for 10,000,000 years, if the
life-sustaining order of things has lasted, as Lyell supposes, for at least
200,000,000 years" -- why should not another theory be tried? Let us carry
man, as an hypothesis, to the close of Mesozoic times -- admitting argumenti
causa that the (much more recent) higher apes then existed! This would allow
ample time to man and the modern apes to have diverged from the mythical
"ape more anthropoid," and even for the latter to have degenerated
into those that are found mimicking man in using "branches of trees as
clubs, and cracking cocoa-nuts with hammer and stones."* Some savage
tribes of hillmen in India build their abodes on trees, just as the gorillas
build their dens. The question, which of the two, the beast or the man, has become
the imitator of the other, is scarcely an open one, even granting Mr. Boyd
Dawkins' theory. The fanciful character of his hypothesis, is, however,
generally admitted. It is argued that while in the Pliocene and Miocene periods
there were true apes and baboons, and man was undeniably contemporaneous with
the former of those times -- though as we see orthodox anthropology still
hesitates in the teeth of facts to place him in the era of the Dryopithecus,
which latter "has been considered by some anatomists as in some respects
superior to the chimpanzee or the gorilla" -- yet, in the Eocene there
have been no other fossil primates unearthed and no pithecoid stocks found save
a few extinct lemurian forms. And we find it also hinted that the Dryopithecus
may have been the "missing link," though the brain of the creature no
more warrants the theory than does the brain of the modern gorilla. (Vide also
Gaudry's speculations.)
Now
we would ask who among the Scientists is ready to prove that there was no man
in existence in the early Tertiary period? What is it that prevented his
presence? Hardly thirty years ago his existence any farther back than 6, or
7,000 years was indignantly denied. Now he is refused admission into the Eocene
age. Next century it may become a question whether man was not contemporary
with the "flying Dragons;" the pterodactyl, the plesiosaurus and
iguanodon, etc., etc. Let us listen, however, to the echo of Science.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This the way primitive man must have acted? We do not know of men, not even of
savages, in our age, who are known to have imitated the apes who live side by
side with them in the forests of America and the islands. We do know of large
apes who, tamed and living in houses, will mimic men to the length of donning
hats and coats. The writer had personally a chimpanzee who, without being
taught, opened a newspaper and pretended to read in it. It is the descending
generations, the children, who mimic their parents -- not the reverse.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 677 INSURMOUNTABLE DIFFICULTIES.
"Now
wherever anthropoid apes lived, it is clear that, whether as a question of anatomical
structure, or of climate and surroundings, man, or some creature which was the
ancestor of man, might have lived also. Anatomically speaking, apes and monkeys
are as much special variations of the mammalian type as man, whom they
resemble, bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, and the physical animal man is
simply an instance of the quadrumanous type specialised for erect posture and a
larger brain* . . . . If he could survive, as we know he did, the adverse
conditions and extreme vicissitudes of the Glacial period, there is no reason
why he might not have lived in the semi-tropical climate of the Miocene period,
when a genial climate extended even to Greenland and Spitzbergen . . . "
("Modern Science and Modern Thought," p. 152.)
While
most of the men of Science, who are uncompromising in their belief in the
descent of man from an "extinct anthropoid mammal," will not accept
even the bare tenability of any other theory than an ancestor common to man and
the Dryopithecus, it is refreshing to find in a work of real scientific value
such a margin for compromise. Indeed, it is as wide as it can be made under the
circumstances, i.e., without immediate danger of getting knocked off one's feet
by the tidal wave of "science-adulation." Believing that the difficulty
of accounting "for the development of intellect and morality by evolution
is not so great as that presented by the difference as to physical structure**
between man and the highest animal," the same author says:--
"But
it is not so easy to see how this difference of physical structure arose, and
how a being came into existence which had such a brain and hand, and such
undeveloped capabilities for an almost unlimited progress. The difficulty is
this: the difference in structure between the lowest existing race of man and
the highest existing ape is too great to admit of the possibility of one being
the direct descendant of the other. The negro in some respects makes a slight
approximation towards the Simian type. His skull is narrower, his brain less
capacious, his muzzle more projecting, his arm longer than those of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It is asked, whether it would change one iota of the scientific truth and fact
contained in the above sentence if it were to read: "the ape is simply an
instance of the biped type specialized for going on all fours, generally, and a
smaller brain." Esoterically speaking, this is the real truth, and not the
reverse.
**
We cannot follow Mr. Laing here. When avowed Darwinists like Huxley point to
"the great gulf which intervenes between the lowest ape and the highest
man in intellectual power," the "enormous gulf . . . between
them," the "immeasurable and practically infinite divergence of the
Human from the Simian stirps" (Man's Place in Nature, pp. 102-3); when
even the physical basis of mind -- the brain -- so vastly exceeds in size that
of the highest existing apes; when men like Wallace are forced to invoke the
agency of extra-terrestrial intelligences in order to explain the rise of such
a creature as the Pithecanthropus alalus, or speechless savage of Haeckel, to
the level of the large-brained and moral man of to-day -- it is idle to dismiss
Evolutionist puzzles so lightly. If the structural evidence is so unconvincing
and, taken as a whole, so hostile to Darwinism, the difficulties as to the
"how" of the Evolution of the human mind by natural selection are
tenfold greater.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 678 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
average
European man. Still he is essentially a man, and separated by a wide gulf from
the chimpanzee or the gorilla. Even the idiot or cretin, whose brain is no
larger and intelligence no greater than that of the chimpanzee, is an arrested
man, not an ape."
"If,
therefore, the Darwinian theory holds good in the case of man and ape, we must
go back to some common ancestor from whom both may have originated . . . . But
to establish this as a fact and not a theory we require to find that ancestral
form, or, at any rate, some intermediate forms tending towards it . . . . in
other words . . . . the missing link! Now it must be admitted that, hitherto,
not only have no such missing links been discovered, but the oldest known human
sculls and skeletons which date from the Glacial period, and are probably at
least 100,000 years old, show no very decided approximation towards any such
pre-human type. On the contrary, one of the oldest types, that of the men of
the sepulchral cave of Cro-Magnon,* is that of a fine race, tall in stature,
large in brain, and on the whole superior to many of the existing races of
mankind. The reply of course is that the time is insufficient, and if man and
the ape had a common ancestor, that as a highly developed anthropoid ape,
certainly, and man, probably, already existed in the Miocene period, such
ancestor must be sought still further back at a distance compared with which
the whole Quaternary period sinks into insignificance . . . . It may well make
us hesitate before we admit that man . . . is alone an exception. . . . This is
more difficult to believe, as the ape family which man (?) so closely resembles
. . . . contains numerous branches which graduate into one another, but the
extremes of which differ more widely than man does from the highest of the ape
series. If a special creation is required for man, must there not have been
special creations for the chimpanzee, the gorilla, the orang, and for at least
100 different species of ape and monkeys which are all built on the same
lines?" (p. 182, "Modern Science, etc.")
There
was a "special creation" for man, and a "special creation"
for the ape, his progeny; only on other lines than ever bargained for by
Science. Albert Gaudry and others give some weighty reasons why man cannot be
regarded as the crown of an ape-stock. When one finds that not only was the
"primeval savage" (?) a reality in the Miocene times, but that, as de
Mortillet shows, the flint relics he has left behind him were splintered by
fire in that remote epoch; when we learn that the Dryopithecus, alone of the
anthropoids, appears in those strata, what is the natural inference? That the
Darwinians are in a quandary. The very manlike Gibbon is still in the same low
grade of development, as it was when it co-existed with Man at the close of the
Glacial Period. It has not appreciably altered since the Pliocene times. Now
there is little to choose between the Dryopithecus and the existing anthropoids
-- gibbon, gorilla, etc. If, then, the Darwinian theory is all-sufficient, how
are we to "explain" the evolution of this
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A race which MM. de Quatrefages and Hamy regard as a branch of the same stock
whence the Canary Island Guanches sprung -- offshoots of the Atlanteans, in
short.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 679 MATERIALISM IS PUZZLED.
ape
into Man during the first half of the Miocene? The time is far too short for such
a theoretical transformation. The extreme slowness with which variation in
species supervenes renders the thing inconceivable -- more especially on the
Natural Selection hypothesis. The enormous mental and structural gulf between a
savage acquainted with fire and the mode of kindling it, and a brutal
anthropoid, is too much to bridge even in idea, during so contracted a period.
Let the Evolutionists push back the process into the preceding Eocene, if they
prefer to do so; let them even trace both Man and Dryopithecus to a common
ancestor; the unpleasant consideration has, nevertheless, to be faced that in
Eocene strata the anthropoid fossils are as conspicuous by their absence, as is
the fabulous pithecanthropus of Haeckel. Is an exit out of this cul de sac to
be found by an appeal to the "unknown," and a reference with Darwin
to the "imperfection of the geological record"? So be it; but the
same right of appeal must be accorded equally to the Occultists, instead of
remaining the monopoly of puzzled materialism. Physical man, we say, existed
before the first bed of the Cretaceous rocks was deposited. In the early part
of the Tertiary Age, the most brilliant civilization the world has ever known
flourished at a period when the Haeckelian man-ape is conceived to have roamed
through the primeval forests, and Mr. Grant Allen's putative ancestor to have
swung himself from bough to bough with his hairy mates, the degenerated Liliths
of the Third Race Adam. Yet there were no anthropoid apes in the brighter days
of the civilization of the Fourth Race; but Karma is a mysterious law, and no
respecter of persons. The monsters bred in sin and shame by the Atlantean
giants, "blurred copies" of their bestial sires, and hence of modern
man (Huxley), now mislead and overwhelm with error the speculative
Anthropologist of European Science.
Where
did the first men live? Some Darwinists say in Western Africa, some in Southern
Asia, others, again, believe in an independent origin of human stocks in Asia
and America from a Simian ancestry (Vogt). Haeckel, however, advances gaily to
the charge. Starting from his "prosimiae" . . . "the ancestor
common to all other catarrhini, including man" -- a "link" now,
however, disposed of for good by recent anatomical discoveries! -- he endeavours
to find a habitat for the primeval Pithecanthropus alalus. "In all
probability it (the transformation of animal into man) occurred in Southern
Asia, in which region many evidences are forthcoming that here was the original
home of the different species of men. Probably Southern Asia itself was not the
earliest cradle of the human race, but LEMURIA, a continent that lay to the
south of Asia, and sank later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean. (Vide
infra, "Scientific and geological proofs of the former existence of
several
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 680 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
submerged
continents.") "The period during which the evolution of the
anthropoid apes into apelike men took place was probably the last part of the
tertiary period, the Pliocene Age, and perhaps the Miocene, its
forerunner." (Pedigree of Man, p. 73.)
Of
the above speculations, the only one of any worth is that referring to Lemuria,
which was the cradle of mankind -- of the physical sexual creature who
materialized through long aeons out of the ethereal hermaphrodites. Only, if it
is proved that Easter Island is an actual relic of Lemuria, we must believe
that according to Haeckel the "dumb ape-men," just removed from a
brutal mammalian monster, built the gigantic portrait-statues, some of which
are now in the British Museum. Critics are mistaken in terming Haeckelian
doctrines "abominable, revolutionary, immoral" -- though materialism
is the legitimate outcome of the ape-ancestor myth -- they are simply too
absurd to demand disproof.
-------
B.
WESTERN
EVOLUTIONISM: THE COMPARATIVE ANATOMY OF MAN AND THE ANTHROPOID IN NO WAY A
CONFIRMATION OF DARWINISM.
We
are told that while every other heresy against modern science may be
disregarded, this, our denial of the Darwinian theory as applied to Man, will
be the one "unpardonable" sin. The Evolutionists stand firm as rock
on the evidence of similarity of structure between the ape and the man. The
anatomical evidence, it is urged, is quite overpowering in this case; it is
bone for bone, and muscle for muscle, even the brain conformation being very
much the same.
Well,
what of that? All this was known before King Herod; and the writers of the
Ramayana, the poets who sang the prowess and valour of Hanuman, the monkey-God,
"whose feats were great and Wisdom never rivalled," must have known
as much about his anatomy and brain as does any Haeckel or Huxley in our modern
day. Volumes upon volumes were written upon this similarity, in antiquity as in
more modern times. Therefore, there is nothing new whatever given to the world
or to philosophy, in such volumes as Mivart's "Man and Apes," or
Messrs. Fiske and Huxley's defence of Darwinism. But what are those crucial
proofs of man's descent from a pithecoid ancestor? If the Darwinian theory is
not the true one -- we are told -- if man and ape do not descend from a common
ancestor, then we are called upon to explain the reason of:--
(I.)
The similarity of structure between the two; the fact that the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page 681]] HUXLEY CALLS THE DARWINISTS TO ORDER.
higher
animal world -- man and beast -- is physically of one type or pattern.
(II.)
The presence of rudimentary organs in man, i.e., traces of former organs now
atrophied by disuse. Some of these organs, it is asserted, could not have had
any scope for employment, except for a semi-animal, semi-arboreal monster. Why,
again, do we find in Man those "rudimentary" organs (as useless as
its rudimentary wing is to the Apteryx of Australia), the vermiform appendix of
the coecum, the ear muscles,* the "rudimentary tail" (with which
children are still sometimes born), etc., etc.?
Such
is the war cry; and the cackle of the smaller fry among the Darwinians is
louder, if possible, than even that of the scientific Evolutionists themselves!
Furthermore,
the latter themselves -- with their great leader Mr. Huxley, and such eminent
zoologists as Mr. Romanes and others -- while defending the Darwinian theory,
are the first to confess the almost insuperable difficulties in the way of its
final demonstration. And there are as great men of science as the above-named,
who deny, most emphatically, the uncalled-for assumption, and loudly denounce
the unwarrantable exaggerations on the question of this supposed similarity. It
is sufficient to glance at the works of Broca, Gratiolet, of Owen, Pruner-Bey,
and finally, at the last great work of de Quatrefages, "Introduction a
l'Etude des Races humaines, Questions generales," to discover the fallacy
of the Evolutionists. We may say more: the exaggerations concerning such
similarity of structure between man and the anthropomorphous ape have become so
glaring and absurd of late, that even Mr. Huxley found himself forced to
protest against the too sanguine expectations. It was that great anatomist
personally who called the "smaller fry" to order, by declaring in one
of his articles that the differences in the structure of the human body and
that of the highest anthropomorphous pithecoid, were not only far from being
trifling and unimportant, but were, on the contrary, very great and suggestive:
"each of the bones of the gorilla has its own specific impress on it that
distinguishes it from a similar human bone." Among the existing creatures
there is not one single intermediate form that could fill the gap between man
and the ape. To ignore that gap, he added, "was as uncalled-for as it was
absurd."**
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Professor Owen believes that these muscles -- the attollens, retrahens, and
attrahens aurem -- were actively functioning in men of the Stone Age. This may
or may not be the case. The question falls under the ordinary
"occult" explanation, and involves no postulate of an "animal
progenitor" to solve it.
**
Quoted in the Review of the "Introduction a l'Etude des Races
Humaines," by de Quatrefages. We have not Mr. Huxley's work at hand to
quote from. Or to cite another good authority:-- "We find one of the most
man-like apes (gibbon), in the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 682 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Finally,
the absurdity of such an unnatural descent of man is so palpable in the face of
all the proofs and evidence of the skull of the pithecoid as compared to that
of man, that even de Quatrefages resorted unconsciously to our esoteric theory
by saying that it is rather the apes that can claim descent from man than vice
versa. As proven by Gratiolet, with regard to the cavities of the brain of the
anthropoids, in which species that organ develops in an inverse ratio to what
would be the case were the corresponding organs in man really the product of
the development of the said organs in the apes -- the size of the human skull
and its brain, as well as the cavities, increase with the individual
development of man. His intellect develops and increases with age, while his
facial bones and jaws diminish and straighten, thus being more and more
spiritualized: whereas with the ape it is the reverse. In its youth the
anthropoid is far more intelligent and good-natured, while with age it becomes
duller; and, as its skull recedes and seems to diminish as it grows, its facial
bones and jaws develop, the brain being finally crushed, and thrown entirely
back, to make with every day more room for the animal type. The organ of
thought -- the brain -- recedes and diminishes, entirely conquered and replaced
by that of the wild beast -- the jaw apparatus.
Thus,
as wittily remarked in the French work, a gorilla would have a perfect right to
address an Evolutionist, claiming its right of descent from himself. It would
say to him, "We, anthropoid apes, form a retrogressive departure from the
human type, and therefore our development and evolution are expressed by a
transition from a human-like to an animal-like structure of organism; but in
what way could you, men, descend from us -- how can you form a continuation of
our genus? For, to make this possible, your organization would have to differ
still more than ours does from the human structure, it would have to approach
still closer to that of the beast than ours does; and in such a case justice
demands that you should give up to us your place in nature. You are lower than
we are, once that you insist on tracing your genealogy from our kind; for the
structure of our organization and its development are such that we are unable
to generate forms of a higher organization than our own."
This
is where the Occult Sciences agree entirely with de Quatre-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] tertiary period, and this species is still in
the same low grade, and side by side with it at the end of the Ice-period, man
is found in the same high grade as to-day, the ape not having approximated more
nearly to the man, and modern man not having become further removed from the
ape than the first (fossil) man . . . these facts contradict a theory of
constant progressive development." (Pfaff.) When, according to Vogt, the
the average Australian brain = 99.35 cub. inches; that of the gorilla 30.51
cub. in., and that of the chimpanzee only 25.45, the giant gap to be bridged by
the advocate of "Natural" Selection becomes apparent.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 683 THE DARWINISTS AND THEIR OPPONENTS.
fages.
Owing to the very type of his development man cannot descend from either an ape
or an ancestor common to both, but shows his origin from a type far superior to
himself. And this type is the "Heavenly man" -- the Dhyan Chohans, or
the Pitris so-called, as shown in the first Part of this volume. On the other
hand, the pithecoids, the orang-outang, the gorilla, and the chimpanzee can,
and, as the Occult Sciences teach, do, descend from the animalized Fourth human
Root-Race, being the product of man and an extinct species of mammal -- whose
remote ancestors were themselves the product of Lemurian bestiality -- which
lived in the Miocene age. The ancestry of this semi-human monster is explained
in the Stanzas as originating in the sin of the "Mind-less" races of
the middle Third Race period.
When
it is borne in mind that all forms which now people the earth, are so many
variations on basic types originally thrown off by the MAN of the Third and
Fourth Round, such an evolutionist argument as that insisting on the
"unity of structural plan" characterising all vertebrates, loses its
edge. The basic types referred to were very few in number in comparison with
the multitude of organisms to which they ultimately gave rise; but a general
unity of type has, nevertheless, been preserved throughout the ages. The
economy of Nature does not sanction the co-existence of several utterly opposed
"ground plans" of organic evolution on one planet. Once, however,
that the general drift of the occult explanation is formulated, inference as to
detail may well be left to the intuitive reader.
Similarly
with the important question of the "rudimentary" organs discovered by
anatomists in the human organism. Doubtless this line of argument, when wielded
by Darwin and Haeckel against their European adversaries, proved of great
weight. Anthropologists, who ventured to dispute the derivation of man from an
animal ancestry, were sorely puzzled how to deal with the presence of
gill-clefts, with the "tail" problem, and so on. Here again Occultism
comes to our assistance with the necessary data.
The
fact is that, as previously stated, the human type is the repertory of all
potential organic forms, and the central point from which these latter radiate.
In this postulate we find a true "Evolution" or "Unfolding"
-- a sense which cannot be said to belong to the mechanical theory of natural
selection. Criticising Darwin's inference from "rudiments," an able
writer remarks: "Why is it not just as probably a true hypothesis to
suppose that Man was created with the rudimentary sketches in his organization,
and that they became useful appendages in the lower animals into which man
degenerated, as to suppose that these parts existed in full development in the
lower animals out of which man was generated?" ("Creation or Evolution?"
Geo. T. Curtis, p. 76.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 684 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Read
for "into which Man degenerated," "the prototypes which man shed
in the course of his astral developments," and an aspect of the true
esoteric solution is before us. But a wider generalization is now to be
formulated.
So
far as our present Fourth Round terrestrial period is concerned, the mammalian
fauna are alone to be regarded as traceable to prototypes shed by Man. The
amphibia, birds, reptiles, fishes, etc., are the resultants of the Third Round,
astral fossil forms stored up in the auric envelope of the Earth and projected
into physical objectivity subsequent to the deposition of the first Laurentian
rocks. "Evolution" has to deal with the progressive modifications,
which palaeontology shows to have affected the lower animal and vegetable
kingdoms in the course of geological time. It does not, and from the nature of
things cannot, touch on the subject of the pre-physical types which served as
the basis for future differentiation. Tabulate the general laws controlling the
development of physical organisms it certainly may, and to a certain extent it
has acquitted itself ably of the task.
To
return to the immediate subject of discussion. The mammalia, whose first traces
are discovered in the marsupials of the Triassic rocks of the Secondary Period,
were evolved from purely astral progenitors contemporary with the Second Race.
They are thus post-Human, and, consequently, it is easy to account for the
general resemblance between their embryonic stages and those of Man, who
necessarily embraces in himself and epitomizes in his development the features
of the group he originated. This explanation disposes of a portion of the
Darwinist brief. "But how to account for the presence of the gill-clefts
in the human foetus, which represent the stage through which the branchiae of
the fish are developed;* for the pulsating vessel corresponding to the heart of
the lower fishes, which constitutes the foetal heart; for the entire analogy
presented by the segmentation of the human ovum, the formation of the
blastoderm, and the appearance of the 'gastrula' stage, with corresponding
stages in lower vertebrate life and even among the sponges; for the various
types of lower animal life which the form of the future child shadows forth in
the cycle of its growth?" "How comes it to pass that stages in the
life of fishes, whose ancestors swam" -- aeons before the epoch of the First
Root-Race,
[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"At this period," writes Darwin, "the arteries run in arch-like
branches, as if to carry the blood to branchiae which are not present in the
higher vertebrata, though the slits on the side of the neck still remain,
marking their former (?) position."
It
is noteworthy that, though gill-clefts are absolutely useless to all but
amphibia and fishes, etc., their appearance is regularly noted in the foetal
development of vertebrates. Even children are occasionally born with an opening
in the neck corresponding to one of the clefts.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 685 REVERSION FROM THE WRONG END.
--
"in the seas of the Silurian period, as well as stages in that of the
later amphibian, reptilian fauna, are mirrored in the 'epitomized history' of
human foetal development?"
This
plausible objection is met by the reply that the Third Round terrestrial animal
forms were just as much referable to types thrown off by Third Round man, as
that new importation into our planet's area -- the mammalian stock -- is to the
Fourth Round Humanity of the Second Root-race. The process of human foetal
growth epitomizes not only the general characteristics of the Fourth, but of
the Third Round terrestrial life. The diapason of type is run through in brief.
Occultists are thus at no loss to "account for" the birth of children
with an actual caudal appendage, or for the fact that the tail in the human
foetus is, at one period, double the length of the nascent legs. The
potentiality of every organ useful to animal life is locked up in Man -- the
microcosm of the Macrocosm -- and abnormal conditions may not unfrequently
result in the strange phenomena which Darwinists regard as "reversion to
ancestral features."* Reversion, indeed, but scarcely in the sense
contemplated by our present-day empiricists!
-------
C
DARWINISM
AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN: THE ANTHROPOIDS AND THEIR ANCESTRY.
The
public has been notified by more than one eminent modern geologist and man of
science, that "all estimate of geological duration is not merely
impossible, but necessarily imperfect; for we are ignorant of the causes,
though they must have existed, which quickened or retarded the progress of the
sedimentary deposits."** And now another man of Science, as well known
(Croll), calculating that the tertiary age began either 15 or 2 1/2 million of
years ago -- the former being a more correct calculation, according to Esoteric
doctrine, than the latter there -- seems in this case, at least, no very great
disagreement. Exact Science, refusing to see in man "a special
creation" (to a certain degree the Secret Sciences do the same), is at
liberty to ignore the first three, or rather two-and-a-half Races -- the
Spiritual, the semi-astral, and the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Those who with Haeckel regard the gill-clefts with their attendant phenomena as
illustrative of an active function in our amphibian and piscine ancestors (Vide
his XII. and XIII. stages), ought to explain why the "Vegetable with
leaflets" (Lefevre) represented in foetal growth, does not appear in his
22 stages through which the monera have passed in their ascent to Man. Haeckel
does not postulate a vegetable ancestor. The embryological argument is thus a
two-edged sword and here cuts its possessor.
**
"Physiology," Lefevre, p. 480.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 686 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
semi-human
-- of our teachings. But it can hardly do the same in the case of the Third at
its closing period, the Fourth, and the Fifth Races, since it already divides
mankind into Palaeolithic and Neolithic man.* The geologists of France place
man in the mid-miocene age (Gabriel de Mortillet), and some even in the
Secondary period, as de Quatrefages suggests; while the English savants do not
generally accept such antiquity for their species. But they may know better some
day. For "If we consider," says Sir Charles Lyell in "Antiquity
of Man," p. 246 --
"the
absence or extreme scarcity of human bones and works of art in all strata,
whether marine or fresh water, even in those formed in the immediate proximity
of land inhabited by millions of human beings, we shall be prepared for the
general dearth of human memorials in glacial formations, whether recent,
Pleistocene, or of more ancient date. If there were a few wanderers over lands
covered with glaciers, or over seas infested with icebergs, and if a few of
them left their bones or weapons in moraines or in marine drifts, the chances,
after the lapse of thousands of years, of a geologist meeting with one of them
must be infinitesimally small."
The
men of Science avoid pinning themselves down to any definite statement
concerning the age of man, as indeed they hardly could, and thus leave enormous
latitude to bolder speculations. Nevertheless, while the majority of the
Anthropologists carry back the existence of man only into the period of the
post-glacial drift, or what is called the Quaternary period, those of them who,
as Evolutionists, trace man to a common origin with that of the monkey, do not
show great consistency in their speculations. The Darwinian hypothesis demands,
in reality, a far greater antiquity for man, than is even dimly suspected by
superficial thinkers. This is proven by the greatest authorities on the
question -- Mr. Huxley, for instance. Those, therefore, who accept the
Darwinian evolution, ipso facto hold very tenaciously to an antiquity
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We confess to not being able to see any good reasons for Mr. E. Clodd's certain
statement in Knowledge. Speaking of the men of Neolithic times, "concerning
whom Mr. Grant Allen has given . . . a vivid and accurate sketch," and who
are "the direct ancestors of peoples of whom remnants yet lurk in
out-of-the-way corners of Europe, where they have been squeezed or
stranded," he adds to this: "but the men of Palaeolithic times can be
identified with no existing races; they were savages of a more degraded type
than any extant; tall, yet barely erect, with short legs and twisted knees,
with prognathous, that is, projecting ape-like jaws, and small brains. Whence
they come we cannot tell, and their 'grave knoweth no man to this day.' "
Besides
the possibility that there may be men who know whence they came and how they
perished -- it is not true to say that the Palaeolithic men, or their fossils,
are all found with "small brains." The oldest skull of all those
hitherto found, the "Neanderthal skull," is of average capacity, and
Mr. Huxley was compelled to confess that it was no real approximation whatever
to that of the "missing link." There are aboriginal tribes in India
whose brains are far smaller and nearer to that of the ape than any hitherto
found among the skulls of Palaeolithic man.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 687 GRANT ALLEN'S ILLUSIONS.
of
man so very great, indeed, that it falls not so far short of the Occultist's
estimate.* The modest thousands of years of the Encyclopaedia Britannica and
the 100,000 years, to which Anthropology in general limits the age of Humanity,
seem quite microscopical when compared with the figures implied in Mr. Huxley's
bold speculations. The former, indeed, makes of the original race of men
ape-like cave-dwellers. The great English biologist, in his desire to prove
man's pithecoid origin, insists that the transformation of the primordial ape
into a human being must have occurred millions of years back. For in
criticising the excellent average cranial capacity of the Neanderthal skull,
notwithstanding his assertion that it is overlaid with "pithecoid bony walls,"
coupled with Mr. Grant Allen's assurances that this skull "possesses large
bosses on the forehead, strikingly (?) suggestive of those which give the
gorilla its peculiarly fierce appearance,"** (Fortnightly Review, 1882,)
still Mr. Huxley is forced to admit that, in the said skull, his theory is once
more defeated by the "completely human proportions of the accompanying
limb-bones, together with the fair development of the Engis skull." In
consequence of all this we are notified that those skulls, "clearly
indicate that the first traces of the primordial stock whence man has
proceeded, need no longer be sought by those who entertain any form of the
doctrine of progressive development in the newest Tertiaries; but that they may
be looked for in an epoch more distant from the age of the ELEPHAS PRIMIGENIUS
than that is from us"*** (Huxley).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The actual time required for such a theoretical transformation is necessarily
enormous. "If," says Professor Pfaff, "in the hundreds of
thousands of years which you (the Evolutionists) accept between the rise of
palaeolithic man and our own day, a greater distance of man from the brute is
not demonstrable, (the most ancient man was just as far removed from the brute
as the now living man), what reasonable ground can be advanced for believing
that man has been developed from the brute, and has receded further from it by
infinitely small gradations." . . . . "The longer the interval of
time placed between our times and the so-called palaeolithic men, the more
ominous and destructive for the theory of the gradual development of man from
the animal kingdom is the result stated." Huxley states ("Man's Place
in Nature," p. 159) that the most liberal estimates for the antiquity of
Man must be still further extended.
**
The baselessness of this assertion, as well as that of many other exaggerations
of the imaginative Mr. Grant Allen, was ably exposed by the eminent anatomist,
Professor R. Owen, in "Longman's Magazine," No. 1. Must it be
repeated, moreover, that the Cro-Magnon Palaeolithic type is superior to a very
large number of existing races?
***
It thus stands to reason that science would never dream of a pre-tertiary man,
and that de Quatrefages' secondary man makes every Academician and
"F.R.S." faint with horror because, TO PRESERVE THE APE-THEORY,
SCIENCE MUST MAKE MAN POST-SECONDARY. This is just what de Quatrefages has
twitted the Darwinists with, adding, that on the whole there were more scientific
reasons to trace the ape from man than man from the anthropoid. With this
exception science has not one single valid argu- [[Footnote continued on next
page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 688 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
An
untold antiquity for man is thus, then, the scientific sine qua non in the
question of Darwinian Evolution, since the oldest Palaeolithic man shows as yet
no appreciable differentiation from his modern descendant. It is only of late
that modern Science began to widen with every year the abyss that now separates
her from old Science, that of the Plinies and Hippocrateses, none of whom would
have derided the archaic teachings with respect to the evolution of the human
races and animal species, as the present day Scientist -- geologist or
anthropologist -- is sure to do.
Holding,
as we do, that the mammalian type was a post-human Fourth Round product, the
following diagram -- as the writer understands the teaching -- may make the
process clear:--
[[diagram]]
[[text
on diagram:]]
Primeval
Astral Man
Second
Astral Race
Race
Third Semi Astral
Astral
Mammals Prototypes
3rd
Race Man
Separation
into Sexes
4th
Race M, physical
5th
Race Man
Lower
(physical) mammals
Lower
Apes.
The
unnatural union was invariably fertile, because the then mammalian types were
not remote enough from their Root-type* -- Primeval Astral
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] ment to offer against the antiquity of man. But
in this case modern Evolution demands far more than the fifteen million years
of Croll for the Tertiary period, for two very simple but good reasons: (a) No
anthropoid ape has been found before the Miocene period: (b) man's flint relics
have been traced to the Pliocene and their presence suspected, if not accepted
by all, in the Miocene strata. Again, where is the "missing link" in
such case? And how could even a Palaeolithic Savage, a "Man of Canstadt,"
evolve into thinking men from the brute Dryopithecus of the Miocene in so short
a time. One sees now the reason why Darwin rejected the theory that only
60,000,000 years had elapsed since the Cambrian period. "He judges from
the small amount of organic changes since the glacial epoch, and adds that the
previous 140 million years can hardly be considered as sufficient for the
development of the varied forms of life which certainly existed toward the
close of the Cambrian period." (Ch. Gould.)
*
Let us remember in this connection the esoteric teaching which tells us of Man
having had in the Third Round a GIGANTIC APE-LIKE FORM on the astral plane. And
similarly at the close of the Third Race in this Round. Thus it accounts for
the human features of the apes, especially of the later anthropoids -- apart
from the fact that these latter preserve by Heredity a resemblance to their
Atlanto-Lemurian sires.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 689 THE INCUBUS OF ETHNOLOGY.
Man
-- to develop the necessary barrier. Medical science records such cases of
monsters, bred from human and animal parents, even in our own day. The
possibility is, therefore, only one of degree, not of fact. Thus it is that
Occultism solves one of the strangest problems presented to the consideration
of the anthropologist.
The
pendulum of thought oscillates between extremes. Having now finally emancipated
herself from the shackles of theology, Science has embraced the opposite
fallacy; and in the attempt to interpret Nature on purely materialistic lines,
she has built up that most extravagant theory of the ages -- the derivation of
man from a ferocious and brutal ape. So rooted has this doctrine, in one form
or another, now become, that the most Herculean efforts will be needed to bring
about its final rejection. The Darwinian anthropology is the incubus of the
ethnologist, a sturdy child of modem Materialism, which has grown up and
acquired increasing vigour, as the ineptitude of the theological legend of Man's
"creation" became more and more apparent. It has thriven on account
of the strange delusion that -- as a scientist of repute puts it -- "All
hypotheses and theories with respect to the rise of man can be reduced to two
(the Evolutionist and the Biblical exoteric account) . . . There is no other
hypothesis conceivable . . . " !! The anthropology of the secret volumes
is, however, the best possible answer to such a worthless contention.
The
anatomical resemblance between Man and the higher Ape, so frequently cited by
Darwinists as pointing to some former ancestor common to both, presents an
interesting problem, the proper solution of which is to be sought for in the
esoteric explanation of the genesis of the pithecoid stocks. We have given it
as far as was useful, by stating that the bestiality of the primeval mindless
races resulted in the production of huge man-like monsters -- the offspring of
human and animal parents. As time rolled on, and the still semi-astral forms
consolidated into the physical, the descendants of these creatures were
modified by external conditions, until the breed, dwindling in size, culminated
in the lower apes of the Miocene period. With these the later Atlanteans
renewed the sin of the "Mindless" -- this time with full responsibility.
The resultants of their crime were the species of apes now known as Anthropoid.
It
may be useful to compare this very simple theory -- and we are willing to offer
it even as a hypothesis to the unbelievers -- with the Darwinian scheme, so
full of insurmountable obstacles, that no sooner is one of these overcome by a
more or less ingenious hypothesis, than ten worse difficulties are forthwith
discovered behind the one disposed of.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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§
IV.
DURATION
OF THE GEOLOGICAL PERIODS, RACE CYCLES, AND THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN.
MILLIONS
of years have dropped into Lethe, leaving no more recollection in the memory of
the profane than the few millenniums of the orthodox Western chronology as to
the origin of Man and the history of the primeval races.
All
depends on the proofs found for the antiquity of the Human Race. If the
still-debated man of the Pliocene or even the Miocene period was the Homo
primigenius, then science may be right (argumenti causa) in basing its present
anthropology -- as to the date and mode of origin of "Homo sapiens"
-- on the Darwinian theory.* But if the skeletons of man should, at any time, be
discovered in the Eocene strata, but no fossil ape, thereby proving the
existence of man prior to the anthropoid -- then Darwinians will have to
exercise their ingenuity in another direction. And it is said in well-informed
quarters that the XXth century will be yet in its earliest teens, when such
undeniable proof of Man's priority will be forthcoming.
Even
now evidence is brought forward that the dates for the foundations of cities,
civilizations and various other historical events have been absurdly curtailed.
This was done as a peace-offering to Biblical chronology. "No date,"
writes the well-known Palaeontologist, Ed. Lartet, "is to be found in
Genesis, which assigns a time for the birth of primitive humanity"; but
chronologists have for fifteen centuries endeavoured to force the Bible facts
into agreement with their systems. Thus, no less than one hundred and forty
different opinions have been formed about the single date of
"Creation"; "and between the extreme variations there is a discrepancy
of 3,194 years, in the reckoning of the period between the beginning of the
world and the birth of Christ.** Within the last few years, archaeologists have
had to throw back by nearly 3,000 years also the beginnings of Babylonian
civilization. On the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
It may here be remarked that those Darwinians, who with Mr. Grant Allen, place
our "hairy arboreal" ancestors so far back as the Eocene Age, are
landed in rather an awkward dilemma. No fossil anthropoid ape -- much less the
fabulous common ancestor assigned to Man and the Pithecoid -- appears in Eocene
strata. The first presentment of an anthropoid ape is Miocene.
**
Ed. Lartet, "Nouvelles Recherches sur la co-existence de l'homme et des
Grands Mammiferes Fossils de la derniere periode Geologique." Annales des
Soc. Nat., t. XV., p. 256.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 691 PROFESSOR SAYCE SKETCHES OUT CHRONOLOGY.
foundation
cylinder deposited by Nabonidus, the Babylonian king, conquered by Cyrus -- are
found the records of the former, in which he speaks of his discovery of the
foundation stone that belonged to the original temple built by Naram-Sin, son
of Sargon, of Accadia, the conqueror of Babylonia, who, says Nabonidus, lived
3,200 years before his own time."
We
have shown in Isis that those who based history on the Jewish Chronology (a
race which had none of its own and rejected the Western till the XIIth century)
would lose themselves, for the Jewish account could only be followed through
Kabalistic computation, and with a key to it in the hand. . . We had
characterised the late George Smith's chronology of the Chaldeans and
Assyrians, made by him to fit in with that of Moses, as quite fantastic. And
now, in this respect at least, later Assyriologists have corroborated our
denial. For, whereas G. Smith makes Sargon I. (the prototype of Moses in his
legend) reign in the city of Akkad about 1600 B.C. -- probably out of a latent
respect for Moses, whom the Bible makes to flourish 1571 B.C. -- we now learn
from the first of the six Hibbert lectures delivered by Professor A. H. Sayce,
of Oxford, in 1887, that: "Old views of the early annals of Babylonia and
its religions have been much modified by recent discovery. The first Semitic
Empire, it is now agreed, was that of Sargon of Accad, who established a great
library, patronized literature, and extended his conquests across the sea into
Cyprus. It is now known that he reigned as early as B.C. 3750." "The
Accadian monuments found by the French at Tel-loh must be even older, reaching
back to about B.C. 4,000," in other words, to the fourth year of the
World's creation agreeably with Bible chronology, and when Adam was in his swaddling
clothes. Perchance, in a few years more, the 4,000 years may be further
extended. The well-known Oxford lecturer remarked during his disquisitions upon
"The origin and Growth of Religion as illustrated by the Babylonian
Religion" that: "The difficulties of systematically tracing the
origin and history of the Babylonian Religion were considerable. The sources of
our knowledge of the subject were almost wholly monumental, very little help
being obtainable from classical or Oriental writers. Indeed, it was an
undeniable fact that the Babylonian priesthood intentionally swaddled up the
study of the religious texts in coils of almost insuperable difficulty."
That they have confused the dates, and especially the order of events
"intentionally," is undeniable, and for a very good reason: their
writings and records were all esoteric. The Babylonian priests did no more than
the Priests of other ancient nations. Their records were meant only for the
Initiates and their disciples, and it is only the latter who were furnished with
the keys to the true meaning. But Professor
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Sayce's
remarks are promising. For he explains the difficulty by saying that as --
"the Nineveh library contained mostly copies of older Babylonian texts,
and the copyists pitched upon such tablets only as were of special interest to
the Assyrian conquerors, belonging to a comparatively late epoch, this added
much to the greatest of all our difficulties -- namely, our being so often left
in the dark as to the age of our documentary evidence, and the precise worth of
our materials for history." Thus one has a right to infer that some still
fresher discovery may lead to a new necessity for pushing the Babylonian dates
so far beyond the year 4,000 B.C., as to make them pre-Kosmic in the judgment
of every Bible worshipper.
How
much more would paleontology have learned had not millions of works been
destroyed! We talk of the Alexandrian literary lore, which has been thrice
destroyed, namely, by Julius Caesar B.C. 48, in A.D. 390, and lastly in the
year 640, A.D., by the general of Kaliph Omar. What is this in comparison with
the works and records destroyed in the primitive Atlantean Libraries, wherein
records are said to have been traced on the tanned skins of gigantic
antediluvian monsters? Or again the destruction of the countless Chinese books
by command of the founder of the Imperial Tsin dynasty, Tsin Shi Hwang-ti, in
213 B.C.? Surely the brick-clay tablets of the Imperial Babylonian Library, and
the priceless treasures of the Chinese collections could have never contained
such information as one of the aforesaid "Atlantean" skins would have
furnished to the ignorant world.
But
even with the extremely meagre data at hand, Science has been able to see the
necessity of throwing back nearly every Babylonian date, and has done so quite
generously. We learn from Professor Sayce that even the archaic statues at
Tel-loh, in Lower Babylonia, have suddenly been assigned a date contemporary
with the fourth dynasty in Egypt. Unfortunately, dynasties and Pyramids have
the fate of geological periods; their dates are arbitrary, and depend on the
respective whims of the men of science. Archaeologists know now, it is said,
that the afore-mentioned statues are fashioned out of green diorite, that can
only be got in the Peninsula of Sinai; and "they accord in the style of
art, and in the standard of measurement employed, with the similar diorite
statues of the pyramid builders of the third and fourth Egyptian dynasties. . .
. . Moreover, the only possible period for a Babylonian occupation of the
Sinaitic quarries must be placed shortly after the close of the epoch at which
the pyramids were built; and thus only can we understand how the name of Sinai
could have been derived from that of Sin, the primitive Babylonian
moon-god." This is very logical, but what is the date fixed for these
"dynasties"? Sanchoniathon's and Manetho's Synchronistic tables and
their figures have been rejected, or whatever
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 693 NO AGREEMENT BETWEEN SCIENTISTS.
remained
of these after holy Eusebius' handling of them; and still we have to remain satisfied
with the four or five thousand years B.C. so liberally allotted to Egypt. At
all events one point is gained. There is, at last, a city on the face of the
earth which is allowed, at least, 6,000 years, and it is Eridu. Geology has
found it out. According to Professor Sayce again, --
"They
are now also able to obtain time for the silting up of the head of the Persian
Gulf, which demands a lapse of between 5,000 and 6,000 years since the period
when Eridu, now twenty-five miles inland, was the seaport at the mouth of the
Euphrates, and the seat of Babylonian commerce with Southern Arabia and India.
More than all, the new chronology gives time for the long series of eclipses
recorded in the great astronomical work called 'The Observations of Bel'; and
we are also enabled to understand the otherwise perplexing change in the
position of the vernal equinox, which has occurred since our present zodiacal
signs were named by the Earliest Babylonian astronomers. When the Accadian
calendar was arranged and the Accadian months were named, the sun at the vernal
equinox was not, as now, in Pisces, or even in Aries, but in Taurus. The rate
of the precession of the equinoxes being known, we learn that at the vernal
equinox the sun was in Taurus from about 4,700 years B.C., and we thus obtain
astronomical limits of date which cannot be impugned."*
It
may make our position plainer if we state at once that we use Sir C. Lyell's
nomenclature for the ages and periods, and that when we talk of the Secondary
and Tertiary age, of the Eocene, Miocene and Pliocene periods -- this is simply
to make our facts more comprehensible. Since these ages and periods have not
yet been allowed fixed and determined durations, 2 1/2 and 15 million years
being assigned at different times to one and the same age (the Tertiary) -- and
since no two geologists and naturalists seem to agree on this point -- Esoteric
teachings may remain quite indifferent to whether man is shown to appear in the
Secondary or the Tertiary age. If the latter age may be allowed even so much as
15 million years' duration -- well and good; for the Occult doctrine, jealously
guarding its real and correct figures as far as concerns the First, Second, and
two-thirds of the Third Root-Race -- gives clear information upon one point
only -- the age of "Vaivasvata Manu's humanity." (Vide Part I., Vol.
II., "Chronology of the Brahmins.")
Another
definite statement is this: It is during the so-called Eocene period that the
continent to which the Fourth Race belonged, and on which it lived and
perished, showed the first symptoms of sinking. And it was in the Miocene age,
that it was finally destroyed -- save the little island mentioned by Plato. It
is these points that have to be checked by the scientific data.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
From a Report of the "Hibbert Lectures, 1887. Lectures on the Origin and
Growth of Religion, and Illustrated by the Religion of the Ancient
Babylonians." By A. H. Sayce. (London: Williams and Norgate.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 694 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
A.
MODERN
SCIENTIFIC SPECULATIONS ABOUT THE AGES OF THE GLOBE, ANIMAL EVOLUTION, AND MAN.
May
we not be permitted to throw a glance at the works of Specialists? The work on
"Comparative Geology: the World-Life," by Prof. A. Winchell,
furnishes us with curious data. Here we find an opponent of the Nebular theory,
a reverend gentleman, smiting with all the force of the hammer of his odium
theologicum on the rather contradictory hypothesis of the great stars of
Science, in the matter of sidereal and cosmical phenomena based on their
respective relations to terrestrial durations. The "too imaginative
physicists and naturalists" do not fare very easily under this shower of
their own speculative figures when placed side by side, and cut rather a sorry
figure. Thus he shows:--
"Sir
William Thomson, on the basis of the observed principles of cooling, concludes
that no more than ten million years (elsewhere he makes it 100,000,000) can
have elapsed since the temperature of the Earth was sufficiently reduced to
sustain vegetable life.* Helmholz calculates that twenty million years would
suffice for the original nebula to condense to the present dimensions of the
sun. Prof. S. Newcomb requires only ten millions to attain a temperature of 212
[[degrees]] Fahr.** Croll estimates seventy million years for the diffusion of
the heat, etc.*** Bischof calculates that 350 million years would be required
for the earth to cool from a temperature of 2,000 [[degrees]] to 200
[[degrees]] Centigrade. Read, basing his estimate on observed rates of
denudation, demands 500 million years since sedimentation began in Europe.****
Lyell ventured a rough guess of 240 million years; Darwin thought 300 million
years demanded by the organic transformations which his theory contemplates,
and Huxley is disposed to demand a 1,000 millions" (!!).
To
this Prof. Winchell observes that "some biologists . . . . seem to close
their eyes tight and leap at one bound into the abyss of millions of years, of
which they have no more adequate estimate than of infinity."***** Then he
proceeds to give what he takes to be more correct geological figures: a few
will suffice.
According
to Sir W. Thomson "the whole incrusted age of the world is 80,000,000
years"; and agreeably with Prof. Houghton's calculations of a minimum
limit for the time since the elevation of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Nat. Philos. App. D., Trans. Royal Soc., Edin.
**
"Popular Astronomy," p. 509.
***
"Climate and Time," p. 335.
****
Read. Address, "Liverpool Geolog. Society, 1876."
*****
"World-Life," p. 180.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 695 MATERIALISTS AT LOGGER-HEADS.
Europe
and Asia, three hypothetical ages for three possible and different modes of
upheaval are given: varying from the modest figures of 640,730 years, through
4,170,000 years to the tremendous figures of 27,491,000 years!!
This
is enough, as one can see, to cover our claims for the four continents and even
the figures of the Brahmins.
Further
calculations, the details of which the reader may find in Prof. Winchell's
work,* bring Houghton to an approximation of the sedimentary age of the globe
-- 11,700,000 years. These figures are found too small by the author, who
forthwith extends them to 37,000,000 years.
Again,
according to Croll,** 2,500,000 years "represents the time since the
beginning of the Tertiary age" in one work; and according to another
modification of his view, 15,000,000 only have elapsed since the beginning of
the Eocene period;*** which, being the first of the three Tertiary periods,
leaves the student suspended between 2 1/2 and 15 millions. But if one has to
hold to the former moderate figures, then the whole incrusted age of the world
would be 131,600,000 years.****
As
the last glacial period extended from 240,000 to 80,000 years ago (Prof.
Croll's view), therefore, man must have appeared on earth from 100 to 120,000
years ago. But, as says Prof. Winchell, with reference to the antiquity of the
Mediterranean race, "it is generally believed to have made its appearance
during the later decline of the continental glaciers." Yet, he adds, this
"does not concern, however, the antiquity of the Black and Brown races,
since there are numerous evidences of their existence in more southern regions,
in times remotely pre-glacial" (p. 379).
As
a specimen of geological certainty and agreement, these figures also may be
added. Three authorities -- Messrs. T. Belt, F.G.S.; J. Croll, F.R.S.; and
Robert Hunt, F.R.S., -- in estimating the time that has elapsed since the
Glacial epoch, give absolutely different figures, namely:--
Mr.
Belt ... 20,000 years.
Mr.
J. Croll ... 240,000 "
Mr.
R. Hunt ... 80,000 "
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"World-Life," pp. 367-8.
**
"Climate and Time."
***
Quoted in Mr. Ch. Gould's "Mythical Monsters," p. 84.
****
According to Bischof, 1,004,177 years -- according to Chevandier's calculations
672,788 years -- were required for the so-called coal formation. "The
tertiary strata, about 1,000 feet in thickness, required for their development
about 350,000 years." See "Force and Matter," Buchner, J. F.
Collingwood's edition.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(But
see "The Ice-Age Climate and Time," Popular Science Review, Vol.
xiv., p. 242.)
No
wonder if Mr. Pengelly confesses that "it is at present and perhaps always
will be IMPOSSIBLE to reduce, even approximately, geological time into years or
even into millenniums" (Vide supra, foot-note). A wise word of advice from
the Occultists to the gentlemen geologists: they ought to imitate the cautious
example of Masons. As chronology, they say, cannot measure the era of the
creation, therefore, their "Ancient and Primitive Rite" uses
000,000,000 as the nearest approach to reality.
The
same uncertainty, contradictions and disagreement reign on all other subjects.
The
scientific authorities on the Descent of Man are again, for all practical
purposes, a delusion and a snare. There are many anti-Darwinists in the British
Association, and "Natural Selection" begins to lose ground. Though at
one time the saviour, which seemed to rescue the learned theorists from a final
intellectual collapse into the abyss of fruitless hypothesis, it begins to be
distrusted. Even Mr. Huxley is showing signs of truancy to "Selection,"
and thinks "natural selection not the sole factor":--
"We
greatly suspect that she (Nature) does make considerable jumps in the way of
variation now and then, and that these saltations give rise to some of the gaps
which appear to exist in the series of known forms" (Review of Kolliker's
Criticisms).
Again,
in "Fallacies of Darwinism," (p. 160), C. R. Bree, M.D., argues in
this wise in considering the fatal gaps in Mr. Darwin's theory:--
"It
must be again called to mind that the intermediate forms must have been vast in
numbers. . . . . Mr. St. George Mivart believes that change in evolution may
occur more quickly than is generally believed; but Mr. Darwin sticks manfully
to his belief, and again tells us 'natura non facit saltum' " -- wherein
the Occultists are at one with Mr. Darwin.
Esoteric
teaching fully corroborates the idea of nature's slowness and dignified
progression. "Planetary impulses" are all periodical. Yet this
Darwinian theory, correct as it is in minor particulars, agrees no more with
Occultism than with Mr. Wallace, who, in his "Contributions to the Theory
of Natural Selection," shows pretty conclusively that something more than
"natural selection" was requisite to produce physical man.
Let
us, meanwhile, examine the scientific objections to this scientific theory, and
see what they are.
Mr.
St. George Mivart is found arguing that --
.
. . . ". . . . it will be a moderate computation to allow 25,000,000 for
the deposition of the strata down to and including the Upper Silurian. If,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 697 MIVART'S BILLIONS OF YEARS.
then,
the evolutionary work done during this deposition only represents a hundredth
part of the sum total, we shall require 2,500,000,000 years for the complete
development of the whole animal Kingdom to its present state. Even one quarter
of this, however, would far exceed the time which physics and astronomy seem
able to allow for the completion of this process. Finally, a difficulty exists
as to the reason of the absence of rich fossiliferous deposits in the oldest
strata -- if life was then as abundant and varied, as on the Darwinian theory
it must have been. Mr. Darwin himself admits 'the case at present must remain
inexplicable'; and this may be truly urged as a valid argument against the
views entertained in his own work. . . . .
"Thus,
then, we find a wonderful (and on Darwinian principles all but inexplicable)
absence of minutely transitional forms. All the most marked groups . . . . .
appear at once upon the scene. Even the horse, the animal whose pedigree has
been probably best preserved, affords no conclusive evidence of specific origin
by infinitesimal fortuitous variations; while some forms, as the
labyrinthodonts and trilobites, which seemed to exhibit gradual change, are
shown by further investigation to do nothing of the sort. . . . All these
difficulties are avoided if we admit that new forms of animal life of all
degrees of complexity appear from time to time with comparative suddenness,
being evolved according to laws in part depending on surrounding conditions, in
part internal -- similar to the way in which crystals (and perhaps from recent
researches the lowest forms of life) build themselves up according to the
internal laws of their component substance and in harmony and correspondence
with all environing influences and conditions." ("Genesis of
Species," p. 142.)
"The
internal laws of their component substance." These are wise words, and the
admission of the possibility, a prudent one. But how can these internal laws be
ever recognized, if Occult teaching is discarded? As a friend writes, while
drawing our attention to the above speculations: "In other words, the
doctrine of Planetary Life-Impulses must be admitted. Otherwise, why are
species now stereotyped, and why do even domesticated breeds of pigeons and
many animals relapse into their ancestral types when left to themselves?"
But the teaching about planetary life-impulses has to be clearly defined and as
clearly understood if present confusion would not be made still more
perplexing. All these difficulties would vanish as the shadows of night
disappear before the light of the rising Sun, if the following esoteric axioms
were admitted: (a) the enormous antiquity (and the existence) of our planetary
chain; (b) the actuality of the Seven Rounds; (c) the separation of human races
(outside the purely anthropological division) into Seven distinct Root-Races, of
which our present European Humanity is the fifth; (d) the antiquity of Man in
this (Fourth) Round; and finally (e) that as these Races evolve from
ethereality to materiality, and from the latter back again into relative
physical tenuity of texture, so every living (so-called) organic species of
animals with vegetation included, changes with every new Root-Race. Were this
admitted, if even only
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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along
with other, and surely, on maturer consideration, no less absurd, suppositions,
if Occult theories have to be considered "absurd" at present, then
every difficulty would be made away with. Surely, Science ought to try and be
more logical than it now is, as it can hardly maintain the theory of man's
descent from an anthropoidal ancestor, and deny in the same breath any
reasonable antiquity to that man! Once Mr. Huxley talks of "the vast
intellectual chasm between the man and ape," and "the present enormous
gulf between the two,"* and if he admits the necessity of extending
Scientific allowances for the age of man on earth for such slow and progressive
development, then all those men of Science, who are of his way of thinking, at
any rate, ought to come to some approximate figures, at least, and agree upon
the probable duration of those Pliocene, Miocene, and Eocene periods of which
so much is said, and about which nothing definite is known -- if they dare not
venture beyond. But no two scientists seem to agree. Every period seems to be a
mystery in its duration, and a thorn in the side of the geologists; and, as
just shown, they are unable to harmonize their conclusions even with regard to
the comparatively recent geological formations. Thus, no reliance can be placed
on their figures when they do give any, for with them it is all either millions
or simply thousands of years!
That
which is said may be strengthened by the confessions made by themselves and the
synopsis of it, found in that "Circle of Sciences," the Encyclopaedia
Britannica, which shows the mean accepted in the geological and anthropological
riddles. In that work the cream of the most authoritative opinions is skimmed
off; nevertheless, we find in it the refusal to assign any definite chronological
date, even to such, comparatively speaking, late epochs as the Neolithic era,
though, for a wonder, an age is established for the beginnings of certain
geological periods; at any rate of some few, the duration of which could hardly
be shortened any more, without an immediate conflict with facts.
Thus,
it is surmised in the great Encyclopaedia (Vol. X., art. "Geology,"
p. 227), that "100 million years have passed . . . . . since the
solidification of our Earth, when the earliest form of life appeared upon
it.**"
But
it seems quite as hopeless to try to convert the modern Geologists and
Ethnologists as it is to make Darwinian Naturalists perceive their mistakes.
About the Aryan Root-Race and its origins,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Man's Place in Nature," p. 102, note.
**
"100,000,000 of years is probably amply sufficient for all the
requirements of Geology," says the text. In France, some savants do not
find it nearly "sufficient." Le Couturier claims for the same 350
million years; Buffon was satisfied with 34 millions -- but there are those in
the more modern schools who will not be content under 500 million years.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 699 THE ADEPT-ASTRONOMER.
Science
knows as little as of the men from other planets. With the exception of
Flammarion and a few mystics among astronomers, even the habitableness of other
planets is mostly denied. Yet such great adept astronomers were the Scientists
of the earliest races of the Aryan stock, that they seem to have known far more
about the races of Mars and Venus than the modern Anthropologist knows of those
of the early stages of the Earth.
Let
us leave modern Science aside for a moment and turn to ancient knowledge. As we
are assured by Archaic Scientists that all such geological cataclysms -- from
the upheaval of oceans, deluges, and shifting of continents, down to the
present year's cyclones, hurricanes, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tidal
waves, and even the extraordinary weather and seeming shifting of seasons which
perplexes all European and American meteorologists -- are due to, and depend on
the moon and planets; aye, that even modest and neglected constellations have
the greatest influence on the meteorological and cosmical changes, over, and
within our earth, let us give one moment's attention to our sidereal despots
and rulers of our globe and men. Modern Science denies any such influence;
archaic Science affirms it. We may see what both say with regard to this
question.
-------
B.
ON
CHAINS OF PLANETS AND THEIR PLURALITY.
Did
the Ancients know of worlds besides their own? What are the data of the
Occultists in affirming that every globe is a septenary chain of worlds -- of
which only one member is visible -- and that these are, were, or will be,
"man-bearing," just as every visible star or planet is? What do they
mean by "a moral and physical influence" of the sidereal worlds on
our globes?
Such
are the questions often put to us, and they have to be considered from every
aspect. To the first of the two queries the answer is:-- We believe it because
the first law in nature is uniformity in diversity, and the second -- analogy.
"As above, so below." That time is gone by for ever, when, although
our pious ancestors believed that our earth was in the centre of the universe,
the church and her arrogant servants could insist that we should regard as a
blasphemy the supposition that any other planet could be inhabited. Adam and
Eve, the Serpent, and the Original Sin followed by atonement through blood,
have been too long in the way, and thus was universal truth sacrificed to the
insane conceit of us little men.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 700 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Now
what are the proofs thereof? Except inferential evidence and logical reasoning,
there are none for the profane. To the Occultists, who believe in the knowledge
acquired by countless generations of Seers and Initiates, the data offered in
the Secret Books are all-sufficient. The general public needs other proofs,
however. There are some Kabalists and even some Eastern Occultists, who,
failing to find uniform evidence upon this point in all the mystic works of the
nations, hesitate to accept the teaching. Even such "uniform
evidence" will be forthcoming presently. Meanwhile, we may approach the
subject from its general aspect, and see whether belief in it is so very
absurd, as some scientists along with other Nicodemuses would have it.
Unconsciously, perhaps, in thinking of a plurality of inhabited
"Worlds," we imagine them to be like the globe we inhabit and peopled
by beings more or less resembling ourselves. And in so doing we are only
following a natural instinct. Indeed, so long as the enquiry is confined to the
life-history of this globe we can speculate on this question with some profit,
and ask ourselves what were the "Worlds" spoken of in all the ancient
scriptures of Humanity, with some hope of at least asking an intelligible
question. But how do we know (a) what kind of Beings inhabit the globes in
general; and (b) whether those who rule planets superior to our own, do not
exercise the same influence on our earth consciously, that we may exercise
unconsciously -- say on the small planets (planetoids or asteroids) in the long
run, by our cutting the Earth to pieces, opening canals, and thereby entirely
changing our climates. Of course, like Caesar's wife, the planetoids cannot be
affected by our suspicion. They are too far, etc., etc. Believing in esoteric
astronomy, however, we are not so sure of that.
But
when, extending our speculations beyond our planetary chain, we try to cross the
limits of the solar system, then indeed we act as do presumptuous fools. For --
while accepting the old Hermetic axiom: "As above, so below" -- we
may well believe that as Nature on Earth displays the most careful economy,
utilizing every vile and waste thing in her marvellous transformations, and
withal never repeating herself -- we may justly conclude that there is no other
globe in all her infinite systems so closely resembling this earth that the
ordinary powers should be able to imagine and reproduce its semblance and
containment.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We are taught that the highest Dhyan Chohans, or Planetary Spirits (beyond the
cognizance of the law of analogy), are in ignorance of what lies beyond the
visible planetary systems, since their essence cannot assimilate itself to that
of worlds beyond our solar system. When they reach a higher stage of evolution
these other universes will be open to them; meanwhile they have complete
knowledge of all the worlds within and beneath the limits of our solar system.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 701 STATES OF CONSCIOUSNESS.
And
indeed we find in the romances as in all the so-called scientific fictions and
spiritistic revelations from moon, stars, and planets, merely fresh
combinations or modifications of the men and things, the passions and forms of
life with which we are familiar, when even on the other planets of our own
system nature and life are entirely different from ours. Swedenborg was
pre-eminent in inculcating such an erroneous belief.
But
even more. The ordinary man has no experience of any state of consciousness
other than that to which the physical senses link him. Men dream; they sleep the
profound sleep which is too deep for dreams to impress the physical brain; and
in these states there must still be consciousness. How, then, while these
mysteries remain unexplored, can we hope to speculate with profit on the nature
of globes which, in the economy of nature, must needs belong to states of
consciousness other and quite different from any which man experiences here?
And
this is true to the letter. For even great adepts (those initiated of course),
trained seers though they are, can claim thorough acquaintance with the nature
and appearance of planets and their inhabitants belonging to our solar system
only. They know that almost all the planetary worlds are inhabited, but can
have access to -- even in spirit -- only those of our system; and they are also
aware how difficult it is, even for them, to put themselves into full rapport
even with the planes of consciousness within our system, but differing from the
states of consciousness possible on this globe; i.e., on the three planes of the
chain of spheres beyond our earth. Such knowledge and intercourse are possible
to them because they have learned how to penetrate to planes of consciousness
which are closed to the perceptions of ordinary men; but were they to
communicate their knowledge, the world would be no wiser, because it lacks that
experience of other forms of perception which alone could enable them to grasp
what was told them.
Still
the fact remains that most of the planets, as the stars beyond our system, are
inhabited, a fact which has been admitted by the men of science themselves.
Laplace and Herschell believed it, though they wisely abstained from imprudent
speculation; and the same conclusion has been worked out and supported with an
array of scientific considerations by C. Flammarion, the well-known French
Astronomer. The arguments he brings forward are strictly scientific, and such
as to appeal even to a materialistic mind, which would remain unmoved by such
thoughts as those of Sir David Brewster, the famous physicist, who writes:--
"Those
'barren spirits' or 'base souls,' as the poet calls them, who might be led to
believe that the Earth is the only inhabited body in the universe, would have
no difficulty in conceiving the earth also to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 702 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
have
been destitute of inhabitants. What is more, if such minds were acquainted with
the deductions of geology, they would admit that it was uninhabited for myriads
of years; and here we come to the impossible conclusion that during these
myriads of years there was not a single intelligent creature in the vast
domains of the Universal King, and that before the protozoic formations there
existed neither plant nor animal in all the infinity of space"!*
Flammarion
shows, in addition, that all the conditions of life -- even as we know it --
are present on some at least of the planets, and points to the fact that these
conditions must be much more favourable on them than they are on our Earth.
Thus
scientific reasoning, as well as observed facts, concur with the statements of
the seer and the innate voice in man's own heart in declaring that life --
intelligent, conscious life -- must exist on other worlds than ours.
But
this is the limit beyond which the ordinary faculties of man cannot carry him.
Many are the romances and tales, some purely fanciful, others bristling with
scientific knowledge, which have attempted to imagine and describe life on
other globes. But one and all, they give but some distorted copy of the drama
of life around us. It is either, with Voltaire, the men of our own race under a
microscope, or, with de Bergerac, a graceful play of fancy and satire; but we
always find that at bottom the new world is but the one we ourselves live in.
So strong is this tendency that even great natural, though non-initiated seers,
when untrained, fall a victim to it; witness Swedenborg, who goes so far as to
dress the inhabitants of Mercury, whom he meets with in the spirit-world, in
clothes such as are worn in Europe.
Commenting
on this tendency, Flammarion in his work "Sur la Pluralite des Mondes
habites," says:-- "It seems as if in the eyes of those authors who
have written on this subject, the Earth were the type of the Universe, and the
Man of Earth, the type of the inhabitants of the heavens. It is, on the
contrary, much more probable, that, since the nature of other planets is
essentially varied, and the surroundings and conditions of existence
essentially different, while the forces which preside over the creation of
beings and the substances which enter into their mutual constitution are
essentially distinct, it would follow that our mode of existence cannot be
regarded as in any way applicable to other globes.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Since no single atom in the entire Kosmos is without life and consciousness,
how much more then its mighty globes? -- though they remain sealed books to us
men who can hardly enter even into the consciousness of the forms of life
nearest us?
We
do not know ourselves, then how can we, if we have never been trained to it and
initiated, fancy that we can penetrate the consciousness of the smallest of the
animals around us?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 703 WORLDS MENTIONED IN THE BIBLE.
Those
who have written on this subject have allowed themselves to be dominated by
terrestrial ideas, and fell therefore into error." ("Pluralite des Mondes,"
p. 439.)
But
Flammarion himself falls into the very error which he here condemns, for he
tacitly takes the conditions of life on earth as the standard by which to
determine the degree to which other planets are adapted for habitation by
"other Humanities."
Let
us, however, leave these profitless and empty speculations, which, though they
seem to fill our hearts with a glow of enthusiasm and to enlarge our mental and
spiritual grasp, do but in reality cause a factitious stimulation, and blind us
more and more to our ignorance not only of the world we inhabit, but even of
the infinitude contained within ourselves.
When,
therefore, we find in the Bibles of Humanity "other worlds" spoken
of, we may safely conclude that they not only refer to other states of our
planetary chain and Earth, but also to other inhabited globes -- stars and
planets; withal, that the latter were never speculated upon. The whole of
antiquity believed in the Universality of life. But no really initiated seer of
any civilized nation has ever taught that life on other stars could be judged
by the standard of terrestrial life. That which is generally meant by
"earths" and worlds, relates (a) to the "rebirths" of our
globe after each manvantara and a long period of "obscuration"; and
(b) to the periodical and entire changes of the Earth's surface, when
Continents disappear, to make room for Oceans, and Oceans and Seas are
violently displaced and sent rolling to the poles, to cede their emplacements
to new Continents.
We
may begin with the Bible -- the youngest of the World-Scriptures. In
Ecclesiastes, chap. i., we read these words of the King-Initiate:-- "One
generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earth abideth
for ever," and again, "The thing that hath been, it is that which
shall be; and that which is done, is that which shall be done, and there is no
new thing under the sun." Under these words it is not easy to see the
reference to the successive cataclysms by which the Races of mankind are swept
away, or, going further back, to the various transitions of the globe during
the process of its formation. But if we are told that this refers only to our
world as we now see it, -- then we shall refer the reader to the New Testament,
where St. Paul speaks (in Hebrews i.) of the Son (the manifested Power) whom
(God) hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds
(plural.)*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This relates to the Logos of every Cosmogony. The unknown Light -- with which
he is said to be co-eternal and coeval -- is reflected in the
"First-Born," the Protogonos; [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 704 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
This
"Power" is Hokhmah or (Chochmah) the Wisdom and the Word. We shall
probably be told that by this term "worlds," the stars, heavenly
bodies, etc., were meant. But apart from the fact that "stars" were
not known as "worlds" to the ignorant editors of the Epistles, if
even they must have been known to Paul, who was an Initiate ("a
Master-Builder"), we can quote on this point an eminent theologian,
Cardinal Wiseman. In Vol. I, p. 309, of his work treating of the indefinite
period of the six days -- or shall we say "too definite" -- period of
the six days of creation and the 6,000 years, he confesses that we are in total
darkness upon the meaning of that statement of St. Paul, unless we are
permitted to suppose that allusion is made in it, i.e., the period which
elapsed between the first and second verses of chapter i. of Genesis -- to
those primitive revolutions, i.e., the destructions and the re-productions (of
the world) indicated in chapter i. of Ecclesiastes; or, to accept, with so many
others, and in its literal sense, the passage (Hebrews i. 1,) that speaks of
the creation of worlds -- in plural. . . . . It is very singular, he adds, that
all the cosmogonies should agree to suggest the same idea, and preserve the
tradition of a first series of revolutions, owing to which the world was
destroyed and again renewed.
Had
the Cardinal studied the Zohar his doubts would have changed to certitude. Thus
saith Idra Suta (in the "Zohar," iii., 292, c.): "There were old
worlds which perished as soon as they came into existence; worlds with and
without form called Scintillas -- for they were like the sparks under the
Smith's hammer, flying in all directions. Some were the primordial worlds which
could not continue long, because the 'aged' -- his name be sanctified -- had
not as yet assumed his form,* the workman was not yet the 'Heavenly man.'
"** Again in the Midrash, written long before the Kabala of Simeon Ben
Iochai, Rabbi Abahu explains:-- "The Holy One, blessed be his name, has
successively formed and destroyed sundry worlds before this one*** . . . Now
this refers both to the first races (the "Kings of Edom") and to the
worlds destroyed."**** "Destroyed" means here what we call
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] and the Demiurgos or the Universal Mind directs
his Divine Thought into the Chaos that under the fashioning of minor gods will
be divided into the seven oceans -- Sapta samudras. It is Purusha, Ahura Mazda,
Osiris, etc., and finally the gnostic Christos, who is in the Kabala, Hokhmah
or Wisdom the "Word."
*
The form of Tikkun or the Protogonos, the "first-born," i.e., the
universal form and idea, had not yet been mirrored in Chaos.
**
The "Heavenly man" is Adam Kadmon -- the synthesis of the Sephiroth,
as "Manu Swayambhuva" is the synthesis of the Prajapatis.
***
Bereshith Rabba, Parsha IX.
****
This refers to the three Rounds that preceded our fourth Round.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 705 WHO ARE THE KINGS OF EDOM?
"obscurations."
This becomes evident when one reads further on the explanation given:--
"Still when it is said that they (the worlds) perished, it is only meant
thereby that they (their humanities) lacked the true form, till the human (our)
form came into being, in which all things are comprised and which contains all
forms. . . . * -- it does not mean death, but only denotes a sinking down from
their status . . ." (that of worlds in activity).**
When,
therefore, we read of the destruction of the worlds, this word has many
meanings, which are very clear in several of the Commentaries on the Zohar and
Kabalistic treatises. As said elsewhere, it means not only the destruction of many
worlds which have ended their life-career, but also that of the several
continents which have disappeared, as also their decline and geographical
change of place.
The
mysterious "Kings of Edom" are sometimes referred to as the
"Worlds" that had been destroyed; but it is a "cloak." The
Kings who reigned in Edom before there reigned a King in Israel, or the
"Edomite Kings," could never symbolize the "prior worlds,"
but only the "attempts at men" on this globe: the "pre-Adamite
races," of which the Zohar speaks, and which we explain as the First
Root-Race. For, as, speaking of the six Earths (the six "limbs" of
Microprosopus) it is said that the Seventh (our Earth) came not into the
computation when the Six were created (the six spheres above our globe in the
terrestrial chain), so the first seven Kings of Edom are left out of
calculation in Genesis. By the law of analogy and permutation, in the
"Chaldean Book of Numbers," as also in the "Books of
Knowledge" and of "Wisdom," the "seven primordial
worlds" mean also the "seven primordial" races (sub-races of the
First Root-Race of the Shadows); and, again, the Kings of Edom are the sons of
"Esau the father of the Edomites" (Gen. xxxvi. 43); i.e., Esau
represents in the Bible the race which stands between the Fourth and the Fifth,
the Atlantean and the Aryan. "Two nations are in thy womb," saith the
Lord to Rebekah; and Esau was red and hairy. From verse 24 to 34, ch. xxv. of
Genesis contains the allegorical history of the birth of the Fifth Race.
"And
the Kings of ancient days died and their chiefs (crowns) were found no
more," says Siphrah Dzenioutha (3). . . . "The Head of a nation that
has not been formed at the beginning in the likeness of the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This sentence contains a dual sense and a profound mystery in the occult
sciences the secret of which if, and when, known -- confers tremendous powers
on the Adept to change his visible form.
**
Idra Suta, Zohar, iii. 136, c. "A sinking down from their status" --
is plain; from active worlds they have fallen into a temporary obscuration --
they rest, and hence are entirely changed.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 706 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
White
Head: its people is not from this Form," states the Zohar (iii.). . . .
"Before it (the White Head, the Fifth Race or Ancient of the Ancients)
arranged itself in its (own, or present) Form . . . all worlds have been
destroyed; therefore it is written: And Bela, the Son of Beor, reigned in
Edom" (Gen. xxxvi.). Here the "worlds" stand for races.
"And he (such or another King of Edom) died, and another reigned in his
stead" (ibid 31 et seq.).
No
Kabalist who has hitherto treated of the symbolism and allegory hidden under
these "Kings of Edom" seems to have perceived more than one aspect of
it. They are neither the "worlds that were destroyed," nor the
"Kings that died" -- alone; but both, and much more, to treat of
which there is no space at present. Therefore, leaving the mystic parables of
the Zohar, we will return to the hard facts of materialistic science; first,
however, citing a few from the long list of great thinkers who have believed in
the plurality of inhabited worlds in general, and in worlds that preceded our
own. These are, the great mathematicians Leibnitz and Bernouilli, Isaac Newton
himself, as can be read in his "Optics"; Buffon, the naturalist;
Condillac, the sceptic; Bailly, Lavater, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and, as a
contrast to the two last named -- suspected at least of mysticism -- Diderot
and most of the writers of the Encyclopaedia. Following these come Kant, the
founder of modern philosophy; the poet philosophers, Goethe, Krause, Schelling;
and many astronomers, from Bode, Fergusson and Herschell to Lalande and
Laplace, with their many disciples in more recent years.
A
brilliant list of honoured names indeed; but the facts of physical astronomy
speak even more strongly in favour of the presence of life, even organised
life, on other planets. Thus in four meteorites which fell respectively at
Alais in France, the Cape of Good Hope, in Hungary, and again in France, there
was found, on analysis, graphite, a form of carbon known to be invariably
associated with organic life on this earth of ours. And that the presence of
this carbon is not due to any action occurring within our atmosphere is shown
by the fact that carbon has been found in the very centre of a meteorite; while
in one which fell at Argueil, in the south of France, in 1857, there was found
water and turf, the latter being always formed by the decomposition of
vegetable substances.
And
further, examining the astronomical conditions of the other planets, it is easy
to show that several are far better adapted for the development of life and
intelligence -- even under the conditions with which men are acquainted -- than
is our earth. For instance, on the planet Jupiter the seasons, instead of
varying between wide limits as do ours, change by almost imperceptible degrees,
and last twelve times
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 707 WHAT FLAMMARION TELLS US.
as
long as ours. Owing to the inclination of its axis the seasons on Jupiter are
due almost entirely to the eccentricity of its orbit, and hence change slowly
and regularly. We shall be told, that no life is possible on Jupiter, as it is
in an incandescent state. But not all astronomers agree with this. For instance
what we say, is said by M. Flammarion: and he ought to know.
On
the other hand Venus would be less adapted for human life such as exists on
earth, since its seasons are more extreme and its changes of temperature more
sudden; though it is curious that the duration of the day is nearly the same on
the four inner planets, Mercury, Venus, the Earth and Mars.
On
Mercury, the Sun's heat and light are seven times what they are on the Earth,
and astronomy teaches that it is enveloped in a very dense atmosphere. And as
we see that life appears more active on earth in proportion to the light and
heat of the sun, it would seem more than probable that its intensity is far,
far greater on Mercury than here.
Venus,
like Mercury, has a very dense atmosphere, as also has Mars and the snows which
cover their poles, the clouds which hide their surface, the geographical
configuration of their seas and continents, the variations of seasons and
climates, are all closely analogous -- at least to the eye of the physical
astronomer. But such facts and the considerations to which they give rise, have
reference only to the possibility of the existence on these planets of human
life as known on earth. That some forms of life such as we know are possible on
these planets, has been long since abundantly demonstrated, and it seems
perfectly useless to go into detailed questions of the physiology, etc., etc.,
of these hypothetical inhabitants, since after all the reader can arrive only
at an imaginary extension of his familiar surroundings. It is better to rest
content with the three conclusions which M. C. Flammarion, whom we have so
largely quoted, formulates as rigorous and exact deductions from the known
facts and laws of science.
I.
The various forces which were active in the beginning of evolution gave birth
to a great variety of beings on the several worlds; both in the organic and
inorganic kingdoms.
II.
The animated beings were constituted from the first according to forms and
organisms in correlation with the physiological state of each inhabited globe.
III.
The humanities of other worlds differ from us, as much in their inner
organization as in their external physical type.
Finally
the reader who may be disposed to question the validity of these conclusions as
being opposed to the Bible, may be referred to an Appendix in M. Flammarion's
work dealing in detail with this question; since in a work like the present it
seems unnecessary to point out the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 708 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
logical
absurdity of those churchmen, who deny the plurality of worlds on such grounds.
In
this connection we may well recall those days when the burning zeal of the
Primitive Church opposed the doctrine of the earth's rotundity, on the ground
that the nations at the Antipodes would be outside the pale of salvation; and
again how long it took for a nascent science to break down the idea of a solid
firmament, in whose grooves the stars moved for the special edification of
terrestrial humanity.
The
theory of the earth's rotation was met by a like opposition -- even to the
martyrdom of its discoverers -- because, besides depriving our orb of its
dignified central position in space, this theory produced an appalling
confusion of ideas as to the Ascension -- the terms "up" and
"down" being proved to be merely relative, thus complicating not a
little the question of the precise locality of heaven.*
According
to the best modern calculations, there are no less than 500,000,000 of stars of
various magnitudes, within the range of the best telescopes. As to the
distances between them, they are incalculable. Is, then, our microscopical
Earth -- a "grain of sand on an infinite sea-shore" -- the only
centre of intelligent life? Our own Sun, itself 1,300 times larger than our
planet, sinks into insignificance beside that giant Sun -- Sirius, -- and the
latter in its turn is dwarfed by other luminaries in infinite Space. The
self-centred conception of Jehovah as the special guardian of a small and
obscure semi-nomadic tribe, is tolerable beside that which confines sentient
existence to our microscopical globe. The primary reasons were without doubt:
(1) Astronomical ignorance on the part of the early Christians, coupled with an
exaggerated appreciation of man's own importance -- a crude form of
selfishness; and (2) the dread that, if the hypothesis of millions of other
inhabited globes was accepted, the crushing rejoinder would ensue -- "Was
there then a Revelation to each world?" involving the idea of the Son of
God eternally "going the rounds" as it were. Happily it is now
unnecessary to waste time and energy in proving the possibility of the
existence of such worlds. All intelligent persons admit it. That which now
remains to be demonstrated is, that if it is once proven that there are
inhabited worlds besides our own with humanities entirely different from each
other as from our own -- as maintained in the Occult
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In that learned and witty work, "God and his Book," by the
redoubtable "Saladin" of Agnostic repute, the amusing calculation
that, if Christ had ascended with the rapidity of a cannon ball, he would not
have reached even Sirius yet, reminds one vividly of the past. It raises,
perhaps, a not ill-founded suspicion that even our age of scientific
enlightenment may be as grossly absurd in its materialistic negations, as the
men of the middle ages were absurd and materialistic in their religious
affirmations.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 709 SCIENCE AND OCCULTISM MAY YET AGREE.
Sciences
-- then the evolution of the preceding races is half proved. For where is that
physicist or geologist who is prepared to maintain that the Earth has not changed
scores of times, in the millions of years which have elapsed in the course of
its existence; and changing its "skin," as it is called in Occultism,
that the Earth has not had each time her special humanities adapted to such
atmospheric and climatic conditions as were entailed. And if so, why should not
our preceding four and entirely different mankinds have existed and thrived
before our Adamic (Fifth Root) Race?
Before
closing our debates, however, we have to examine the so-called organic evolution
more closely. Let us search well and see whether it is quite impossible to make
our Occult data and chronology agree up to a certain point with those of
Science.
-------
C.
SUPPLEMENTARY
REMARKS ON ESOTERIC GEOLOGICAL CHRONOLOGY.
It
seems, however, possible to calculate the approximate duration of the
geological periods from the combined data of Science and Occultism now before
us. Geology is, of course, able to determine almost with certainty one thing --
the thickness of the several deposits. Now, it also stands to reason that the
time required for the deposition of any stratum on a sea-bottom must bear a
strict proportion to the thickness of the mass thus formed. Doubtless the rate
of erosion of land and the sorting out of matter on to ocean beds has varied
from age to age, and cataclysmic changes of various kinds break the
"uniformity" of ordinary geological processes. Provided, however, we
have some definite numerical basis on which to work, our task is rendered less
difficult than it might at first sight appear to be. Making due allowance for
variations in the rate of deposit, Professor Lefevre gives us the relative
figures which sum up geological time. He does not attempt to calculate the
lapse of years since the first bed of the Laurentian rocks was deposited, but
postulating that time as = X, he presents us with the relative proportions in
which the various periods stand to it. Let us premise our estimate by stating
that, roughly speaking, the Primordial rocks are 70,000 ft., the Primary 42,000
ft., the Secondary 15,000 ft., the Tertiary 5,000 ft., and the Quaternary some
500 ft. in thickness:--
"Dividing
into an hundred parts the time, whatever its actual length, that has passed
since the dawn of life on this earth (lower Laurentian strata), we shall be led
to attribute to the primordial age more than half of the whole duration, say
53.5; to the Primary 32.2; to the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 710 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Secondary
11.5; to the Tertiary 2.3; to the Quaternary 0.5 or one-half per cent."
("Philosophy," p. 481.)
Now,
as it is certain, on occult data, that the time which has elapsed since the
first sedimentary deposits = 320,000,000 years, we are able to infer that
the:--
ROUGH
APPROXIMATIONS.
Primordial
lasted 171,200,000 years.
Laurentian
Cambrian
Silurian
Primary
lasted 103,040,000 years
Devonian
Coal
Permian
Secondary
lasted 36,800,000 years
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Tertiary
lasted 7,360,000 years (probably in excess)
Eocene
Miocene
Pliocene
Quaternary
lasted 1,600,000 years (probably in excess).
Such
estimates harmonise with the statements of Esoteric Ethnology in almost every
particular. The Tertiary Atlantean part-cycle, from the "apex of
glory" of that Race in the early Eocene to the great mid-Miocene
cataclysm, would appear to have lasted some 3 1/2 to four million years. If the
duration of the Quaternary is not rather (as seems likely) overestimated, the
sinking of Ruta and Daitya would be post-Tertiary. It is probable that the
results here given allow somewhat too long a period to both the Tertiary and
Quaternary, as the Third Race goes very far back into the Secondary Age.
Nevertheless, the figures are most suggestive.
But
the argument from geological evidence being only in favour of 100,000,000
years, let us compare our claims and teachings with those of exact science.
Mr.
Edward Clodd,* in reviewing M. de Mortillet's work "Materiaux pour
l'Histoire de Homme," which places man in the mid-Miocene period,**
remarks that "it would be in defiance of all that the doctrine of evolu-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Knowledge, March 31, 1882.
**
And who yet, in another work, "La Prehistorique Antiquite de
l'Homme," some twenty years ago, generously allowed only 230,000 years to
our mankind. Since we learn now that he places man "in the mid-Miocene
period," we must say that the much respected Professor of Prehistoric
Anthropology (in Paris) is somewhat contradictory and inconsistent, if not naif
in his views.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 711 SECEDERS FROM DARWINISM.
tion
teaches, and moreover, win no support from believers in special creation and
the fixity of species, to seek for so highly specialized a mammalian as man at
an early stage in the life-history of the globe." To this, one could
answer: (a) the doctrine of evolution, as inaugurated by Darwin and developed
by later evolutionists, is not only the reverse of infallible, but it is
repudiated by several great men of science, e.g., de Quatrefages, in France,
and Dr. Weismann, an ex-evolutionist in Germany, and many others, the ranks of
the anti-Darwinists growing stronger with every year;* and (b) truth to be
worthy of its name, and remain truth and fact, hardly needs to beg for support
from any class or sect. For were it to win support from believers in special
creation, it would never gain the favour of the evolutionists, and vice versa.
Truth must rest upon its own firm foundations of facts, and take its chances
for recognition, when every prejudice in the way is disposed of. Though the
question has been already fully considered in its main aspects, it is,
nevertheless, advisable to combat every so-called "scientific"
objection as we go along, when making what are regarded as heretical and
"anti-scientific" statements.
Let
us briefly glance at the divergences between orthodox and esoteric science, on
the question of the age of the globe and of man. With the two respective
synchronistic tables before him, the reader will be enabled to see at a glance
the importance of these divergences; and to perceive, at the same time, that it
is not impossible -- nay, it is most likely -- that further discoveries in
geology and the finding of fossil remains of man will force science to confess
that it is esoteric philosophy which is right after all, or, at any rate,
nearer to the truth.
-------
PARALLELISM
OF LIFE.
[[First
Column]]
SCIENTIFIC
HYPOTHESES.
Science
divides the period of the globe's history, since the beginning of life on earth
(or the Azoic age), into five main divisions or periods, according to
Haeckel.**
[[First
Column continued on next page]]
[[Second
Column]]
ESOTERIC
THEORY.
Leaving
the classification of the geological periods to Western Science, esoteric
philosophy divides only the life-periods on the globe. In the present
Manvantara the actual period is separated into seven Kalpas and seven great
human races. Its first Kalpa, answering to the "Primordial Epoch," is
the age of the --
[[Second
Column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The root and basic idea of the origin and transformation of species -- the
heredity (of acquired faculties) seems to have found lately very serious
opponents in Germany. Du Bois-Reymond and Dr. Pffuger, the physiologists,
besides other men of science as eminent as any, find insuperable difficulties
and even impossibilities in the doctrine.
**
History of Creation, p. 20.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 712 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
[[First
Column continued from previous page]]
PRIMORDIAL
EPOCH (Laurentian System, Cambrian System, Silurian System)
The
Primordial Epoch is, science tells us, by no means devoid of vegetable and
animal life. In the Laurentian deposits are found specimens of the Eozoon
Canadense -- a chambered shell. In the Silurian are discovered sea-weeds
(algae), molluscs, crustacea, and lower marine organisms, also the first trace
of fishes. The primordial Epoch shows algae, molluscs, crustacea, polyps, and
marine organisms, etc., etc. Science teaches, therefore, that marine life was
present from the very beginnings of time, leaving us, however, to speculate for
ourselves as to how life appeared on earth. If it rejects the Biblical
"Creation" (as we do), why does it not give us another, approximately
plausible hypothesis?
PRIMARY
(Devonian***, Coal, Permian)
[[First
Column continued on next page]]
[[Second
Column continued from previous page]]
"PRIMEVAL"*
(Deva or Divine men, the "Creators" and Progenitors.**)
The
Esoteric Philosophy agrees with the statement made by science (see parallel
column), demurring, however, in one particular. The 300,000,000 years of
vegetable life (see "Brahminical Chronology") preceded the
"Divine Men," or Progenitors. Also, no teaching denies that there
were traces of life within the Earth besides the Eozoon Canadense in the
Primordial Epoch. Only, whereas the said vegetation belonged to this Round, the
zoological relics now found in the Laurentian, Cambrian, and Silurian systems,
so called, are the relics of the Third Round. At first astral like the rest,
they consolidated and materialized pari passu with the NEW vegetation.
"PRIMARY"
-- Divine Progenitors, SECONDARY GROUPS, and the 2 1/2 races.
"Fern-forests, Sigillaria, Coniferae, fishes, first trace of
reptiles." Thus saith modern science; the esoteric doctrine repeats that
which was said above. These are all relics of the preceding Round.**** Once,
however, the prototypes are projected out of the astral envelope of the earth,
an indefinite amount of modification ensues.
[[Second
Column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The same names are retained as those given by science, to make the parallels
clearer. Our terms are quite different.
**
Let the student remember that the Doctrine teaches that there are seven degrees
of Devas or "Progenitors," or seven classes, from the most perfect to
the less exalted.
***
It may be said that we are inconsistent in not introducing into this table a
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 713 THE TWO SCIENCES CONTRASTED.
[[First
Column continued from previous page]]
SECONDARY
(Triassic. Jurassic. Chalk or Cretaceous.)
This
is the age of Reptiles, of the gigantic Megalosauri, Ichthyosauri, Plesiosauri,
etc., etc. Science denies the presence of man in that period. If so, it has to
explain how men came to know of these monsters and describe them before the age
of Cuvier? The old annals of China, India, Egypt, and even of Judea are full of
them, as demonstrated elsewhere. In this period also appear the first
(marsupial) mammals***** -- Insectivorous, carnivorous, phytophagous; and (as
Prof. Owen thinks) an herbivorous hoofed mammal.
Science
does not admit the appearance of man before the close of the
[[First
Column continued on next page]]
[[Second
Column continued from previous page]]
SECONDARY
-- According to every calculation the Third Race had already made its
appearance, as during the Triassic there were already a few mammals, and it
must have separated.
This,
then, is the age of the Third Race, in which the origins of the early Fourth
may be perhaps also discoverable. We are, however, here left entirely to
conjecture, as no definite data are yet given out by the Initiates.
The
analogy is but a poor one, still it may be argued that, as the early Mammalia
and pre-mammalia are shown in their evolution merging from one kind into a
higher one, anatomically, so are the human races in their procreative processes.
A parallel might certainly be found between the Monotremata, the Didelphia (or
Marsupialia) and the placental Mammals, divided in their turn into three
orders******
[[Second
Column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Primary-Age Man. The parallelism of Races and
geological periods here adopted, is, so far as the origin of 1st and 2nd are
concerned, purely tentative, no direct information being available. Having
previously discussed the question of a possible Race in the Carboniferous Age,
it is needless to renew the debate.
****
During the interim from one Round to another, the globe and everything on it
remains in statu quo. Remember, Vegetation began in its ethereal form before
what is called the Primordial, running through the Primary, and condensing in
it, and reaching its full physical life in the Secondary.
*****
Geologists tell us that "in the secondary epoch, the only mammals which have
been (hitherto) discovered in Europe are the fossil remains of a small
marsupial or pouch-bearer." (Knowledge, March 31, 1882, p 464.) Surely the
marsupial or didelphis (the only surviving animal of the family of those who
were on earth during the presence on it of androgyne man) cannot be the only
animal that was then on earth? Its presence speaks loudly for that of other
(though unknown) mammals, besides the monotremes and marsupials, and thus shows
the appellation of "mammalian age" given only to the Tertiary period
to be misleading and erroneous; as it allows one to infer that there were no
mammals, but reptiles, birds, amphibians, and fishes alone in the Mesozoic
times -- the Secondary.
******
These Placentalia of the third sub-class are divided, it appears, into
Villiplacentalia (placenta composed of many separate scattered tufts), the
Zonoplacentalia (girdle-shaped placenta), and the discoplacentaIia (or
discoid). Haeckel sees in the Marsupialia Didelphia, one of the connecting
links genealogically between man and the Moneron!!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 714 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
[[First
Column continued from previous page]]
Tertiary
period.* Why? Because man has to be shown younger than the higher mammals. But
Esoteric philosophy teaches us the reverse. And as science is quite unable to
come to anything like an approximate conclusion as to the age of man, or even
the geological periods, therefore, even accepted only as a hypothesis, the
occult teaching is more logical and reasonable.
No
man is yet allowed to have lived during this period:--
***Tertiary
-- Eocene. Miocene. Pliocene.
Says
Mr. E. Clodd, in Knowledge:-- "Although the placental mammals and the
order of Primates to which man is related, appear in Tertiary times and the
climate, tropical in the Eocene age, warm in the Miocene and temperate in the
Pliocene, was favourable to his presence, the proofs of his existence in Europe
before the close of the Tertiary epoch . . . . are not generally accepted
here."
[[First
Column continued on next page]]
[[Second
Column continued from previous page]]
like
the First, Second, and Third Root-Races of men.** But this would require more
space than can be now allotted to the subject.
Tertiary
age -- The Third race has now almost utterly disappeared, carried away by the
fearful geological cataclysms of the Secondary age, leaving behind it but a few
hybrid races.
The
Fourth, born millions of years before**** the said cataclysm took place,
perishes during the Miocene period,****** when the Fifth (our Aryan race) had
one million years of independent existence. (See "Esoteric Buddhism,"
pp. 53-55. Fourth Ed.) How much older it is from its origin -- who knows? As
the "Historical" Period has begun, with the Indian Aryans, with their
Vedas, for their multitudes,****** and far earlier in the Esoteric Records, it
is useless to establish here any parallels.
[[Second
Column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Those who feel inclined to sneer at that doctrine of Esoteric Ethnology, which
pre-supposes the existence of Man in the Secondary Age, will do well to note
the fact that one of the most distinguished anthropologists of the day, M. de
Quatrefages, seriously argues in that direction. He writes: "There is
nothing impossible in the supposition that he (Man) may have appeared on the
globe with the first representatives of the type to which he belongs in virtue
of his organism." This statement approximates most closely to our
fundamental assertion that man preceded the other mammalia.
Professor
Lefevre admits that the "labours of Boucher de Perthes, Lartet, Christy,
Bourgeois, Desnoyers, Broca, de Mortillet, Hamy, Gaudry, Capellini, and a
hundred others, have overcome all doubts and clearly established the
progressive development of the human organism and industries from the Miocene
epoch of the Tertiary age." ("Philosophy," p. 499, chapter on Organic
Evolution.) Why does he reject the possibility of a Secondary-Age man? Simply
because he is involved in the meshes of the Darwinian Anthropology!! "The
origin of man is bound up with that of the higher mammals;" he appeared
"only with the last types of his class"!! This is not [[Footnote
continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 715 THE SUFFICIENCY OF THE "ANIMALISTS."
Geology
has now divided the periods and placed man in the --
[[First
Column continued from previous page]]
Quaternary
(Palaeolithic man. Neolithic man, and Historical Period.)
[[Second
Column continued from previous page]]
If
the Quaternary period is allowed 1,500,000 years, then only does our Fifth Race
belong to it.
[[End
of Columns]]
Yet,
mirabile dictu! -- while the non-cannibal Paleolithic man, who must have
certainly antedated cannibal Neolithic man by hundreds of thousands of
years******* is shown to be a remarkable artist, neolithic
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] argument, but dogmatism. Theory can never
excommunicate fact! Must everything give place to the mere working-hypotheses
of Western Evolutionists? Surely not.
**
This inclusion of the First Race in the Secondary is necessarily only a
provisional working-hypothesis -- the actual chronology of the First, Second,
and Early Third Races being closely veiled by the Initiates. For all that can
be said on the subject, the First Root-Race may have been Pre-Secondary, as is,
indeed, taught. (Vide supra.)
***
The above parallels stand good only if Professor Croll's earlier calculations
are adopted, namely, of 15,000,000 years since the beginning of the Eocene
period (see Charles Gould's "Mythical Monsters," p. 84), not those in
his "Climate and Time," which allow only 2 1/2 million years', or at
the utmost three million years' duration to the Tertiary age. This, however,
would make the whole duration of the incrusted age of the world only 131,600,000
years according to Professor Winchell, whereas in the Esoteric doctrine,
sedimentation began in this Round approximately over 320 million years ago. Yet
his calculations do not clash much with ours with regard to the epochs of
glacial periods in the Tertiary age, which is called in our Esoteric books the
age of the "Pigmies." With regard to the 320 millions of years
assigned to sedimentation, it must be noted that even a greater time elapsed
during the preparation of this globe for the Fourth Round previous to
stratification.
****
Though we apply the term "truly human," only to the Fourth Atlantean
Root-Race, yet the Third Race is almost human in its latest portion, since it
is during its fifth sub-race that mankind separated sexually, and that the
first man was born according to the now normal process. This "first
man" answers in the Bible (Genesis) to Enos or Henoch, son of Seth (ch.
iv.).
*****
Geology records the former existence of a universal ocean, sheets of marine
sediments uniformly present everywhere testifying to it; but, it is not even
the epoch referred to in the allegory of Vaivasvata Manu. The latter is a
Deva-Man (or Manu) saving in an ark (the female principle) the germs of
humanity, and also the seven Rishis -- who stand here as the symbols for the
seven human principles -- of which allegory we have spoken elsewhere. The
"Universal Deluge" is the watery abyss of the Primordial Principle of
Berosus. (See Stanzas from 2 to 8 in Part I.). How, if Croll allowed fifteen million
years to have elapsed since the Eocene period (which we state on the authority
of a Geologist, Mr. Ch. Gould) only 60 millions are assigned by him "since
the beginning of the Cambrian period, in the Primordial Age" -- passes
comprehension. The Secondary strata are twice the thickness of the Tertiary,
and Geology thus shows the Secondary age alone to be of twice the length of the
Tertiary. Shall we then accept only 15 million years for both the Primary and
the Primordial? No wonder Darwin rejected the calculation.
******
We hope that we have furnished all the Scientific data for it elsewhere.
*******
It is conceded by Geology to be "beyond doubt that a considerable period
must have supervened after the departure of Palaeolithic man and before the
arrival of his Neolithic successor." (See James Geikie's "Prehistoric
Europe," and Ch. Gould's "Mythical Monsters," p. 98).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 716 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
man
is made out almost an abject savage, his lake dwellings notwithstanding.* For
see what a learned geologist, Mr. Charles Gould, tells the reader in his
"Mythical Monsters":--
"Palaeolithic
men were unacquainted with pottery and the art of weaving, and apparently had
no domesticated animals or system of cultivation; but the Neolithic
lake-dwellers of Switzerland had looms, pottery, cereals, sheep, horses,"
etc., etc.
Yet,
though "Implements of horn, bone, and wood were in common use among both
races . . . those of the older are frequently distinguished by their being
sculptured with great ability, or ornamented with life-like engravings of the
various animals living at the period; whereas there appears to have been a
marked absence of any similar artistic ability** on the part of Neolithic
man." Let us give the reasons for it.
(1)
The oldest fossil man, the primitive cave-men of the old Palaeolithic period,
and of the Pre-glacial period (of whatever length, and however far back), is
always the same genus man, and there are no fossil remains proving for him
"what the Hipparion and Anchitherium have proved for the genus horse --
that is, gradual progressive specialization from a simple ancestral type to
more complex existing forms" ("Modern Science," p. 181).
(2)
As to the so-called Palaeolithic hatchet . . . "when placed side by side
with the rudest forms of stone hatchets actually used by the Australian and
other savages, it is difficult to detect any difference" (Ibid, p. 112).
This goes to prove that there have been savages at all times; and the inference
would be that there might have been civilized people in those days as well,
cultured nations contemporary with those rude savages. We see such a thing in
Egypt 7,000 years ago.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Resembling in a manner the pile-villages of Northern Borneo.
**
"The most clever sculptor of modern times would probably not succeed very
much better, if his graver were a splinter of flint and stone and bone were the
materials to be engraved"!! (Prof. Boyd Dawkins' "Cave-Hunting,"
p. 344.) It is needless after such a concession to further insist on Huxley's,
Schmidt's, Laing's, and others' statements to the effect that Palaeolithic man
cannot be considered to lead us back in any way to a pithecoid human race; thus
demolishing the fantasies of many superficial evolutionists. The relic of
artistic merit here re-appearing in the Chipped-Stone-Age men, is traceable to
their Atlantean ancestry. Neolithic man was a fore-runner of the great Aryan invasion,
and immigrated from quite another quarter -- Asia, and in a measure Northern
Africa. (The tribes peopling the latter towards the North-West, were certainly
of an Atlantean origin -- dating back hundreds of thousands of years before the
Neolithic Period in Europe, -- but they had so diverged from the parent type as
to present no longer any marked characteristic peculiar to it.) As to the
contrast between Neolithic and Palaeolithic Man, it is a remarkable fact that,
as Carl Vogt remarks, the former was a cannibal, the much earlier man of the
Mammoth era not. Human manners and customs do not seem to improve with time,
then? Not in this instance at any rate.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 717 ONE SALVATION FOR SCIENCE.
(3)
An obstacle which is the direct consequence of the two preceding: Man, if no
older than the Palaeolithic period, could not possibly have had the actual time
to get transformed from the "missing link" into what he is known to
have been even during that remote geological time, i.e., even a finer specimen
than many of the now existing races.
The
above lends itself naturally to the following syllogism: (1) The primitive man
(known to Science) was, in some respects, even a finer man of his genus than he
is now. (2) The earliest monkey known, the lemur, was less anthropoid than the
modern pithecoid species. (3) Conclusion: even though a missing link were
found, the balance of evidence would remain more in favour of the ape being a
degenerated man made dumb by some fortuitous circumstances,* than tending to
show that man descends from a pithecoid ancestor. The theory cuts both ways.
On
the other hand, if the existence of Atlantis is accepted, and the statement is
believed that in the Eocene Age "even in its very first part, the great
cycle of the fourth race men, the Atlanteans had already reached its highest
point . . . ." (Esoteric Buddhism, p. 64) then some of the present
difficulties of science might be easily made to disappear. The rude workmanship
of the Palaeolithic tools proves nothing against the idea that, side by side
with their makers, there lived nations highly civilized. We are told that
"only a very small portion of the earth's surface has been explored, and
of this a very small portion consists of ancient land surfaces or fresh water
formations, where alone we can expect to meet with traces of the higher forms
of animal life," . . . and that "even these have been so imperfectly
explored, that where we now meet with thousands and tens of thousands of
undoubted human remains lying almost under our feet, it is only within the last
thirty years that their existence has even been suspected" (p. 98). It is
very suggestive also that along with the rude haches of the lowest savage,
explorers meet with specimens of workmanship of such artistic merit as could
hardly be found, or expected, in a modern peasant belonging to any European
country -- unless in exceptional cases. The "portrait" of the
"Reindeer feeding," from the Thayngin grotto in Switzerland, and
those of the man running, with two horse's heads sketched close to him -- a
work of the Reindeer period, i.e., at least 50,000 years ago -- are pronounced
by Mr. Laing not only exceedingly well done, but, especially the reindeer
feeding, as one that "would do credit to any modern animal painter"
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
On the data furnished by modern science, physiology, and natural selection, and
without resorting to any miraculous creation, two negro human specimens of the
lowest intelligence -- say idiots born dumb -- might by breeding produce a dumb
Pastrana species, which would start a new modified race, and thus produce in
the course of geological time the regular anthropoid ape.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 718 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
--
by no means exaggerated praise, as anyone may see (Vide infra). Now, since side
by side with the modern Esquimaux, who also have a tendency, like their
Palaeolithic ancestors of the Reindeer period, the rude and savage human
species, to be constantly drawing with the point of their knives sketches of
animals, scenes of the chase, etc., we have our greatest painters of Europe,
why could not the same have happened in those days? Compared with the specimens
of Egyptian drawing and sketching -- "7,000 years ago" -- the
"earliest portraits" of men, horses' heads, and reindeer, made 50,000
years ago, are certainly superior. Nevertheless, the Egyptians of those periods
are known to have been a highly civilized nation, whereas the Palaeolithic men
are called savages of the lower type. This is a small matter seemingly, yet
extremely suggestive as showing that every new geological discovery is made to
fit in with current theories, instead of the reverse. Yes; Mr. Huxley is right
in saying, "Time will show." It will, and must vindicate Occultism.
Meanwhile,
the most uncompromising materialists are driven by necessity into the most
occult-like admissions. Strange to say, it is the most materialistic -- those
of the German school -- who, with regard to physical development, come the
nearest to the teachings of the Occultists. Thus, Professor Baumgartner, who
believes that "the germs for the higher animals could only be the eggs of
the lower animals"; who thinks that "besides the advance of the
vegetable and animal world in development, there occurred in that period the
formation of new original germs," which formed the basis of new metamorphoses,
etc. -- thinks also that "the first men who proceeded from the germs of
animals beneath them, lived first in a larva state."
Just
so, in a larva state, we say, too; only from no "animal" germ, and
that "larva" was the soulless astral form of the pre-physical Races.
And we believe, as the German professor does, with several other men of Science
in Europe now, that the human races "have not descended from one pair, but
appeared immediately in numerous races"; (Anfange zu einer Physiologischen
Schopfungs-geschichte der Pflanzen und Thierwelt, 1885). Therefore, when we
read "Force and Matter," and find that Emperor of Materialists,
Buchner, repeating after Manu and Hermes, that "the plant passes
imperceptibly into the animal, and the animal into man" (p. 85), we need
only add "and man into a spirit," to complete the Kabalistic axiom.
The more so, since on page 82 of the same work we read the following admission:
. . . "Produced in the way of spontaneous generation . . . it is by the
aid of intense natural forces and endless periods of time (that) there has
progressively arisen that rich and infinitely modified organic world by which
we are at present surrounded." . . . And (page 84) "Spontaneous
generation played, no doubt,
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 719 BETWEEN TWO VOIDS.
a
more important part in the primeval epoch than at present; nor can it be denied
that in this way beings of a higher organization were produced than now,"*
for this is the claim of Occultism.
The
whole difference lies in this: Modern Science places her materialistic theory
of primordial germs on earth, and the last germ of life on this globe, of man,
and everything else, between two voids. Whence the first germ, if both spontaneous
generation and the interference of external forces, are absolutely rejected
now? Germs of organic life, we are told, by Sir W. Thomson, came to our earth
in some meteor? This helps in no way and only shifts the difficulty from this
earth to the supposed meteor.
These
are our agreements and disagreements with Science. About the endless periods we
are, of course, at one even with materialistic speculation; for we believe in
Evolution, though on different lines. Professor Huxley very wisely says: "If
any form of progressive development is correct, we must extend by long epochs
the most liberal estimate that has yet been made of the antiquity of man."
But when we are told that this man is a product of the natural forces inherent
in matter, force, according to modern views, being but a quality of matter, a
"mode of motion," etc.; and when we find Sir W. Thomson repeating in
1885 what was asserted by Buchner and his school thirty years ago, we fear all
our reverence for real Science is vanishing into thin air! One can hardly help
thinking that materialism is, in certain cases, a disease. For when men of
Science, in the face of the magnetic phenomena and the attraction of iron
particles through insulating substances, like glass, maintain that the said attraction
is due to "molecular motion," or to the "rotation of the
molecules of the magnet," then, whether the teaching comes from a
"credulous" Theosophist innocent of any notion of physics, or from an
eminent man of Science, it is equally ridiculous. The individual who asserts
such a theory in the teeth of fact, is only one more proof that "When
people have not a niche in their minds in which to shoot facts, so much the
worse for the facts."
As
present the dispute between the spontaneous generationists and their opponents
is at rest, having ended in the provisional victory of the latter. But even
they are forced to admit, as Buchner did, and Messrs. Tyndall and Huxley still
do -- that spontaneous generation must have occurred once, under "special
thermal conditions." Virchow refuses even to argue the question; it must
have taken place sometime in the history of our planet: and there's an end of
it. This seems to look more natural than Sir W. Thomson's hypothesis just
quoted, that the germs of organic life fell on our earth in some meteor; or
that other
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Force and Matter," by Dr. Louis Buchner, translated and edited by J.
Frederick Collingwood, F.R.S., F.G.S., 1864.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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scientific
hypothesis coupled to the recently adopted belief that there exists no
"Vital principle" whatever, but only vital phenomena, which can all
be traced to the molecular forces of the original protoplasm. But this does not
help Science to solve the still greater problem -- the origin and the descent
of Man, for here is a still worse plaint and lamentation.
"While
we can trace the skeletons of Eocene mammals through several directions of
specialization in succeeding Tertiary times, man presents the phenomenon of an
unspecialized skeleton which cannot fairly be connected with any of these
lines." ("Origin of the World," p. 39, by Sir W. Dawson, LL.D.,
F.R.S.)
The
secret could be soon told, not only from the esoteric but even from the
standpoint of every religion the world over, without mentioning the Occultists.
The "specialized skeleton" is sought for in the wrong place, where it
can never be found. It is expected to be discovered in the physical remains of
man, in some pithecoid "missing link," with a skull larger than that
of the ape's, and with a cranial capacity smaller than in man, instead of
looking for that specialization in the super-physical essence of his inner
astral constitution, which can hardly be excavated from any geological strata!
Such a tenacious, hopeful clinging to a self-degrading theory is the most
wonderful feature of the day.
[[diagram]]
REINDEER
ENGRAVED ON ANTLER BY PALAEOLITHIC MAN. (After Geikie.)
Meanwhile,
this is a specimen of an engraving made by a Palaeolithic "savage":
Palaeolithic meaning the "earlier Stone-age" man, one supposed to
have been as savage and brutal as the brutes he lived with.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 721 THE PALAEOLITHIC LANDSEER.
Leaving
the modern South Sea Islander, or even any Asiatic race, aside, we defy any
grown-up schoolboy, or even a European youth, one who has never studied
drawing, to execute such an engraving or even a pencil sketch. Here we have the
true artistic raccourci, and correct lights and shadows without any plane model
before the artist, who copied direct from nature, thus exhibiting a knowledge
of anatomy and proportion. The artist who engraved this reindeer belonged, we
are asked to believe, to the primitive "semi-animal" savages
(contemporaneous with the mammoth and the woolly rhinoceros), whom some
over-zealous Evolutionists once sought to picture to us as distinct approximations
to the type of their hypothetical "pithecoid man"!
This
engraved antler proves as eloquently as any fact can that the evolution of the
races has ever proceeded in a series of rises and falls, that man, perhaps, is
as old as incrustated Earth, and -- if we can call his Divine ancestor
"Man" -- far older still.
Even
de Mortillet himself seems to experience a vague distrust of the conclusions of
modern archaeologists, when he writes:-- "The prehistoric is a new science,
far, very far, from having said its last word." ("Prehist. Antiq. of
Man," 1883.) According to Lyell, one of the highest authorities on the
subject, and the "Father" of Geology:-- "The expectation of
always meeting with a lower type of human skull, the older the formation in
which it occurs, is based on the theory of progressive development, and it may
prove to be sound; nevertheless we must remember that as yet we have no
distinct geological evidence that the appearance of what are called the inferior
races of mankind has always preceded in chronological order that of the higher
races." ("Antiq. of Man," p. 25.) Nor has such evidence been
found to this day. Science is thus offering for sale the skin of a bear, which
has hitherto never been seen by mortal eye!
This
concession of Lyell's reads most suggestively with the subjoined utterance of
Professor Max Muller, whose attack on the Darwinian Anthropology from the
standpoint of LANGUAGE has, by the way, never been satisfactorily answered:--
"What
do we know of savage tribes beyond the last chapter of their history?"
(Cf. this with the esoteric view of the Australians, Bushmen, as well as of
Palaeolithic European man, the Atlantean offshoots retaining a relic of a lost
culture, which throve when the parent Root-Race was in its prime.) "Do we
ever get an insight into their antecedents. . . . How have they come to be what
they are? . . . . Their language proves, indeed, that these so-called heathens,
with their complicated systems of mythology, their artificial customs, their
unintelligible whims and savageries, are not the creatures of to-day or
yesterday. Unless we admit a special creation for these savages, they must be
as old as the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans (far older). . . .
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 722 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
They
may have passed through ever so many vicissitudes, and what we consider as
primitive, may be, for all we know, a RELAPSE INTO SAVAGERY or a corruption of
something that was more rational and intelligible in former stages."
("India," 1883, F. Max Muller.)
"The
primeval savage is a familiar term in modern literature," remarks
Professor Rawlinson, "but there is no evidence that the primeval savage
ever existed. Rather all the evidence looks the other way." ("Antiq.
of Man Historically Considered.") In his "Origin of Nations,"
pp. 10-11, he rightly adds: "The mythical traditions of almost all nations
place at the beginning of human history a time of happiness and perfection, a
'golden age' which has no features of savagery or barbarism, but many of
civilization and refinement." How is the modern evolutionist to meet this
consensus of evidence?
We
repeat the question asked in "Isis Unveiled": "Does the finding of
the remains in the cave of Devon prove that there were no contemporary races
then who were highly civilized? When the present population of the earth have
disappeared, and some archaeologist belonging to the 'coming race' of the
distant future shall excavate the domestic implements of one of our Indian or
Andaman Island tribes, will he be justified in concluding that mankind in the
nineteenth century was 'just emerging from the Stone Age'?"
Another
strange inconsistency in scientific knowledge is that Neolithic man is shown as
being far more of a primitive savage than the Palaeolithic one. Either
Lubbock's "Pre-historic Man," or Evans' "Ancient Stone
Implements" must be at fault, or -- both. For this is what we learn from
these works and others:--
(1)
As we pass from Neolithic to Palaeolithic Man, the stone implements become,
from gracefully shaped and polished instruments, rude lumbering makeshifts.
Pottery, etc., disappear as we descend the scale. And yet the latter could
engrave such a reindeer!
(2)
Palaeolithic Man lived in caves which he shared with hyaenas and lions also,*
whereas Neolithic man dwelt in lake-villages and buildings.
Every
one who has followed even superficially the geological discoveries of our day,
knows that a gradual improvement in workmanship is found, from the clumsy
chipping and rude chopping of the early Palaeolithic haches, to the relatively
graceful stone celts of that part of the Neolithic period immediately preceding
the use of metals. But this is in Europe, a few portions only of which were
barely rising from the waters in the days
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
In such a case Palaeolithic man must have been endowed in his day with thrice
Herculean force and magic invulnerability, or else the lion was as weak as a
lamb at that period, for both to share the same dwelling. We may as well be
asked to believe next that it is that lion or hyaena which has engraved the
deer on the antler, as be told that this bit of workmanship was done by a
savage of such a kind.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 723 ENTRAPPED BY THE REINDEER.
of
the highest Atlantean civilizations. There were rude savages and highly civilized
people then, as there are now. If 50,000 years hence, pigmy Bushmen are exhumed
from some African cavern together with far earlier pigmy elephants, such as
were found in the cave deposits of Malta by Milne Edwards, will that be a
reason to maintain that in our age all men and all elephants were pigmies? Or
if the weapons of the Veddhas of Ceylon are found, will our descendants be
justified in setting us all down as Palaeolithic savages? All the articles
which geologists now excavate in Europe can certainly never date earlier than
from the close of the Eocene age, since the lands of Europe were not even above
water before that period. Nor can what we have said be in the least invalidated
by theorists telling us that these quaint sketches of animals and men by
Palaeolithic man, were executed only toward the close of the Reindeer period --
for this explanation would be a very lame one indeed, in view of the
geologists' ignorance of even the approximate duration of periods.
The
Esoteric Doctrine teaches distinctly the dogma of the risings and falls of
civilization; and now we learn that: "It is a remarkable fact that
cannibalism seems to have become more frequent as man advanced in civilization,
and that while its traces are frequent in Neolithic times they . . . .
altogether disappear in the age of the mammoth and the reindeer."
("Mod. Science and Mod. Thought," p. 164.)
Another
evidence of the cyclic law and the truth of our teachings. Esoteric history
teaches that idols and their worship died out with the Fourth Race, until the
survivors of the hybrid races of the latter (Chinamen, African negroes,
&c.) gradually brought the worship back. The Vedas countenance no idols;
all the modern Hindu writings do.
"In
the early Egyptian tombs, and in the remains of the pre-historic cities
excavated by Dr. Schliemann, images of owl and ox-headed goddesses, and other
symbolical figures, or idols, are found in abundance. But when we ascend into
Neolithic times, such idols are no longer found . . . . the only ones which may
be said with some certainty to have been idols are one or two discovered by M.
de Braye in some artificial caves of the Neolithic period . . . which appear to
be intended for female figures of life size" . . . . (p. 199 Ibid.)
And
these may have been simply statues. Anyhow, all this is one among the many
proofs of the cyclic rise and fall of civilization and religion. The fact that
no traces of human relics or skeletons are so far found beyond post-tertiary or
"Quaternary" times -- though Abbe Bourgeois' flints may serve as a
warning* -- seems to point to the truth of another esoteric statement,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
More than twenty specimens of fossil monkeys have been found in one locality
alone, in Miocene strata (Pikermi, near Athens). If man was not then, the
period is [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 724 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
which
runs thus: "Seek for the remains of thy forefathers in the high places.
The vales have grown into mountains and the mountains have crumbled to the
bottom of the seas." . . . Fourth Race mankind, thinned after the last
cataclysm by two-thirds of its population, instead of settling on the new
continents and islands that reappeared while their predecessors formed the
floors of new Oceans -- deserted that which is now Europe and parts of Asia and
Africa for the summits of gigantic mountains, the seas that surrounded some of
the latter having since "retreated" and made room for the table lands
of Central Asia.
The
most interesting example of this progressive march is perhaps afforded by the
celebrated Kent's Cavern at Torquay. In that strange recess, excavated by water
out of the Devonian limestone, we find a most curious record preserved for us
in the geological memoirs of the earth. Under the blocks of limestone, which
heaped the floor of the cavern, were discovered, embedded in a deposit of black
earth, many implements of the Neolithic period of fairly excellent workmanship,
with a few fragments of pottery -- possibly traceable to the era of the Roman
colonization. There is no trace of Palaeolithic man here. No flints or traces
of the extinct animals of the Quaternary period. When, however, we penetrate
still deeper through the dense layer of stalagmite beneath the mould into the
red earth, which, of course, itself once formed the pavement of the retreat,
things assume a very different aspect. Not one implement fit to bear comparison
with the finely-chipped weapons found in the overlying stratum is to be seen;
only a host of the rude and lumbering little hatchets (with which the monstrous
giants of the animal world were subdued and killed by little man, we have to
think?) and scrapers of the Palaeolithic age, mixed up confusedly with the
bones of species now either extinct or emigrated, driven away by change of
climate. It is the artificer of these ugly little hatchets, you see, who
sculptured the reindeer over the brook, on the antler as shown above. In all
cases we meet with the same evidence that, from historic to Neolithic and from
Neolithic to Palaeolithic man, things slope downwards on an inclined plane from
the rudiments of civilization to the most abject barbarism -- in Europe again.
We are made also to face the "mammoth age" -- the extreme or earliest
division of the Palaeolithic age -- in which the great rudeness of implements
reaches its maximum, and the brutal (?) appearance of contemporary skulls, such
as the Neanderthal, point to a very low type of Humanity. But they may
sometimes point also to something besides; to a race of men quite distinct from
our (Fifth Race) Humanity.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] too short for him to have been transformed --
stretch it as you may. And if he was, and if no monkey is found earlier, what
follows?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 725 STRANGE CONFESSIONS OF SCIENCE.
As
said by an anthropologist in "Modern Thought" (art. "The Genesis
of Man"): "The theory, scientifically based or not, of Peyrere may be
considered to be equivalent to that which divided man in two species. Broca, Virey,
and a number of the French anthropologists have recognised that the lower race
of man, comprising the Australian, Tasmanian, and Negro race, excluding the
Kaffirs and the Northern Africans, should be placed apart. The fact that in
this species, or rather sub-species, the third lower molars are usually larger
than the second, and the squamosal and frontal bones are generally united by
suture, places the Homo Afer on the level of being as good a distinct species
as many of the kinds of finches. I shall abstain on the present occasion from
mentioning the facts of hybridity, whereon the late Professor Broca has so
exhaustively commented. The history, in the past ages of the world, of this
race is peculiar. It has never originated a system of architecture or a
religion of its own" (Dr. C. Carter Blake). It is peculiar, indeed, as we
have shown in the case of the Tasmanians. However it may be, fossil man in
Europe can neither prove nor disprove the antiquity of man on this Earth nor
the age of his earliest civilizations.
It
is time the Occultists should disregard any attempts to laugh at them, scorning
the heavy guns of the satire of the men of science as much as the pop-guns of
the profane, since it is impossible, so far, to obtain either proof or
disproof, while their theories can stand the test better than the hypotheses of
the Scientists at any rate. As to the proof for the antiquity which they claim
for man, they have, moreover, Darwin himself and Lyell. The latter confesses
that they (the naturalists) "have already obtained evidence of the
existence of man at so remote a period that there has been time for many
conspicuous mammalia, once his contemporaries, to die out, and this even before
the era of the earliest historical records."* This is a statement made by
one of England's great authorities upon the question. The two sentences that
follow are as suggestive, and may well be remembered by the students of
Occultism, for with all others he says: "In spite of the long lapse of
prehistoric ages during which he (Man) must have flourished on Earth, there is
no proof of any perceptible change in his bodily structure. If, therefore, he
ever diverged from some unreasoning brute ancestor, we must suppose him to have
existed at a far more distant epoch, possibly on some continents or islands now
submerged beneath the Ocean."
Thus
lost continents are officially suspected. That worlds (also Races) are
periodically destroyed by fire (volcanoes and earthquakes) and water, in turn,
and renewed, is a doctrine as old as man. Manu, Hermes, the Chaldees, all
antiquity believed in this. Twice already
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Antiquity of Man," p. 530.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 726 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
has
the face of the globe been changed by fire, and twice by water, since man
appeared on it. As land needs rest and renovation, new forces, and a change for
its soil, so does water. Thence arises a periodical redistribution of land and
water, change of climates, etc., all brought on by geological revolution, and
ending in a final change in the axis. Astronomers may pooh-pooh the idea of a
periodical change in the behaviour of the globe's axis, and smile at the conversation
given in the Book of Enoch between Noah and his "grandfather" Enoch;
the allegory is, nevertheless, a geological and an astronomical fact: there is
a secular change in the inclination of the earth's axis, and its appointed time
is recorded in one of the great Secret Cycles. As in many other questions,
Science is gradually moving toward our way of thinking. Dr. Henry Woodward,
F.R.S., F.G.S., writes in the Popular Science Review (New Series in Vol. I. p.
115), Art.: "Evidences of the Age of Ice." . . . . "If it be
necessary to call in extramundane causes to explain the great increase of ice
at this glacial period, I would prefer the theory propounded by Dr. Robert
Hooke in 1688; since, by Sir Richard Phillips and others; and lastly by Mr.
Thomas Belt, C.E., F.G.S.; namely, a slight increase in the present obliquity
of the ecliptic, a proposal in perfect accord with other known astronomical
facts, and the introduction of which is essential to our cosmical condition as
a unit in the great solar system."
The
following, quoted from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S., delivered in
March, 1885, on "The extinct Lake of Bovey Tracey" shows the
hesitation, in the face of every evidence in favour of Atlantis, to accept the
fact. It is a quotation in the body of the Lecture:--
"Evergreen
Figs, Laurels, Palms, and Ferns having gigantic rhizomes have their existing
congeners in a sub-tropical climate, such, it cannot be doubted, as prevailed
in Devonshire in Miocene times, and are thus calculated to suggest caution when
the present climate of any district is regarded as normal.
"When,
moreover, Miocene plants are found in Disco Island, on the west coast of
Greenland, lying between 69[[degrees]] 20' and 70[[degrees]] 30' N. lat.; when
we learn that among them were two species found also at Bovey (Sequoia
couttsiae, Quercus Lyelli); when, to quote Professor Heer, we find that
"the 'splendid evergreen' (Magnolia Inglefieldi) 'ripened its fruits so
far north as on the parallel of 70 [[degrees]] ' " (Phil. Trans. clix.,
457, 1869); when also the number, variety, and luxuriance of the Greenland
Miocene plants are found to have been such that, had land continued so far,
some of them would in all probability have flourished at the Pole itself, the
problem of changes of climate is brought prominently into view, but only to be
dismissed apparently with the feeling that the time for its solution has not
yet arrived.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 727 NO "MISSING LINK" ANYWHERE.
"It
seems to be admitted on all hands that the Miocene plants of Europe have their
nearest and most numerous existing analogues in North America, and hence arises
the question; How was the migration from one area to the other effected? Was there,
as some have believed, an Atlantis? -- a continent, or an archipelago of large
islands, occupying the area of the North Atlantic. There is perhaps nothing
unphilosophical in this hypothesis; for since, as geologists state, 'the Alps
have acquired 4,000, and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their
present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene period' (Lyell's
Principles, 11th ed., p. 256, 1872), a Post-Miocene (?) depression might have
carried the hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths. But an Atlantis
is apparently unnecessary and uncalled for. According to Professor Oliver, 'A
close and very peculiar analogy subsists between the Flora of Tertiary Central
Europe and the recent Floras of the American States and of the Japanese region;
an analogy much closer and more intimate than is to be traced between the
Tertiary and Recent Floras of Europe. We find the Tertiary element of the Old
World to be intensified towards its extreme eastern margin. . . . This
accession of the Tertiary element is rather gradual and not abruptly assumed in
the Japan islands only. Although it there attains a maximum, we may trace it
from the Mediterranean, Levant, Caucasus, and Persia . . . then along the
Himalaya and through China. . . . We learn also that during the Tertiary epoch,
counterparts of Central European Miocene genera certainly grew in North-West
America. . . . We note further that the present Atlantic Islands' Flora affords
no substantial evidence of a former direct communication with the mainland of
the New World. . . . The consideration of these facts leads me to the opinion
that botanical evidence does not favour the hypothesis of an Atlantis. On the
other hand, it strongly favours the view that at some period of the Tertiary
epoch North-Eastern Asia was united to North-western America, perhaps by the
line where the Aleutian chain of islands now extends.' " (Nat. Hist. Rev.
ii. 164, 1862.) See, however, "Scientific and Geological Proofs of the
Reality of Several Submerged Continents."
But
nothing short of a pithecoid man, will ever satisfy the luckless searchers
after the thrice hypothetical "missing link." Yet, if beneath the
vast floors of the Atlantic, from the Teneriffe Pic to Gibraltar, the ancient
emplacement of the lost Atlantis, all the submarine strata were to be broken up
miles deep, no such skull as would satisfy the Darwinists would be found. As
Dr. C. R. Bree remarks ("Fallacies of Darwinism"), no missing links
between man and ape having been discovered in various gravels and formations
above the tertiaries, if they had gone down with the continents now covered
with the sea, they
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 728 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
might
still be found "in those beds of contemporary geological strata which have
not gone down to the bottom of the sea." Yet they are as fatally absent
from the latter as from the former. Were not preconceptions to fasten
vampire-like on man's mind, the author of "Antiquity of Man" would
have found a clue to the difficulty in that same work of his, by going ten
pages back (530) and reading over a quotation of his own from Professor G.
Rolleston's work. This physiologist, he says, suggests that as there is
considerable plasticity in the human frame, not only in youth and during
growth, but even in the adult, we ought not always to take for granted, as some
advocates of the development theory seem to do, that each advance in physical
power depends on an improvement in bodily structure, for why may not the soul,
or the higher intellectual and moral faculties play the first instead of the
second part in a progressive scheme.
This
hypothesis is made in relation to Evolution not being entirely due to
"natural selection"; but it applies as well to our case in hand. For
we, too, claim that it is the "Soul," or the inner man, that descends
on Earth first, the psychic astral, the mould on which physical man is
gradually built -- his Spirit, intellectual and moral faculties awakening later
on as that physical stature grows and develops.
"Thus
incorporeal Spirits to smaller forms reduced their shapes immense," . . .
and became the men of the Third and the Fourth Races. Still later, ages after,
appeared the men of our Fifth Race, reduced from the still gigantic (in our
modern sense) stature of their primeval ancestors, to about half of that size
at present.
Man
is certainly no special creation, and he is the product of Nature's gradual
perfective work, like any other living unit on this Earth. But this is only
with regard to the human tabernacle. That which lives and thinks in man and
survives that frame, the masterpiece of evolution -- is the "Eternal
Pilgrim," the Protean differentiation in space and time of the One
Absolute "unknowable."
In
his "Antiquity of Man," Sir C. Lyell quotes -- perhaps in rather a
mocking spirit -- what Hallam says (in Vol. iv., p. 162) in his
"Introduction to the Literature of Europe":--
"If
man was made in the image of God, he was also made in the image of an ape. The
framework of the body of him who has weighed the stars and made the lightning
his slave, approaches to that of a speechless brute who wanders in the forest
of Sumatra. Thus standing on the frontier land between animal and angelic
natures, what wonder that he should partake of both?"
An
Occultist would have put it otherwise. He would say that man was indeed made in
the image of a type projected by his progenitor, the creating Angel-Force, or
Dhyan Chohan; while the wanderer of the forest of Sumatra was made in the image
of man, since the frame-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 729 PALAEOLITHIC MAN, A CALIGRAPH!
work
of the ape, we say again, is the revival, the resuscitation by abnormal means of
the actual form of the Third-Round, and of the Fourth-Round Man as well, later
on. Nothing is lost in nature, not an atom: this latter is at least certain on
scientific data. Analogy would appear to demand that form should be equally
endowed with permanency.
And
yet what do we find:--
"It
is significant," says Sir W. Dawson, F.R.S., "that Professor Huxley
in his lectures in New York, while resting his case as to the lower animals,
mainly on the supposed genealogy of the horse, which has often been shown to
amount to no certain evidence, avoided altogether the discussion of the origin
of men from the apes, now obviously complicated with so many difficulties that
both Wallace and Mivart are staggered by them. Professor Thomas in his recent
lectures ('Nature,' 1876), admits that there is no lower man known than the
Australian, and that there is no known link of connection with the monkeys; and
that Haeckel has to admit that the penultimate link in his phylogeny, the
ape-like man, is absolutely unknown ('History of Creation.') . . . . The
so-called 'tallies' found with the bones of Palaeocosmic men in European caves,
and illustrated in the admirable works of Christy and Lartet, show that the
rudiments even of writings were already in possession of the oldest race of men
known to archaeology or geology." (See Wilson's "Prehistoric
Man," op. cit., vol. ii., p. 54. "Origin of the World," p. 393.)
Again
in Dr. C. R. Bree's "Fallacies of Darwinism," on page 160, we read:--
"Mr.
Darwin justly says that the difference physically and, more especially
mentally, between the lowest form of man and the highest anthropomorphous ape,
is enormous. Therefore, the time -- which in Darwinian evolution must be almost
inconceivably slow -- must have been enormous also during man's development
from the monkey.* The chance, therefore, of some of these variations being
found in the different gravels or fresh-water formations above the tertiaries,
must be very great. And yet not one single variation, not one single specimen
of a being between a monkey and a man has ever been found. Neither in the
gravel, nor the drift-clay, nor the fresh-water beds, nor in the tertiaries
below them has there ever been discovered the remains of any member of the
missing families between the monkey and the man, as assumed to have existed by
Mr. Darwin. Have they gone down with the depression of the earth's surface and
are they now covered with the sea? If so, it is beyond all probability that
they should not, also be found in those beds of contemporary geological strata
which have not gone down to the bottom of the sea; still more improbable that
some portions should not be dredged from the ocean bed like the remains of the
mammoth and the rhinoceros which are also found in fresh-water beds and gravels
and drift! . . . . . . the celebrated Neanderthal skull, about which so much
has been said, belongs confessedly to this remote epoch (bronze and stone
ages), and yet presents, although it may have been the skull of an idiot,
immense differences from the highest known anthropomorphous ape."
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
And how much more "enormous" if we reverse the subjects and say
during the monkey's development from the Third Race Man.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 730 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Our
globe being convulsed each time that it reawakens for a new period of activity,
like a field which has to be ploughed and furrowed before fresh seed for its
new crop is thrown into it -- it does seem quite hopeless that fossils
belonging to its previous Rounds should be found in the beds of either its
oldest or its latest geological strata. Every new Manvantara brings along with
it the renovation of forms, types and species; every type of the preceding
organic forms -- vegetable, animal and human -- changes and is perfected in the
next, even to the mineral, which has received in this Round its final opacity
and hardness; its softer portions having formed the present vegetation; the
astral relics of previous vegetation and fauna having been utilized in the
formation of the lower animals, and determining the structure of the primeval
Root-Types of the highest mammalia. And, finally, the form of the gigantic
Ape-Man of the former Round has been reproduced in this one by human bestiality
and transfigured into the parent form in the modern Anthropoid.
This
doctrine, even imperfectly delineated as it is under our inefficient pen, is
assuredly more logical, more consistent with facts, and far more probable than
many "scientific" theories; that, for instance, of the first organic
germ descending on a meteor to our Earth -- like Ain Soph on his Vehicle, Adam
Kadmon. Only, the latter descent is allegorical, as every one knows, and the
Kabalists have never offered this figure of speech for acceptance in its
dead-letter garb. But the germ on the meteor theory, as coming from such high
scientific quarters, is an eligible candidate for axiomatic truth and law, a
theory people are in honour bound to accept, if they would be on a right level
with modern Science. What the next theory necessitated by the materialistic
premises will be -- no one can tell. Meanwhile, the present theories, as any
one can see, clash together far more discordantly among themselves than even
those of the Occultists outside the sacred precincts of learning. For what is
there, next in order, now that exact Science has made even of the
Life-principle an empty word, a meaningless term; and now insists that life is
an effect due to the molecular action of the primordial protoplasm! The new
doctrine of the Darwinists may be defined and summarized in a few words, in
which Mr. Herbert Spencer has defined "special creation" . . . "it
is worthless. Worthless, by its derivation; worthless, in its intrinsic
incoherence; worthless, as absolutely without evidence; worthless, as not
supplying an intellectual need; worthless, as not satisfying a moral want. We
must, therefore, consider it as counting for nothing in opposition to any other
hypothesis respecting the origin of organic beings." (Principles of
Biology, Vol. I., p. 345.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 731 STILL GREATER DIFFICULTIES.
§
V.
ORGANIC
EVOLUTION AND CREATIVE CENTRES.
IT
is argued that the Universal Evolution, otherwise, the gradual development of
species in all the kingdoms of nature, works by uniform laws. This is admitted,
and the law enforced far more strictly in Esoteric than in modern Science. But
we are told also, that it is equally a law that "development works from
the less to the more perfect, and from the simpler to the more complicated, by
incessant changes, small in themselves, but constantly accumulating in the required
direction." It is from the infinitesimally small that the comparatively
gigantic species are produced.
Esoteric
Science agrees with it, but adds that this law applies only to what is known to
it as the Primary Creation -- the evolution of worlds from primordial atoms,
and the pre-primordial ATOM, at the first differentiation of the former; and
that during the period of cyclic evolution in space and time, this law is
limited and works only in the lower kingdoms. It did so work during the first
geological periods, from simple to complex, on the rough material surviving
from the relics of the Third Round, which relics are projected into objectivity
when terrestrial activity recommences.
No
more than Science, does esoteric philosophy admit design or "special
creation." It rejects every claim to the "miraculous," and
accepts nothing outside the uniform and immutable laws of Nature. But it
teaches a cyclic law, a double stream of force (or spirit) and of matter,
which, starting from the neutral centre of Being, develops in its cyclic
progress and incessant transformations. The primitive germ from which all
vertebrate life has developed throughout the ages, being distinct from the
primitive germ from which the vegetable and the animal life have evolved, there
are side laws whose work is determined by the conditions in which the materials
to be worked upon are found by them, and of which Science -- physiology and
anthropology especially -- seems to be little aware. Its votaries speak of that
"primitive germ," and maintain that it is shown beyond any doubt that
the "design" and the "designer," if there be any, in the
case of man, with the wonderful structure of his limbs, and his hand
especially, "must be placed very much farther back, and (the design) is,
in fact, involved in the primitive germ," from which not only all
vertebrate life, but, "probably all life, animal and vegetable, have been
slowly developed" (p. 94 of "Modern Science and Modern
Thought").
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 732 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
This
is as true of the "primitive germ" as it is false that that
"germ" is only "very much farther back" than man is; for it
is at an immeasurable and inconceivable distance (in time, though not in space)
from the origin even of our Solar system. As the Hindu philosophy very justly
teaches, the "Aniyamsam Aniyasam," can be known only through false
notions. It is the "many" that proceed from the ONE -- the living
spiritual germs or centres of forces -- each in a septenary form, which first
generate, and then give the PRIMARY IMPULSE to the law of evolution and gradual
slow development.
Limiting
the teaching strictly to this, our earth, it may be shown that, as the ethereal
forms of the first Men are first projected on seven zones by seven
Dhyan-Chohanic centres of Force, so there are centres of creative power for
every ROOT or parent species of the host of forms of vegetable and animal life.
This is, again, no "special creation," nor is there any
"Design," except in the general "ground-plan" worked out by
the universal law. But there are certainly "designers," though these
are neither omnipotent nor omniscient in the absolute sense of the term. They
are simply Builders, or Masons, working under the impulse given them by the
ever-to-be-unknown (on our plane) Master Mason -- the ONE LIFE and Law.
Belonging to this sphere, they have no hand in, or possibility of working on
any other, during the present Manvantara, at any rate. That they work in cycles
and on a strictly geometrical and mathematical scale of progression, is what
the extinct animal species amply demonstrate; that they act by design in the
details of minor lives (of side animal issues, etc.) is what natural history has
sufficient evidence for. In the creation of new species, departing sometimes
very widely from the Parent stock, as in the great variety of the genus Felis
-- like the lynx, the tiger, the cat, etc. -- it is the "designers"
who direct the new evolution by adding to, or depriving the species of certain
appendages, either needed or becoming useless in the new environments. Thus,
when we say that Nature provides for every animal and plant, whether large or
small, we speak correctly. For, it is those terrestrial spirits of Nature, who
form the aggregated Nature; which, if it fails occasionally in its design, is
neither to be considered blind, nor to be taxed with the failure; since,
belonging to a differentiated sum of qualities and attributes, it is in virtue of
that alone conditioned and imperfect.
Were
there no such thing as evolutionary cycles, an eternal spiral progress into
matter with a proportionate obscuration of spirit -- though the two are one --
followed by an inverse ascent into spirit and the defeat of matter -- active
and passive by turn -- how explain the discoveries of zoology and geology? How
is it that, on the dictum of authoritative science, one can trace the animal
life from the mollusc up
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 733 THE "TO BE OR NOT TO BE" OF SCIENCE.
to
the great Sea Dragon, from the smallest land-worm up again to the gigantic
animals of the Tertiary Period; and that the latter were once crossed is shown
by the fact of all those species decreasing, dwindling down and being dwarfed.
If the seeming process of development working from the less to the more
perfect, and from the simpler to the more complex, were a universal law indeed,
instead of being a very imperfect generalization of a mere secondary nature in
the great Cosmic process, and if there were no such cycles as those claimed,
then the Mesozoic fauna and flora ought to change places with the latest
Neolithic. It is the Plesiosauri and the Ichthyosauri that we ought to find
developing from the present sea and river reptiles, instead of giving place to
their dwarfed modern analogies. It is, again, our old friend, the good-tempered
elephant, that would be the fossil antediluvian ancestor, and the mammoth of
the Pliocene age who would be in the menagerie; the megalonyx and the gigantic
megatherium would be found instead of the lazy sloth in the forests of South
America, in which the colossal ferns of the carboniferous periods would take
the place of moss and present trees -- dwarfs, even the giants of California,
in comparison with the Titan-trees of past geological periods. Surely the
organisms of the megasthenian world of the Tertiary and the Mesozoic Ages must
have been more complex and perfect than those of the microsthenian plants and
animals of the present age? The Dryopithecus, for instance, is found more
perfect anatomically, more fit for a greater development of brain power, than
the modern gorilla or gibbon? How is this, then? Are we to believe that the
constitution of all those colossal land and sea-dragons, of the gigantic flying
reptiles, was not far more developed and complex than the anatomy of the
lizards, turtles, crocodiles, and even of the whales -- in short, all those
animals we are acquainted with?
Let
us admit, however, for argument's sake, that all those cycles, races, septenary
forms of evolution and the tutti quanti of esoteric teaching, are no better
than a delusion and a snare. Let us agree with Science and say that man,
instead of being an imprisoned "Spirit," and his vehicle, the shell
or body, a gradually perfected and now complete mechanism for material and
terrestrial uses, as claimed by the Occultists -- is simply a more developed
animal, whose primal form emerged from one and the same primitive germ on this
earth, as the flying dragon and the gnat, the whale and the amoeba, the
crocodile and the frog, etc., etc. In this case, he must have passed through
the identical developments and through the same process of growth as all the
other mammals? If man is an animal, and nothing more, a highly intellectual
ex-brute, he should be privileged, at least, and allowed to have been a
gigantic mammal of his kind, a
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 734 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
meganthropos
in his day. It is just this, that esoteric science shows as having taken place
in the first three rounds, and in this, as in most other things, it is more
logical and consistent than modern science. It classifies the human body with
the brute creation, and maintains it in the path of animal evolution, from
first to last, while science leaves man a parentless orphan born of sires
unknown, an "unspecialized skeleton" truly! And this mistake is due
to a stubborn rejection of the doctrine of cycles.
-------
A.
THE
ORIGIN AND EVOLUTION OF THE MAMMALIA: SCIENCE AND THE ESOTERIC PHYLOGENY.
Having
dealt almost exclusively with the question of the origin of Man in the
foregoing criticism of Western Evolutionism, it may not be amiss to define the
position of the Occultists with regard to the differentiation of species. The
pre-human fauna and flora have been already generally dealt with in the
Commentary on the Stanzas, and the truth of much of modern biological
speculation admitted, e.g., the derivation of birds from reptiles, the partial
truth of "natural selection," and the transformation theory
generally. It now remains to clear up the mystery of the origin of those first
mammalian fauna which M. de Quatrefages so brilliantly endeavours to prove as
contemporary with the Homo primigenius of the Secondary Age.
The
somewhat complicated problem relating to the "Origin of Species," --
more especially of the varied groups of fossil or existing mammalian fauna --
will be rendered less obscure by the aid of a diagram. It will then be apparent
to what extent the "Factors of Organic Evolution," relied upon by
Western biologists,* are to be considered as
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Darwinian theory has been so strained, that even Huxley was forced at one
time to deprecate its occasional degeneration into "fanaticism."
Oscar Schmidt presents a good instance of a thinker who unconsciously
exaggerates the worth of an hypothesis. He admits ("The Doctrine of
Descent and Darwinism," p. 158), that "natural selection"
"is in some cases . . . inadequate, . . . in others . . . not requisite,
as the solution of the formation of species is found in other natural
conditions." He also asserts the "intermediate grades are . . .
wanting, which would entitle us to infer with certainty the direct transition
from unplacental to placental mammals" (p. 271); that "we are
referred entirely to conjecture and inference for the origin of the
mammals" (p. 268); and the repeated failures of the framers of
"hypothetical pedigrees," more especially of Haeckel. Nevertheless he
asserts on p. 194, that "what we have gained by the Doctrine of Descent
based on the theory of selection is the KNOWLEDGE of the connection of organisms
as 'consanguineous beings.' " Knowledge in the face of the above-cited
concessions, is, then, the synonym for conjecture and theory only?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 735 CONJECTURES ARE NOT FACTS.
adequate
to meet the facts. The line of demarcation between etherospiritual, astral and
physical evolution must be drawn. Perhaps, if Darwinians deigned to consider
the possibility of the second process, they would no longer have to lament the
fact that "we are referred to conjecture and inference for the origin of
the Mammals"!! (The Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism, p. 268, by
Professor O. Schmidt.) At present the admitted chasm between the systems of
reproduction of the oviparous vertebrates and mammalia, constitutes a hopeless
crux to those thinkers who, with the Evolutionists, seek to link all existing
organic forms in a continuous line of descent.
Let
us take -- exempli gratia -- the case of the ungulate mammals. "In no
other division," it is said, "do we possess such abundant fossil
material." So much progress has been made in this direction, that in some
instances the intermediate links between the modern and Eocene ungulates have
been unearthed; a notable example being that of the complete proof of the
derivation of the present one-toed horse from the three-toed Anchitherium of
the old Tertiary. This standard of comparison between Western Biology and the
Eastern doctrine could not, therefore, be improved upon. The pedigree here
utilized, as embodying the views of scientists in general, is that of Schmidt
based on the exhaustive researches of Rutimeyer. Its approximate accuracy --
from the standpoint of evolutionism -- leaves little to be desired:--
UNGULATE
MAMMALS.
[[diagram]]
[[text
in diagram]]
ANOPLOTHERIDAE
Hippopotami
Pigs
Tragulidae
Deer
Antelopes
Oxen
PALAEOTHERIDAE
Rhinoceruses
Tapirs
Anchitherium
Hipparion
Horse
Maerauchenidae
(EOCENE)
(Tertiary)
(Recent)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 736 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
midway point of evolution. Science comes to a standstill. "The root to
which these two families lead back IS UNKNOWN" (Schmidt).
[[diagram]]
[[text
in diagram]]
The
"ROOT" according to occultism.
II.
ANOPLOTHERIDAE.
PALAEOTHERIDAE.
One
of the Seven primeveal physico-astral and bi-sexual root-types of the Mammalian
Kingdom (animal). These were contemporaries of the early Lemurian races -- the
"UNKNOWN ROOTS" of Science.
No.
I. represents the realm explored by Western Evolutionists, the area in which
climatic influences, "natural selection," and all the other physical
causes of organic differentiation are present. Biology and palaeontology find
their province here in investigating the many physical agencies which
contribute so largely, as shown by Darwin, Spencer and others, to the
segregation of species. But even in this domain the sub-conscious workings of
the Dhyan-Chohanic wisdom are at the root of all the "ceaseless striving
towards perfection," though its influence is vastly modified by those
purely material causes which de Quatrefages terms the "milieux" and
Spencer the "Environment."
The
"midway point of evolution" is that stage where the astral prototypes
definitely begin to pass into the physical, and thus become subject to the
differentiating agencies now operative around us. Physical causation supervenes
immediately on the assumption of "coats of skin" -- i.e., the physiological
equipment in general. The forms of Men and mammalia previous to the separation
of sexes* are woven out of astral matter, and possess a structure utterly
unlike that of the physical organisms, which eat, drink, digest, etc., etc.,
etc. The known physiological contrivances in organisms were almost entirely
evolved subsequently to the incipient physicalization of the 7 Root-Types out
of the astral -- during the "midway halt" between the two planes of
existence. Hardly had the "ground-plan" of evolution been limned out
in these ancestral types, than the influence of the accessory terrestrial laws,
familiar to us, supervened, resulting in the whole crop of mammalian species.
AEons of slow differentiation were, however, required to effect this end.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Bear in mind, please, that though the animals -- mammalians included -- have
all been evolved after and partially from man's cast-off tissues, still, as a
far lower being, the mammalian animal became placental and separated far
earlier than man.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 737 THE UNITY OF TYPE.
No.
II. represents the domain of the purely astral prototypes previous to their descent
into (gross) matter. Astral matter, it must be noted, is fourth state matter,
having, like our gross matter, its own "protyle." There are several
"protyles" in Nature, corresponding to the various planes of matter.
The two sub-physical elemental kingdoms, the plane of mind (manas, the fifth
state matter), as also that of Buddhi (sixth state matter), are each and all
evolved from one of the six "protyles" which constitute the basis of
the Object-Universe. The three "states," so-called of our terrestrial
matter, known as the "solid," "liquid," and
"gaseous," are only, in strict accuracy, SUB-states. As to the former
reality of the descent into the physical, which culminated in physiological man
and animal, we have a palpable testimony in the fact of the so-called
spiritualistic "materializations."
In
all these instances a complete temporary mergence of the astral into the
physical takes place. The evolution of physiological Man out of the astral
races of early Lemurian age -- the Jurassic age of Geology -- is exactly
paralleled by the "materialization" of "spirits" (?) in the
seance-room. In the case of Professor Crookes' "Katie King," the
presence of a physiological mechanism -- heart, lungs, etc. -- was indubitably
demonstrated!!
This,
in a way, is the ARCHETYPE of Goethe. Listen to his words: "Thus much we
should have gained . . . all the nine perfect organic beings . . . (are) formed
according to an archetype which merely fluctuates more or less in its very
persistent parts and, moreover, day by day, completes and transforms itself by
means of reproduction." This is a seemingly imperfect foreshadowing of the
occult fact of the differentiation of species from the primal astral
root-types. Whatever the whole posse comitatus of "natural selection,"
etc., etc., may effect, the fundamental unity of structural plan remains
practically unaffected by all subsequent modifications. The "Unity of
Type" common, in a sense, to all the animal and human kingdoms, is not, as
Spencer and others appear to hold, a proof of the consanguineity of all organic
forms, but a witness to the essential unity of the "ground-plan"
Nature has followed in fashioning her creatures.
To
sum up the case, we may again avail ourselves of a tabulation of the actual
factors concerned in the differentiation of species. The stages of the process
itself need no further comment here, being the basic principles underlying
organic development, than to enter on the domain of the biological specialist.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 738 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
FACTORS
CONCERNED IN THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE.
BASIC
ASTRAL PROTOTYPES PASS INTO THE PHYSICAL.
-------
The
Dhyan Chohanic Impulse constituting Lamarck's "inherent and
necessary" law of development. It lies behind all minor agencies.{
1.
Variation transmitted by heredity.
2.
Natural Selection.
3.
Sexual Selection.
4.
Physiological Selection.
5.
Isolation.
6.
Correlation of Growth.
7.
Adaptation to Environment. (Intelligent as opposed to mechanical causation.)
[[diagram]]
SPECIES.
-------
B.
THE
EUROPEAN, PALAEOLITHIC RACES. -- WHENCE, AND HOW DISTRIBUTED.
IS
Science against those who maintain that down to the Quaternary period the distribution
of the human races was widely different from what it is now? Is Science against
those who, further, maintain that the fossil men found in Europe -- although
having almost reached a plane of sameness and unity from the fundamental
physiological and anthropological aspects which continues till this day --
still differ, sometimes greatly, from the type of the now existing populations.
The late Littre confesses it in an article published by him on the Memoir
called Antiquites Celtiques et Antediluviennes by Boucher de Perthes (1849) --
in the Revue des Deux Mondes (March 1,1859). He says in it (a) that in these
periods when the Mammoths, exhumed with the hatchets in Picardy, lived in the
latter region, there must have been an eternal spring reigning over all the
terrestrial globe*; nature was the contrary of what it is now -- thus leaving
an enormous margin for the antiquity of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Scientists now admit that Europe enjoyed in the Miocene times a warm, in the
Pliocene or later Tertiary, a temperate climate. Littre's contention as to the
balmy spring of the Quaternary -- to which deposits M. de Perthes' discoveries
of flint implements are traceable (since when the Somme has worn down its valley
many scores of feet) -- must be accepted with much reservation. The
Somme-valley relics are post-glacial, and possibly point to the immigration of
savages during one of the more temperate periods intervening between minor ages
of Ice.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 739 AFRICA IN EUROPE.
those
"periods" and then adds: (b) "Spring, professor of the Faculty
of Medicine at Liege, found in a grotto near Namur, in the mountain of
Chauvaux, numerous human bones 'of a race quite distinct from ours.' "
Skulls
exhumed in Austria offered a great analogy with those of African negro races,
according to Littre, while others, discovered on the shores of the Danube and
the Rhine, resembled the skulls of the Caribs and those of the ancient
inhabitants of Peru and Chili. Still, the Deluge, whether Biblical or
Atlantean, was denied. But further geological discoveries having made Gaudry
write conclusively: "Our forefathers were positively contemporaneous with
the rhinoceros tichorrhinus, the hippopotamus major"; and add that the
soil called diluvial in geology "was formed partially at least after man's
apparition on earth" -- Littre pronounced himself finally. He then showed
the necessity, before "the resurrection of so many old witnesses," of
rehandling all the origins, all the durations, and added that there was AN AGE
hitherto unknown to study "either at the dawn of the actual epoch or, as I
believe, at the beginning of the epoch which preceded it."
The
types of the skulls found in Europe are of two kinds, as is well known: the
orthognathous and the prognathous, or the Caucasian and the negro types; such
as are now found only in the African and the lower savage tribes. Professor
Heer -- who argues that the facts of Botany necessitate the hypothesis of an
Atlantis -- has shown that the plants of the Neolithic lake-villagers are
mainly of African origin. How did the latter come to be in Europe if there was
no former point of union between Africa and Europe? How many thousand years ago
did the seventeen men live whose skeletons were exhumed in the Department of
the Haute Garonne, in a squatting posture near the remains of a coal fire, with
some amulets and broken crockery around them, and in company with the bear spelaeus,
the Elephas primigenius, the aurochs (regarded by Cuvier as a distinct
species), the Megaceros hibernicus -- all antediluvian mammals? Certainly at a
most distant epoch, but not one which carries us further back than the
Quaternary. A much greater antiquity for Man has yet to be proved. Dr. James
Hunt, the late President of the Anthropological Society, makes it 9,000,000
years. This man of science, at any rate, makes some approach to our esoteric
computation, if we leave the first two semi-human, ethereal races, and the
early Third Race out of the computation.
The
question, however, arises -- who were these Palaeolithic men of the European
quaternary epoch? Were they aboriginal, or the outcome of some immigration
dating back into the unknown past? The latter is the only tenable hypothesis,
as all scientists agree in eliminating Europe from the category of possible
"cradles of mankind." Whence, then, radiated the various successive
streams of "primitive" men?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 740 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
The
earliest Palaeolithic men in Europe -- about whose origin Ethnology is silent,
and whose very characteristics are but imperfectly known, though expatiated on
as "ape-like" by imaginative writers such as Mr. Grant Allen -- were
of pure Atlantean and "Africo"-Atlantean stocks.* (It must be borne
in mind that by this time the Atlantis continent itself was a dream of the
past.) Europe in the quaternary epoch was very different from the Europe of
to-day, being then only in process of formation. It was united to N. Africa --
or rather what is now N. Africa -- by a neck of land running across the present
Straits of Gibraltar -- N. Africa thus constituting a species of extension of Spain,
while a broad sea washed the great basin of the Sahara. Of the great Atlantis,
the main bulk of which sank in the Miocene, there remained only Ruta and Daitya
and a stray island or so. The Atlantean connections of the forefathers** of the
Palaeolithic cave-men are evidenced by the upturning of fossil skulls (in
Europe) reverting closely to the West Indian Carib and ancient Peruvian type --
a mystery indeed to all those who refuse to sanction the "hypothesis"
of a former Atlantic continent to bridge the ocean (Cf. "Scientific and
geological proofs of the reality of several submerged continents"). What
are we also to make of the fact that while de Quatrefages points to that
"magnificent race," the TALL Cro-Magnon cave-men and the Guanches of
the Canary Islands as representatives of one type -- Virchow also allies the
Basques with the latter in a similar way? Professor Retzius independently
proves the relationship of the aboriginal American dolichocephalous tribes and
these same Guanches. The several links in the chain of evidence are securely
joined together. Legions of similar facts could be adduced. As to the African
tribes -- themselves diverging offshoots of Atlanteans modified by climate and
conditions -- they crossed into Europe over the peninsula which made the
Mediterranean an inland sea. Fine races were many of these European cave-men;
the Cro-Magnon, for instance. But, as was to be expected, progress is almost
non-existent through the whole of the vast period allotted
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Whence they (the old cave-men) came, we cannot tell" (Grant Allen).
"The
palaeolithic hunters of the Somme Valley did not originate in that inhospitable
climate, but moved into Europe from some more genial region -- (Dr. Southall
"Epoch of the Mammoth" p. 315).
**
The pure Atlantean stocks -- of which the tall quaternary cave-men were, in
part, the direct descendants -- immigrated into Europe long prior to the
Glacial Period; in fact as far back as the Pliocene and Miocene times in the
Tertiary. The worked Miocene flints of Thenay, and the traces of Pliocene man
discovered by Professor Capellini in Italy, are witnesses to the fact. These
colonists were portions of the once glorious race, whose cycle from the Eocene
downwards had been running down the scale.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 741 A TARDY ADMISSION.
by
Science to the Chipped Stone-Age.* The cyclic impulse downwards weighs heavily
on the stocks thus transplanted -- the incubus of the Atlantean Karma is upon
them. Finally, Palaeolithic man makes room for his successor -- and disappears
almost entirely from the scene. Professor Lefevre asks in this connection:--
"Has
the Polished succeeded the Chipped Stone-Age by an imperceptible transition, or
was it due to an invasion of brachycephalous Celts? But whether, again, the
deterioration produced in the populations of La Vezere was the result of
violent crossings, or of a general retreat northwards in the wake of the
reindeer, is of little moment to us." He continues:--
"Meantime
the bed of the ocean has been upheaved, Europe is now fully formed, her flora
and fauna fixed. With the taming of the dog begins the pastoral life. We enter
on those polished stone and bronze periods, which succeed each other at
irregular intervals, which even overlap one another in the midst of ethnical
fusions and migrations. . . . The primitive European populations are
interrupted in their special evolution and, without perishing, become absorbed
in other races, engulfed . . . by successive waves of migration overflowing
from Africa, possibly from a lost Atlantis [?? far too late by aeons of years]
and from prolific Asia . . . all FORERUNNERS OF THE GREAT ARYAN INVASION"
(Fifth Race).
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The artistic skill displayed by the old cave-men renders the hypothesis which
regards them as approximations to the "pithecanthropus alalus" --
that very mythical Haeckelian monster -- an absurdity requiring no Huxley or
Schmidt to expose it. We see in their skill in engraving a gleam of Atlantean
culture atavistically re-appearing. It will be remembered that Donnelly regards
modern European as a renaissance of Atlantean civilization.
("Atlantis," pp. 237-264.)
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 742 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
§
VI.
GIANTS,
CIVILIZATIONS, AND SUBMERGED CONTINENTS TRACED IN HISTORY.
WHEN
statements such as are comprised in the above heading are brought forward, the
writer is, of course, expected to furnish historical instead of legendary
evidence in support of such claims. Is this possible? Yes; for evidence of this
nature is plentiful, and has simply to be collected and brought together to
become overwhelming in the eyes of the unprejudiced.
Once
the sagacious student gets hold of the guiding thread he may find it out for
himself. We give facts and show land-marks: let the wayfarer follow them. What
is given here is amply sufficient for THIS Century.
In
a letter to Voltaire, Bailly finds it quite natural that the sympathies of the
"grand old invalid of Ferney" should be attracted to the
"representatives of knowledge and wisdom, the Brahmans of India." He
then adds a curious statement. "But," he says, "your Brahmans
are very young in comparison with their ancient instructors."*
Bailly,
who knew nought of the esoteric teachings, nor of Lemuria, believed,
nevertheless, unreservedly in the lost Atlantis, and also in several
pre-historic and civilized nations which had disappeared without leaving any
undeniable trace. He had studied the ancient classics and traditions
extensively, and he saw that the arts and sciences known to those we now call
the "ancients," were "not the achievements of any of the now or
even then existing nations, nor of any of the historical peoples of Asia."
And that, notwithstanding the learning of the Hindoos, their undeniable
priority in the antiquity of their race had to be referred to a people or a
race still more ancient and more learned than were even the Brahmans
themselves.**
Voltaire,
the greatest sceptic of his day, the materialist par excellence, shared
Bailly's belief. He thought it quite likely "that long before the empires
of China and India, there had been nations cultured, learned, and powerful,
which a deluge of barbarians overpowered and thus replunged into their
primitive state of ignorance and savagery, or what they call the state of pure
nature." ("Lettres sur l'Atlantide," p. 15).***
[[Footnote(s)]]
-----------------------------------------------
*
Lettres sur l'Atlantide.
**
Histoire de l'Astronomie Ancienne, p. 25, et seq.
***
This conjecture is but a half-guess. There were such "deluges of barbarians"
in the Fifth Race. With regard to the Fourth, it was a bond fide deluge of
water which swept it away. Neither Voltaire nor Bailly, however, knew anything
of the Secret Doctrine of the East.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 743 A MYSTERIOUS NATION.
That
which with Voltaire was the shrewd conjecture of a great intellect, was with
Bailly "a question of historical facts." For "I make great case
of ancient traditions preserved through a long series of generations," he
wrote. (Ibid.) It was possible, he thought, that a foreign nation should, after
instructing another nation, so disappear that it should leave no traces behind.
When asked how it could have happened that this ancient, or rather archaic,
nation should not have left at least some recollection in the human mind, he
answered that Time was a pitiless devourer of facts and events. But, the
history of the Past was never entirely lost, for the Sages of old Egypt had
preserved it, and "it is so preserved to this day elsewhere."
"You do not know which was the best and most handsome generation of men
which has ever lived on this earth," said the priests of Sais to Solon,
according to Plato. "Only a weak seed of it, of which you (Greeks) are the
descendants,* is all that remains." "Their books," they added,
"preserved the records of a great nation, which emerging from the Atlantic
sea had invaded Europe and Asia (Timaeus). The Greeks were but the dwarfed and
weak remnant of that once glorious nation. . . ."**
What
was this nation? The secret doctrine teaches that it was the latest, seventh
sub-race of the Atlanteans, already swallowed up in one of the early sub-races
of the Aryan stock, one that had been gradually spreading over the continent
and islands of Europe, as soon as they had begun to emerge from the seas.
Descending from the high plateaux of Asia, where the two Races had sought
refuge in the days of the agony of Atlantis, it had been slowly settling and
colonizing the freshly emerged lands. The emigrant sub-race had rapidly
increased and multiplied on that virgin soil; had divided into many families,
which in their turn divided into nations. Egypt and Greece, the Phoenicians,
and the Northern stocks, had thus proceeded from that one sub-race. Thousands
of years later, other races -- the remnants of the Atlanteans -- "yellow
and red, brown and black," began to invade the new continent. There were
wars in which the new comers were defeated; and they fled, some to Africa,
others to remote countries. Some of these lands became in course of time --
owing to new geological convulsions -- islands. Being thus forcibly
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For a full discussion of the relations between the old Greeks and Romans, and
the Atlantean colonists, cf. "Five Years of Theosophy."
**
The story about Atlantis and all the traditions thereon were told, as all know,
by Plato in his "Timaeus and Critias." Plato, when a child, had it
from his grand-sire Critias, aged ninety, who in his youth had been told of it
by Solon, his father Dropidas' friend -- Solon, one of the Grecian Seven Sages.
No more reliable source could be found, we believe.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 744 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
separated
from the continents, the result was that the undeveloped tribes and families of
the Atlantean stock fell gradually into a still more abject and savage
condition.
Did
not the Spaniards in the Cibola expeditions meet with WHITE savage chiefs; and
has not the presence of African negro types in Europe in the pre-historic ages
been now ascertained? It is this presence of a type associated with that of the
negro, and also with that of the Mongolian, which is the stumbling-block of
anthropology. The individual who lived at an incalculably distant period at La
Naulette, in Belgium (Vide Dr. Carter Blake's paper "On the Naudette
Jaw," Anthrop. Review, Sept., 1867), is an example. "The caves on the
banks of the Lesse, in South-Eastern Belgium," says this Anthropologist,
"afford evidence of what is, perhaps, the lowest man, as shown by the
Naulette jaw. Such man, however, had amulets of stone, perforated for the
purpose of ornament; these are made of a psammite now found in the basin of the
Gironde."
Thus
Belgian man was extremely ancient. That man who was antecedent to the great
flood of waters -- which covered the highlands of Belgium with a deposit of
lehm or upland gravel 30 metres above the level of the present rivers -- must
have combined the characters of the Turanian and the negro. The Canstadt, or La
Naulette, man, may have been black, and had nothing to do with the Aryan type
whose remains are contemporary with those of the cave bear at Engis. The
denizens of the Aquitaine bone-caves belong to a far later period of history,
and may not be as ancient as the former.
If
the statement is objected to on the ground that Science does not deny the
presence of man on earth from an enormous antiquity, though that antiquity
cannot be determined, since that presence is conditioned by the duration of
geological periods, the age of which is not ascertained; if it is argued that
the Scientists object most decidedly to the claim that man preceded the
animals, for instance; or that civilization dates from the earliest Eocene
period, or, again, that there have ever existed giants, three-eyed and
four-armed and four-legged men, androgynes, etc., then the objectors are asked
in their turn, "How do you know? What proof have you besides your personal
hypotheses, each of which may be upset any day by new discoveries?" And
these future discoveries are sure to prove that, whatever this earlier type of
man known to Anthropologists was in complexion, he was in no respect apish. The
Canstadt man, the Engis man alike possessed essentially human attributes. (Vide
de Quatrefages and Hamy. "Cranes des Races Humaines.") People have
looked for the missing link at the wrong end of the chain; and the Neander
valley man has long since been dismissed to the "limbo of all hasty
blunders" (Ibid.). Disraeli divided man into the associates of the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 745 REMARKABLE "COINCIDENCES."
apes
and the angels. Reasons are given in the text in favour of an "angelic
theory," -- as Christians would say -- at least as applicable to some of
the races of men. At all events, if man exists only since the Miocene period,
even then, humanity as a whole could not be composed of the abject savages of
the Palaeolithic age, as they are now represented by the Scientists. All they
say is mere arbitrary speculative guess-work, invented by them to answer to and
fit in with their own fanciful theories.
We
speak of events hundreds of thousands years old, nay, even millions -- if man
dates from the geological periods* -- not of any of those events which happened
during the few thousand years of the pre-historic margin allowed by timid and
ever-cautious history. Yet there are men of science who are almost of our way
of thinking. From the brave confession of the Abbe Brasseur de Bourbourg, who
says that:-- "Traditions, whose traces recur in Mexico, in Central
America, in Peru, and in Bolivia, suggest the idea that man existed in these
different countries at the time of the gigantic upheaval of the Andes, and that
he has retained the memory of it" -- down to the latest palaeontologists
and anthropologists, the majority of scientific men is in favour of just such
an antiquity. Apropos of Peru, has any satisfactory attempt been made to
determine the ethnological affinities and characteristics of the race which
reared those Cyclopean erections, the ruins of which display the relics of a
great civilization? At Cuelap, for instance, such are found, consisting
"of a wall of wrought stones, 3,600 feet long, 560 broad, and 150 feet
high, constituting a solid mass with a level summit. On this mass was another,
600 feet long, 500 broad, and 150 feet high, making an aggregate height of 300
feet. In it were rooms and cells." (Cf., the mass of evidence collected by
Donnelly to prove the Peruvian colony an offshoot of the Atlanteans.) A most
suggestive fact is the startling resemblance between the architecture of these
colossal buildings and that of the archaic European nations. Mr. Fergusson
regards the analogies between the ruins of "Inca" civilization and
the Cyclopean remains of the Pelasgians in Italy and Greece as a coincidence
"the most remarkable in the history of architecture." "It is
difficult to resist the conclusion that there may be some relation between
them." The "relation" is simply explained by the derivation of
the stocks,
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Haeckel's "Man-ape" of the Miocene period is the dream of a
monomaniac, which de Quatrefages (see his "Human Species," pp.
105-113) has cleverly disposed of. It is not clear why the world should accept
the lucubrations of a psychophobic materialist, (to accept whose theory
necessitates the acceptance on faith of various animals unknown to Science or
Nature -- like the Sozura, for instance, that amphibian which has never existed
anywhere outside Haeckel's imagination), rather than the traditions of
antiquity.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 746 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
who
devised these erections, from a common centre in an Atlantic continent. The acceptance
of the latter can alone assist us to approach a solution of this and similar
problems in almost every branch of modern science.
Dr.
Lartet, treating upon the subject, settles the question by declaring that:--
"The truth, so long contested, of the co-existence of man with the great
extinct species (Elephas primigenius, Rhinoceros tichorrhinus, Hyaena spelaea,
Ursus spelaeus, etc., etc.), appears to me to be henceforth unassailable and
definitely conquered by science." ("Cavernes de Perigord," p. 35.)
It
is shown elsewhere that such is also de Quatrefages' opinion. "Man has in
all probability seen Miocene times* and consequently the entire Pliocene
epoch," he says, and there are reasons for believing that "his traces
will be found further back still, . . . ." he adds ("The Human
Species," p. 152.)
Egypt
is far older than Europe as now traced on the map. Atlanto-Aryan tribes began
to settle on it, when the British Islands** and France were not even in
existence. It is well known that "the tongue of the AEgyptian Sea,"
or the Delta of lower Egypt, became firm land very gradually, and followed the
highlands of Abyssinia; unlike the latter, which arose suddenly, comparatively
speaking, it was very slowly formed, through long ages, from successive layers
of sea slime and mud, deposited annually by the soil brought down by a large
river, the present Nile. Yet even the Delta as a firm and fertile land, has
been inhabited for more than 100,000 years. Later tribes, with still more Aryan
blood in them than their predecessors, arrived from the East, and conquered it
from a people whose very name is lost to posterity, except in Secret works. It
is this natural barrier of slime, which sucked in slowly and surely every boat
that approached these inhospitable shores, that was, till within a few thousand
of years B.C., the best safeguard of the later Egyptians, who had managed to
reach it through Arabia, Abyssinia, and Nubia, led on by Manu Vina in the day
of Visvamitra. (See in "Isis Unveiled," vol. 1, p. 627, what Kulluka
Bhatta says.)
So
evident does the antiquity of man become with every day that even the Church is
preparing an honourable surrender and retreat. The learned Abbe Fabre,
professor at the Sorbonne, has categorically declared
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The ingenious author of "Atlantis, the Ante-diluvian World," in
discussing the origin of various Grecian and Roman institutions, expresses his
conviction that "the roots of the institutions of to-day reach back to the
Miocene Age." Ay, and further yet, as already stated.
**
As we know them, however. For not only does Geology prove that the British
islands have been four times submerged and re-elevated, but that the straits
between them and Europe were dry land at a remote former epoch.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 747 THE SEVEN SABBATHS.
that
pre-historic palaeontology and archaeology may, without any harm to the
Scriptures, discover in the tertiary beds . . . . . the traces of pre-adamite
man as much as they like. "Since it disregards all creations anterior to
the last deluge but one, (that which produced the diluvium, according to the
Abbe), Bible revelation leaves us free to admit the existence of man in the
grey diluvium, in Pliocene, and even Eocene strata. On the other hand, however,
geologists are not all agreed in regarding the men who inhabited the globe in
these primitive ages as our ancestors.*
The
day when the Church will find that its only salvation lies in the occult
interpretation of the Bible, may not be so far off as some imagine. Already
many an abbe and ecclesiastic has become an ardent Kabalist, and as many appear
publicly in the arena, breaking a lance with Theosophists and Occultists in
support of the metaphysical interpretation of the Bible. But they commence,
unfortunately for them, from the wrong end. They are advised, before they begin
to speculate upon the metaphysical in their Scriptures, to study and master
that which relates to the purely physical -- e.g., its geological and
ethnological hints. For such allusions to the Septenary constitution of the
Earth and Man, to the seven Rounds and Races, abound in the New as in the Old
Testaments, and are as visible as the sun in the heavens to him who reads both
symbolically. What do the laws in chapter xxiii., v. 15, of Leviticus apply to?
What is the philosophy of reason for all such hebdomadic offerings and
symbolical calculations as: "ye shall count . . . . from the morrow after
the Sabbath . . . . that ye brought the sheaf of the wave offering; seven
Sabbaths shall be completed" (15), "And ye shall offer with the bread
seven lambs without blemish" (18), etc. etc. We shall be contradicted, no
doubt, when we say that all these "wave" and "peace"
offerings were in commemoration of the Seven "Sabbaths" of the
mysteries, which Sabbaths are seven pralayas, between seven manvantaras, or
what we call Rounds -- for "Sabbath" is an elastic word, meaning a
period of Rest of whatever nature, as explained elsewhere (Part II,
"Sections on the Septenary.") And if this is not sufficiently
conclusive, then we may turn to the verse which follows (16), and which adds,
"even unto the morrow after the seventh Sabbath shall ye number fifty
days" (forty-nine, 7 x 7, stages of activity, and forty-nine stages of
rest, on the seven globes of the chain, and then
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Les origines de la terre et de l'homme," p. 454. To this, Professor
N. Joly, of Toulouse, who quotes the Abbe in his "Man before Metals,"
expresses the hope that M. Fabre will permit him "to differ from him on
this last point," p. 186. So do the Occultists; for though they claim a
vast difference in the physiology and outward appearance of the five races so
far evolved, still they maintain that the present human species has descended
from one and the same primitive stock, evolved from the "divine men"
-- our common ancestors and progenitors.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 748 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
comes
the rest of Sabbath, the fiftieth); after which "ye shall offer a new meat
offering unto the Lord," i.e., ye shall make an offering of your flesh or
"coats of skin," and, divesting yourselves of your bodies, ye shall
remain pure spirits. This law of offering, degraded and materialized with ages,
was an institution that dated from the earliest Atlanteans; it came to the
Hebrews via the "Chaldees," who were the "wise men" of a
caste, not of a nation, a community of great adepts come from their
"Serpent-holes," and who had settled in Babylonia ages before. And if
this interpretation from Leviticus (full of the disfigured laws of Manu) is found
too far-fetched, then turn to Revelation. Whatever interpretation profane
mystics may give to the famous Chapter xvii., with its riddle of the woman in
purple and scarlet; whether Protestants nod at the Roman Catholics, when
reading "MYSTERY, BABYLON THE GREAT, THE MOTHER OF HARLOTS AND
ABOMINATIONS OF THE EARTH," or Roman Catholics glare at the Protestants,
the Occultists pronounce, in their impartiality, that these words have applied
from the first to all and every exoteric Churchianity, that which was the
"ceremonial magic" of old, with its terrible effects, and is now the
harmless (because distorted) farce of ritualistic worship. The
"mystery" of the woman and of the beast, are the symbols of
soul-killing Churchianity and of SUPERSTITION. "The beast that was, and is
not, and yet is." "And here is the Mind which hath wisdom. The seven
heads are seven mountains (seven continents and seven races) on which the woman
sitteth," the symbol of all the exoteric, barbarous, idolatrous faiths which
have covered that symbol "with the blood of the saints and the blood of
the martyrs" who protested and do protest. "And there are seven Kings
(seven races); five are fallen (our fifth race included), and one is (the fifth
continues), and the other (the sixth and the seventh races) is not yet come. .
. . And when he (the race "King") cometh, he must continue a short
space" (v. 10). There are many such Apocalyptic allusions, but the student
has to find them out for himself. These five Kings were mentioned before.
If
the Bible combines with archaeology and geology to show that human civilization
has passed through three more or less distinct stages, in Europe at least; and
if man, both in America and Europe, as much as in Asia, dates from geological
epochs -- why should not the statements of the Secret Doctrine be taken into
consideration? Is it more philosophical or logical and scientific too, to
disbelieve, with Mr. Albert Gaudry, in Miocene man, while believing that the
famous Thenay flints* "were carved by the Dryopithecus monkey"; or,
with the Occultist, that the anthro-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"The flints of Thenay bear unmistakable trace of the work of human
hands." (G. de Mortillet, "Promenades au Musee de St. Germain,"
p. 76.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 749 THE APE LATER THAN MAN.
pomorphous
monkey came ages after man? For if it is once conceded, and even scientifically
demonstrated, that "there was not in the middle of the Miocene epoch a
single species of mammal identical with species now extant" (Albert Gaudry
"Les Enchainements du monde animal dans les temps geologiques" p.
240); and that man was then just as he is now; only taller, and more athletic
than we are,* -- then where is the difficulty? That they could hardly be the
descendants of monkeys, which are themselves not traced before the Miocene
epoch,** is, on the other hand, testified to by several eminent naturalists.
"Thus,
in the savage of quaternary ages who had to fight against the mammoth with
stone weapons, we find all those craniological characters generally considered
as the sign of great intellectual development" (de Quatrefages, "The
Human Species, p. 312.)
Unless
man emerged spontaneously, endowed with all his intellect and wisdom, from his
brainless catarrhine ancestor, he could not have acquired such brain within the
limits of the Miocene period, if we are to believe the learned Abbe Bourgeois
(Vide infra, footnote**).
As
to the matter of giants, though the tallest man hitherto found in Europe among
fossils is the "Mentone man" (6 ft. 8 in.), others may yet be
excavated. Nilsson, quoted by Lubbock, states that "in a tomb of the
neolithic age . . . . a skeleton of extraordinary size was found in 1807,"
and that it was attributed to a king of Scotland, Albus McGaldus.
And
if in our own day we occasionally find men and women from 7 ft. to even 9 ft.
and 11 ft. high, this only proves -- on the law of atavism, or the reappearance
of ancestral features of character -- that there was a time when 9 ft. and 10
ft. was the average height of humanity, even in our latest Indo-European race.
But
as the subject was sufficiently treated elsewhere, we may pass on to the
Lemurians and the Atlanteans, and see what the old Greeks knew of these early
races and what the moderns know now.
The
great nation mentioned by the Egyptian priests, from which descended the
forefathers of the Greeks of the age of Troy, and which, as averred, had been
destroyed by the Atlantic race, was then, as we see, assuredly no race of
Palaeolithic savages. Nevertheless, already in the days of Plato, with the
exception of priests and Initiates, no one seems
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Speaking of the reindeer hunters of Perigord, Joly says of them that "they
were of great height, athletic, with a strongly built skeleton . . ." etc.
("Man before Metals," p. 353).
**
"On the shores of the lake of Beauce," says the Abbe Bourgeois,
"man lived in the midst of a fauna which completely disappeared
(Aceratherium, Tapir, Mastodon). With the fluviatile sands of Orleanais came
the anthropomorphous monkey (pliopithecus antiquus); therefore, later than
man." (See Comptes Rendus of the "Prehistoric Congress" of 1867
at Paris.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 750 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
to
have preserved any distinct recollection of the preceding races. The earliest
Egyptians had been separated from the latest Atlanteans for ages upon ages;
they were themselves descended from an alien race, and had settled in Egypt
some 400,000 years before,* but their Initiates had preserved all the records.
Even so late as the time of Herodotus, they had still in their possession the
statues of 341 kings who had reigned over their little Atlanto-Aryan Sub-race
(Vide about the latter "Esoteric Buddhism," p. 66, Fifth Edition.) If
one allows only twenty years as an average figure for the reign of each King,
the duration of the Egyptian Empire has to be pushed back, from the day of
Herodotus, about 17,000 years.
Bunsen
allowed the great Pyramid an antiquity of 20,000 years. More modern
archaeologists will not give it more than 5,000, or at the utmost 6,000 years;
and generously concede to Thebes with its hundred gates, 7,000 years from the
date of its foundation. And yet there are records which show Egyptian priests
-- Initiates -- journeying in a North-Westerly direction, by land, via what
became later the Straits of Gibraltar; turning North and travelling through the
future Phoenician settlements of Southern Gaul; then still further North, until
reaching Carnac (Morbihan) they turned to the West again and arrived, still
travelling by land, on the North-Western promontory of the New Continent.**
What
was the object of their long journey? And how far back must we place the date
of such visits? The archaic records show the Initiates of the Second Sub-race
of the Aryan family moving from one land to the other for the purpose of
supervising the building of menhirs and dolmens, of colossal Zodiacs in stone,
and places of sepulchre to serve as receptables for the ashes of generations to
come. When was it? The fact of their crossing from France to Great Britain by
land may give an idea of the date when such a journey could have been performed
on terra firma.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"In making soundings in the stony soil of the Nile Valley two baked bricks
were discovered, one at the depth of 20, the other at 25 yards. If we estimate
the thickness of the annual deposit formed by the river at 8 inches per century
(more careful calculations have shown no more than from three to five per
century), we must assign to the first of these bricks 12,000 years, and to the
second 14,000 years. By means of analogous calculations, Burmeister supposes
72,000 years to have elapsed since the first appearance of man on the soil of
Egypt, and Draper attributes to the European man, who witnessed the last
glacial epoch, an antiquity of more than 250,000 years." ("Man before
Metals," p. 183.) Egyptian Zodiacs show more than 75,000 years of
observation! (See further.) Note well also that Burmeister speaks only of the
Delta population.
**
Or on what are now the British Islands, which were not yet detached from the
main continent in those days. "The ancient inhabitant of Picardy could
pass into Great Britain without crossing the Channel. The British Isles were
united to Gaul by an isthmus which has since been submerged." ("Man
before Metals," p. 184.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 751 DARWINIANS REJECT THE TRUTH.
It
was --
"When
the level of the Baltic and of the North Sea was 400 feet higher than it is
now; when the valley of the Somme was not hollowed to the depth it has now
attained; when Sicily was joined to Africa, Barbary to Spain," when
"Carthage, the Pyramids of Egypt, the palaces of Uxmal and Palenque were
not in existence, and the bold navigators of Tyre and Sidon, who at a later
date were to undertake their perilous voyages along the coasts of Africa, were
yet unborn. What we know with certainty is that European man was
contemporaneous with the extinct species of the quaternary epoch . . . . that
he witnessed the upheaval of the Alps* and the extension of the glaciers, in a
word that he lived for thousands of years before the dawn of the remotest
historical traditions . . . . It is even possible that man was the contemporary
of extinct mammalia of species yet more ancient . . . . of the Elephas
meridionalis of the sands of St. Prest . . . and the Elephas antiquus, assumed
to be prior to the elephas primigenius, since their bones are found in company
with carved flints in several English caves, associated with those of the
Rhinoceros hemitaechus and even of the Machairodus latidens, which is of still
earlier date . . . . M. E. Lartet is of opinion that there is nothing really
impossible in the existence of man as early as the Tertiary period."**
If
"there is nothing impossible" scientifically in the idea, and it may
be admitted that man lived already as early as the Tertiary period, then it is
just as well to remind the reader that Mr. Croll places the beginning of that
period 2,500,000 years back (See Croll's "Climate and Time"); but
there was a time when he assigned to it 15,000,000 years.
And
if all this may be said of European man, how great is the antiquity of the
Lemuro-Atlantean and of the Atlanto-Aryan man? Every educated person who follows
the progress of Science, knows how all vestiges of man during the Tertiary
period are received. The calumnies that were poured on Desnoyers in 1863, when
he made known to the Institute of France that he had made a discovery "in
the undisturbed pliocene sands of St. Prest near Chartres, proving the
co-existence of man and the Elephas meridionalis" -- were equal to the
occasion. The later discovery (in 1867) by the Abbe Bourgeois, that man lived
in the Miocene epoch, and the reception it was given at the Pre-historic Con-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
He witnessed and remembered it too, as "the final disappearance of the
largest continent of Atlantis was an event coincident with the elevation of the
Alps," a master writes (See Esoteric Buddhism p. 70). Pari passu, as one
portion of the dry land of our hemisphere disappeared, some land of the new
continent emerged from the seas. It is on this colossal cataclysm, which lasted
during a period of 150,000 years, that traditions of all the
"Deluges" are built, the Jews building their version on an event
which took place later in "Poseidonis."
**
The Antiquity of the Human Race in "Men before Metals," by M. Joly,
Professor at the Science Faculty of Toulouse, p. 184.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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gress
held at Brussels in 1872, proves that the average man of Science will never see
but that which he wants to see.*
The
modern archeologist, though speculating ad infinitum upon the dolmens and their
builders, knows, in fact, nothing of them or their origin. Yet, these weird,
and often colossal monuments of unhewn stones -- which consist generally of
four or seven gigantic blocks placed together -- are strewn over Asia, Europe,
America, and Africa, in groups or rows. Stones of enormous size are found
placed horizontally and variously upon two, three, four, and as in Poitou, upon
six and seven blocks. People name them "devil's altars," druidic stones,
and giant tombs. The stones of Carnac in the Morbihan, Brittany -- nearly a
mile in length and numbering 11,000 ranged in eleven rows -- are twin sisters
of those at Stonehenge. The Conical menhir of Loch-Maria-ker in Morbihan,
measures twenty yards in length and nearly two yards across. The Menhir of
Champ Dolent (near St. Malo) rises thirty feet above the ground, and is fifteen
feet in depth below. Such dolmens and prehistoric monuments are met with in
almost every latitude. They are found in the Mediterranean basin; in Denmark
(among the local tumuli from twenty-seven to thirty-five feet in height); in
Shetland, and in Sweden, where they are called ganggriften (or tombs with
corridors); in Germany, where they are known as the giant tombs (Hunengraben);
in Spain (see the dolmen of Antiguera near Malaga), and Africa; in Palestine
and Algeria; in Sardinia (see the Nuraghi and Sepolture dei giganti, or tombs
of giants); in Malabar, in India, where they are called the tombs of the
Daityas (giants) and of the Rakshasas, the men-demons of Lanka; in Russia and
Siberia, where they are known as the Koorgan; in Peru and Bolivia, where they
are termed the chulpas or burial places, etc., etc., etc.
There
is no country from which they are absent. Who built them? Why are they all
connected with Serpents and Dragons, with Alligators and Crocodiles? Because
remains of "palaeolithic man" were, it is thought, found in some of
them, and because in the funeral mounds of America bodies of later races were
discovered with the usual paraphernalia of bone necklaces, weapons, stone and
copper urns, etc., hence they are declared ancient tombs. But surely the two
famous mounds -- one in the Mississippi valley and the other in Ohio -- known
respectively as "the Alligator Mound" and "the Great Serpent
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The scientific "jury" disagreed, as usual; while de Quatrefages, de
Mortillet, Worsaae, Engelhardt, Waldemar, Schmidt, Capellini, Hamy, and
Cartailhac, saw upon the flints the traces of human handiwork, Steenstrup,
Virchow and Desor refused to do so. Still the majority, if we except some
English Scientists, are for Bourgeois.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 753 STILL MORE ASTOUNDING CONTRADICTIONS.
Mound,"
were never meant for tombs* (Vide infra). Yet one is told authoritatively that
the Mounds, and the Mound or Dolmen Builders, are all "Pelasgic" in
Europe, antecedent to the Incas, in America, yet of "not extremely distant
times." They are built by "no race of Dolmen Builders," which
never existed (opinion of De Mortillet, Bastian, and Westropp) save in the
earlier archeological fancy. Finally Virchow's opinion of the giant tombs of
Germany is now accepted as an axiom:-- "The tombs alone are gigantic, and
not the bones they contain" -- says that German biologist; and archaeology
has but to bow and submit to the decision.**
That
no gigantic skeletons have been hitherto found in the "tombs" is yet
no reason to say there never were the remains of giants in them. Cremation was
universal till a comparatively recent period -- some 80, or 100,000 years ago.
The real giants, moreover, were nearly all drowned with Atlantis. Nevertheless,
the classics, as shown elsewhere, often speak of giant skeletons still
excavated in their day. Besides this, human fossils may be counted on the
fingers, as yet. No skeleton ever yet found is older than between 50, or 60,000
years,*** and man's size was reduced from 15 to 10 or 12 feet, ever since the
third sub-race of the Aryan stock, which sub-race -- born and developed in
Europe and Asia Minor under new climates and conditions -- had become European.
Since then, as said, it has steadily been decreasing. It is truer therefore to
say, that the tombs alone are archaic, and not necessarily the bodies of men
occasionally found in them; and that those tombs, since they are gigantic, must
have contained giants,**** or rather the ashes of generations of giants.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
We take the following description from a scientific work. "The first of
these animals (the alligator) designed with considerable skill, is no less than
250 ft. long. . . . . The interior is formed of a heap of stones, over which
the form has been moulded in fine stiff clay. The great serpent is represented
with open mouth, in the act of swallowing an egg of which the diameter is 100
ft. in the thickest part; the body of the animal is wound in graceful curves
and the tail is rolled into a spiral. The entire length of the animal is 1,100
ft. This work is unique . . . . and there is nothing on the old continent which
offers any analogy to it." Except its symbolism, however, of the Serpent
-- the cycle of Time -- swallowing Kosmos, the egg.
**
It might be better, perhaps, for FACT had we more Specialists in Science and
fewer "authorities" on universal questions. One never heard that
Humboldt gave authoritative and final decisions in the matter of polypi, or the
nature of an excrescence.
***
57,000 years is the date assigned by Dr. Dowler to the remains of the human
skeleton, found buried beneath four ancient forests at New Orleans on the banks
of the Mississippi river.
****
Murray says of the Mediterranean barbarians that they marvelled at the prowess
of the Atlanteans. "Their physical strength was extraordinary (witness
indeed their cyclopean buildings), the earth shaking sometimes under their
tread. Whatever they did, was done speedily. . . . . . They were wise and
communicated their wisdom to men" (Mythology p. 4).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Nor
were all such cyclopean structures intended for sepulchres. It is with the so-called
Druidical remains, such as Carnac in Brittany and Stonehenge in Great Britain,
that the travelling Initiates above alluded to had to do. And these gigantic
monuments are all symbolic records of the World's history. They are not
Druidical, but universal. Nor did the Druids build them, for they were only the
heirs to the cyclopean lore left to them by generations of mighty builders and
-- "magicians," both good and bad.
It
will always be a subject of regret that history, rejecting a priori the actual
existence of giants, has preserved us so little of the records of antiquity
concerning them. Yet in nearly every mythology -- which after all is ancient
history -- the giants play an important part. In the old Norse mythology, the
giants, Skrymir and his brethren, against whom the sons of the gods fought,
were potent factors in the histories of deities and men. The modern exegesis,
that makes these giants to be the brethren of the dwarfs, and reduces the
combats of the gods to the history of the development of the Aryan race, will
only receive credence amongst the believers in the Aryan theory, as expounded
by Max Muller. Granting that the Turanian races were typified by the dwarfs
(Dwergar), and that a dark, round-headed, and dwarfish race was driven northward
by the fair-faced Scandinavians, or AEsir, the gods being like unto men, there
still exists neither in history nor any other scientific work any
anthropological proof whatever of the existence in time or space of a race of
giants. Yet that such exist, relatively and de facto side by side with dwarfs,
Schweinfurth can testify. The Nyam-Nyam of Africa are regular dwarfs, while
their next neighbours (several tribes of comparatively fair-complexioned
Africans) are giants when confronted with the Nyam-Nyams, and very tall even
among Europeans, for their women are all above 6 1/2 feet high. (Vide
Schweinfurth's latest works.)
In
Cornwall and in ancient Britain the traditions of these giants are, on the
other hand, excessively common; they are said to live even down to the time of
King Arthur. All this shows that giants lived to a later date amongst the
Celtic than among the Teutonic peoples.
If
we turn to the New World, we have traditions of a race of giants at Tarija on
the eastern slopes of the Andes and in Ecuador, who combated gods and men.
These old beliefs, which term certain localities "Los campos de los
gigantes" -- "the fields of giants," are always concomitant with
the existence of pliocene mammalia and the occurrence of pliocene raised
beaches. "All the giants are not under Mount Ossa," and it would be
poor anthropology indeed that would restrict the traditions of giants to Greek
and Bible mythologies. Slavonian countries, Russia especially, teem with
legends about the bogaterey (mighty giants)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 755 RACES OF GIANTS.
of
old; and their folklore, most of which has served for the foundation of
national histories, their oldest songs, and their most archaic traditions,
speak of the giants of old. Thus we may safely reject the modern theory that
would make of the Titans mere symbols standing for cosmic forces. They were
real living men, whether twenty or only twelve feet high. Even the Homeric
heroes, who, of course, belonged to a far more recent period in the history of
the races, appear to have wielded weapons of a size and weight beyond the
strength of the strongest men of modern times.
"Not
twice ten men the mighty bulk could raise,
Such
men as live in these degenerate days."
If
the fossil footprints from Carson, Indiana, U.S.A., are human, they indicate
gigantic men. Of their genuineness there can remain no doubt. It is to be
deplored that the modem and scientific evidence for gigantic men should rest on
footprints alone. Over and over again, the skeletons of hypothetical giants
have been identified with those of elephants and mastodons. But all such
blunders before the days of geology, and even the traveller's tales of Sir John
Mandeville, who says that he saw giants 56 feet high, in India, only show that
belief in the existence of giants has never, at any time, died out of the
thoughts of men.
That
which is known and accepted is, that several races of gigantic men have existed
and left distinct traces. In the journal of the Anthropological Institute (Vol.
1871, art. by Dr. C. Carter Blake) such a race is shown as having existed at
Palmyra and possibly in Midian, exhibiting cranial forms quite different from
those of the Jews. It is not improbable that another such race existed in
Samaria, and that the mysterious people who built the stone circles in Galilee,
hewed neolithic flints in the Jordan valley and preserved an ancient Semitic
language quite distinct from the square Hebrew character -- was of a very large
stature. The English translations of the Bible can never be relied upon, even
in their modern revised forms. They tell us of the Nephilim translating the
word by "giants," and further adding that they were "hairy"
men, probably the large and powerful prototypes of the later satyrs so
eloquently described by the patristic fancy; some of the Church Fathers
assuring their admirers and followers that they had themselves seen these
"Satyrs" -- some alive, others pickled and preserved. The word
"giants" being once adopted as a synonym of Nephilim, the
commentators have since identified them with the sons of Anak. The filibusters
who seized on the Promised Land, found a pre-existing population far exceeding
their own in stature, and called it a race of giants. But the races of really
gigantic men had disappeared ages before the birth of Moses. This tall people
existed in Canaan, and
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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even
in Bashan, and may have had representatives in the Nabatheans of Midian. They
were of far greater stature than the undersized Jews. Four thousand years ago
their cranial conformation and large stature separated them from the children
of Heber. Forty thousand years ago their ancestors may have been of still more
gigantic size, and four hundred thousand years earlier they must have been in
proportion to men in our days as the Brobdingnagians were to the Lilliputians.
The Atlanteans of the middle period were called the Great Dragons, and the
first symbol of their tribal deities, when the "gods" and the Divine
Dynasties had forsaken them, was that of a giant Serpent.
The
mystery veiling the origin and the religion of the Druids, is as great as that
of their supposed fanes is to the modern Symbologist, but not to the initiated
Occultists. Their priests were the descendants of the last Atlanteans, and what
is known of them is sufficient to allow the inference that they were eastern
priests akin to the Chaldeans and Indians, though little more. It may be
inferred that they symbolized their deity as the Hindus do their Vishnu, as the
Egyptians did their Mystery God, and as the builders of the Ohio Great-Serpent
mound worshipped theirs -- namely under the form of the "mighty
Serpent," the emblem of the eternal deity TIME (the Hindu Kala). Pliny
called them the "Magi of the Gauls and Britons." But they were more
than that. The author of "Indian Antiquities" finds much affinity
between the Druids and the Brahmins of India. Dr. Borlase points to a close
analogy between them and the Magi of Persia*; others will see an identity
between them and the Orphic priesthood of Thrace: simply because they were
connected, in their esoteric teachings, with the universal Wisdom Religion, and
thus presented affinities with the exoteric worship of all.
Like
the Hindus, the Greeks and Romans (we speak of the Initiates), the Chaldees and
the Egyptians, the Druids believed in the doctrine of a succession of worlds,
as also in that of seven "creations" (of new continents) and
transformations of the face of the earth, and in a seven-fold night and day for
each earth or globe (See "Esoteric Buddhism"). Wherever the Serpent
with the egg is found, there this tenet was surely present. Their Dracontia are
a proof of it. This belief was so universal that, if we seek for it in the
esotericism of various religions, we shall discover it in all. We shall find it
among the Aryan Hindus and Mazdeans, the Greeks, the Latins, and even among the
old Jews and early Christians, whose modern stocks
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
But the Magi of Persia were never Persians -- not even Chaldeans. They came
from a far-off land, the Orientalists being of opinion that the said land was Media.
This may be so, but from what part of Media? To this we receive no answer.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 757 PAGANISM AND CHRISTIANITY AGREE.
hardly
comprehend now that which they read in their Scriptures. See what Seneca says
in Epistle 9, and Quaest. Nat. III., c., ult.: "The world being melted and
having re-entered the bosom of Jupiter, this god continues for some time to
remain absorbed in himself and concealed, wholly immersed in contemplation.
After which a new world springs from him. . . . An innocent race of men and
animals are produced anew . . . etc." Then again when speaking of
periodical mundane dissolution involving universal death, he (Seneca) says that
"when the laws of nature shall be buried in ruin, and the last day of the
world shall come, the southern pole shall crush, as it falls, all the regions
of Africa, and the North pole shall overwhelm all the countries beneath its
axis. The affrighted sun shall be deprived of its light; the palace of heaven
falling to decay shall produce at once both life and death, and some kind of
dissolution shall equally seize upon all deities, who thus shall return into
their original chaos" (Quoted in "Book of God," p. 160.)
One
might imagine oneself reading the Puranic account by Parasara of the great
Pralaya. It is nearly the same thing, idea for idea. Has Christianity nothing
of the kind? It has, we say. Let the reader open any English Bible and read
chapter iii. of the Second Epistle of Peter, from verse iii. till the xivth,
and he will find there the same ideas. . . . "There shall come in the last
days scoffers . . . saying, 'where is the promise of his coming? . . . . Since
the fathers fell asleep all things continue as they were from the beginning of
creation.' For, they are ignorant . . . . that by the word of God the heavens
were of old, and the earth standing out of the water and in the water: whereby
the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished. But the heavens
and the earth that are now, are reserved unto the fire . . . . wherein the
heavens . . . . shall be dissolved, and the elements shall melt with fervent
heat . . . . we nevertheless look for new heavens and new earth, etc.,
etc." If the interpreters chose to see in this a reference to creation,
the deluge, and the promised coming of Christ, when they will live in a new
Jerusalem in heaven, this is no fault of "Peter." What the writer of
the Epistles meant was the destruction of this Fifth Race of ours by subterranean
fires and inundations, and the appearance of new continents for the Sixth
Root-Race. For the writers of these Epistles were all learned in symbology if
not in the sciences.
It
was mentioned elsewhere that the belief in the septenary constitution of our
"chain" was the oldest tenet of the early Iranians, who got it from
the first Zarathustra. It is time to prove it to those Parsis who have lost the
key to the meaning of their Scriptures. In the Avesta the earth is considered
septempartite and tripartite at one and the same time. This is regarded by Dr.
Geiger, as an incongruity, for the following reasons, which he calls
discrepancies: the Avesta speaks
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 758 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
of
the three-thirds of the earth because the Rig-Veda mentions "three
earths." . . . . "Three strata or layers, one lying above the other,
are said to be meant by this."* But he is quite mistaken, as are all
exoteric profane translators. The Avesta has not borrowed the idea from the
Rig-Veda, but simply repeats the esoteric teaching. The "three strata or
layers" do not refer to our globe alone, but to three layers of the globes
of our terrestrial chain -- two by two, on each plane, one on the descending,
the other on the ascending arc. Thus, with reference to the six spheres or
globes above our earth, the seventh and the fourth, it is septempartite, while
with regard to the planes over our plane -- it is tripartite. This meaning is
carried out and corroborated by the text in the Avesta and Vendidad, and even
by the speculations -- a most laborious and unsatisfactory guess-work -- of the
translators and commentators. It thus follows that the division of the
"earth," or rather the earth's chain, into seven Karshvars is not in
contradiction with the three "zones," if this word is read
"planes." As Geiger remarks, this septenary division is very old --
the oldest of all -- since the Gathas already speak of the "septempartite
earth." (Bumi haptaiti, Yasna, xxxii., 3.) For, "according to the
Parsee Scriptures, the seven Karshvars are to be considered as completely
disconnected parts of the earth," which they surely are. For,
"between them there flows the Ocean, so that it is impossible, as stated
in several passages, to pass from one Karshvar to another."** The
"Ocean" is space, of course, for the latter was called "Waters
of Space" before it was known as Ether. Moreover, the word Karshvar is
consistently rendered by Dwipa, and especially Qaniratha by Jambudwipa
("Neriosengh, the translator of the Yasna.")*** But this fact is not
taken into account by the Orientalists, and therefore we find even such a
learned Zoroastrian and Parsi by birth as the translator of Dr. Geiger's work
passing unnoticed and without a word of comment sundry remarks of the former on
the "incongruities" of this kind abounding in the Mazdean Scriptures.
One of such "incongruities" and "coincidences" concerns the
similarity of the Zoroastrian with the Indian tenet with regard to the seven
Dwipas (islands, or continents, rather) as met with in the Puranas, namely:
"The Dwipas form concentric rings, which, separated by the ocean, surround
Jambu Dvipa, which is situated in the centre" (p. 130, vol. I.), and,
"according to the Iranian view, the Karshvar Qaniratha is likewise
situated in the centre of the rest . . . . each of them (the other six
Karshvars) is a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
p. 129, "Civilization of the Eastern Iranians in Ancient Times."
**
Cf., e.g., Vol. I., 4, of the Pahlavi Translation; Bdh. xxi., 2-3.
***
Footnote by Darab Dastur Peshotan Sanjana, B.A., the translator of Dr. Wilhelm
Geiger's work on the "Civilization of the Eastern Iranians."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 759 THE MAZDEAN VIEW OF THE SEVEN EARTHS.
peculiar
individual space, and so they group themselves round (above) Qaniratha"
(Ibid. p. 131). Now Qaniratha is not, as believed by Geiger and his translator,
"the country inhabited by the Iranian tribes," and the other names do
not mean "the adjacent territories of foreign nations in the North, South,
West, and East" (p. 132), but our globe or Earth. For that which is meant
by the sentence which follows the last quoted, namely, that "two
Vorubarshti and Voru-Zarshti lie in the North; two, Vidadhafshu and
Tradadhafshu, in the South; Savahi and Arzahi in the East and West," is
simply the very graphic and accurate description of the "chain" of
our planet, the Earth, represented in the book of Dzyan (11) thus:
[[diagram]]
[[text
of diagram]]
N
(North)
(North)
(West)
Arzahi W E Savahi (East)
(South)
Tradadhafshu S Vidadhafshu (South)
Qaniratha.
The
Mazdean names given above have only to be replaced by those used in the Secret
Doctrine to become an orthodox tenet. The "Earth" (our World),
therefore, is "tripartite," because the chain of the worlds is
situated on three different planes above our globe; and it is septempartite
because of the seven globes or spheres which compose the chain. Hence the
further meaning given in Vendidad XIX. 39, showing that "Qaniratha alone
is combined with imat, 'this' (earth), while all other Karshvares are combined
with the word 'avat,' 'that' or those -- upper earths." Nothing could be
plainer.
The
same may be said of the modern comprehension of all other ancient beliefs.
The
Druids understood the meaning of the Sun in Taurus, therefore, when, while all the
fires were extinguished on the 1st of November, their sacred and
inextinguishable fires alone remained to illumine the horizon, like those of
the Magi and the modern Zoroastrians. And like the early Fifth Race and later
Chaldees, the Greeks, and again like the Christians, who do the same to this
day, without suspecting the real meaning, they greeted the Morning Star -- the
beautiful Venus-Lucifer.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Dr. Kenealy quotes, in his "Book of God," Vallancey, who says "I
had not been a week landed in Ireland from Gibraltar, where I had studied
Hebrew and Chaldaic under Jews of various countries, when I heard a peasant
girl say to boor standing by her "Teach an Maddin Nag" (Behold the
morning star), pointing to the planet Venus, the Maddena Nag of the
Chaldeans."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 760 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
Strabo
speaks of an island near to Britannia, "where Ceres and Persephone were
worshipped with the same rites as in Samothrace (lib. iv.) and this island was
Sacred Ierna," where a perpetual fire was lit. The Druids believed in the
rebirth of man, not as Lucian explains: "that the same spirit shall
animate a new body, not here, but in a different world," but in a series
of re-incarnations in this same world; for as Diodorus says, they declared that
the souls of men, after determinate periods, would pass into other bodies.*
These
tenets came to the Fifth Race Aryans from their predecessors of the Fourth
Race, the Atlanteans. They had piously preserved the teachings, which told them
how their parent Root-Race, becoming with every generation more arrogant, owing
to the acquisition of superhuman powers, had been gradually gliding toward its
end. Those records reminded them of the giant intellect of the preceding races
as well as of their giant size. One finds the repetition of those records in
every age of history, in almost every old fragment which has descended to us
from antiquity.
AElian
preserved an extract from Theophrastus written during the days of Alexander the
Great. It is a dialogue between Midas, the Phrygian, and Silenus. The former is
told of a continent that had existed in times of old, so immense, that Asia,
Europe and Africa seemed like poor islands compared with it. It was the last to
produce animals and plants of gigantic magnitudes. There, said Silenus, men
grew to double the size of the tallest man in his (the narrator's) time, and
they lived to twice as old an age. They had wealthy cities with temples, and
one of such (cities) held more than a million of inhabitants in it, gold and
silver being found there in great abundance. . . .
Grote's
suggestion that Atlantis was but a myth arisen from a mirage -- clouds on a
dazzling sky taking the appearance of islands on a golden sea -- is too
disingenuous to be even noticed.
A.
SOME
STATEMENTS ABOUT THE SACRED ISLANDS AND CONTINENTS IN THE CLASSICS, EXPLAINED
ESOTERICALLY.
All
that which precedes was known to Plato, and to many others. But as no Initiate
had the right to divulge and declare all he knew, posterity got only hints.
Aiming more to instruct as a moralist than as a geographer and ethnologist or
historian, the Greek philosopher merged the history of Atlantis, which covered
several million years, into one
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
There was a time when the whole world, the totality of mankind, had one
religion, and when they were of "one lip." "All the religions of
the Earth were at first One and emanated from one centre," says Faber very
truly.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 761 WHO, OR WHAT WILL BE DENIED NEXT?
event
which he located on one comparatively small island 3000 stadia long by 2000
wide; (or about 350 miles by 200, which is about the size of Ireland), whereas
the priests spoke of Atlantis as a continent vast as "all Asia and
Lybia" put together. But, however altered in its general aspect, Plato's
narrative bears the impress of truth upon it.* It was not he who invented it,
at any rate, since Homer, who preceded him by many centuries, also speaks of
the Atlantes (who are our Atlanteans) and of their island in his Odyssey.
Therefore the tradition was older than the bard of Ulysses. The Atlantes and
the Atlantides of mythology are based upon the Atlantes and the Atlantides of
history. Both Sanchoniathon and Diodorus have preserved the histories of those
heroes and heroines, however much these accounts may have become mixed up with
the mythical element.
In
our own day we witness the stupendous fact that such comparatively recent
personages as Shakespeare and William Tell are all but denied, an attempt being
made to show one to be a nom de plume, and the other a person who never
existed. What wonder then, that the two powerful races -- the Lemurians and the
Atlanteans -- have been merged into and identified, in time, with a few half
mythical peoples, who all bore the same patronymic?
Herodotus
speaks of the Atlantes -- a people of Western Africa which gave its name to
Mount Atlas; who were vegetarians, and "whose sleep was never disturbed by
dreams"; and who, moreover, "daily cursed the sun at his rising and
at his setting because his excessive heat scorched and tormented them."
These
statements are based upon moral and psychic facts and not on physiological
disturbance. The story of Atlas (Vide supra) gives the key to it. If the
Atlanteans never had their sleep disturbed by dreams, it is because that
particular tradition is concerned with the earliest Atlanteans, whose physical
frame and brain were not yet sufficiently consolidated, in the physiological
sense, to permit the nervous centres to act during sleep. With regard to that
other statement -- namely, that
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Plato's veracity has been so unwarrantably impeached by even such friendly
critics as Professor Jowett, when the "story of Atlantis" is discussed,
that it seems well to cite the testimony of a specialist on the subject. It is
sufficient to place mere literary cavillers in a very ridiculous position:--
"If
our knowledge of Atlantis was more thorough, it would no doubt appear that in
every instance wherein the people of Europe accord with the people of America,
they were both in accord with the people of Atlantis. . . . . It will be seen
that in every case where Plato gives us information in this respect as to
Atlantis, we find this agreement to exist. It existed in architecture,
sculpture, navigation, engraving, writing, an established priesthood, the mode
of worship, agriculture, and the construction of roads and canals; and it is
reasonable to suppose that the same correspondence extended down to all the
minor details." (Donnelly, "Atlantis," p. 194.)
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[[Vol.
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they
daily "cursed the Sun" -- this again has nothing to do with the heat,
but with the moral degeneration that grew with the race. It is explained in our
Commentaries. "They (the sixth sub-race of the Atlanteans) used magic
incantations even against the Sun" -- failing in which, they cursed it.
The sorcerers of Thessaly were credited with the power of calling down the
moon, as Greek history assures us. The Atlanteans of the later period were
renowned for their magic powers and wickedness, their ambition and defiance of
the gods. Thence the same traditions taking form in the Bible about the
antediluvian giants and the Tower of Babel, found also in the "Book of
Enoch."
Diodorus
records another fact or two: the Atlanteans boasted of possessing the land in
which all the gods had received their birth; as also of having had Uranus for
their first King, he being also the first to teach them astronomy. Very little
more than this has come down to us from Antiquity.
The
myth of Atlas is an allegory easily understood. Atlas is the old continents of
Lemuria and Atlantis, combined and personified in one symbol. The poets
attribute to Atlas, as to Proteus, a superior wisdom and an universal
knowledge, and especially a thorough acquaintance with the depths of the ocean:
because both continents bore races instructed by divine masters, and because both
were transferred to the bottom of the seas, where they now slumber until their
next reappearance above the waters. Atlas is the son of an ocean nymph, and his
daughter is Calypso -- "the watery deep," (See Hesiod's Theogony,
507-509, and Odyssey 1, 51): Atlantis has been submerged beneath the waters of
the ocean, and its progeny is now sleeping its eternal sleep on the ocean
floors. The Odyssey makes of him the guardian and the "sustainer" of
the huge pillars that separate the heavens from the earth (1, 52-53). He is
their "supporter." And as both Lemuria, destroyed by submarine fires,
and Atlantis, submerged by the waves, perished in the ocean deeps,* Atlas is
said to have been compelled to leave the surface of the earth, and join his
brother Iapetos in the depths of Tartarus. Sir Theodore Martin is right in
interpreting this allegory as meaning, Atlas "standing on the solid floor
of the inferior hemisphere of the universe and thus carrying at the same time
the disc of the earth and the celestial vault -- the solid envelope of the
superior hemisphere" . . . (Memoires de l'Academie des
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Christians ought not to object to this doctrine of the periodical destruction
of continents by fire and water; for St. Peter speaks of the earth
"standing out of the water, and in the water, which earth, being
overflowed, perished, but is now reserved unto fire"; (See also the
"Lives of Alchemystical Philosophers," p. 4, London, 1815).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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Inscriptions,
p. 176). For Atlas is Atlantis which supports the new continents and their
horizons on its "shoulders."
Decharme,
in his Mythologie de la Grece Antique, expresses a doubt as to the correctness
of Pierron's translation of the Homeric word [[echei]] by sustinet, as it is
not possible to see "how Atlas can support or bear at once several pillars
situated in various localities." If Atlas were an individual it would be
an awkward translation. But, as he personifies a continent in the west said to
support heaven and earth at once (AEschylus, "Prometheus Vinctus,"
351, 429, etc.) -- i.e., the feet of the giant tread the earth while his
shoulders support the celestial vault, an allusion to the gigantic peaks of the
Lemurian and Atlantean continents -- the epithet "supporter" becomes
very correct. The term "conservator" for the Greek word [[echei]],
which Decharme, following Sir Theodore Martin, understands as meaning
[[phulassei]] and [[epimeleitai]], does not render the same sense.
The
conception was certainly due to the gigantic mountain chain running along the
terrestrial border (or disc). These mountain peaks plunged their roots into the
very bottom of the seas, while they raised their heads heavenward, their
summits being lost in the clouds. The ancient continents had more mountains
than valleys on them. Atlas, and the Teneriffe Peak, now two of the dwarfed
relics of the two lost continents, were thrice as lofty during the day of
Lemuria and twice as high in that of Atlantis. Thus, the Lybians called Mount
Atlas "the pillar of Heaven," according to Herodotus (IV., 184), and
Pindar qualified the later AEtna as "the celestial pillar" (Pyth. 1,
20; Decharme, 315). Atlas was an inaccessible island peak in the days of
Lemuria, when the African continent had not yet been raised. It is the sole
Western relic which survives, independent, of the continent on which the Third
Race was born, developed and fell,* for Australia is now part of the Eastern
continent. Proud Atlas, according to esoteric tradition, having sunk one third
of its size into the waters, its two parts remained as an heirloom of Atlantis.
This
again was known to the priests of Egypt and to Plato himself, the solemn oath
of secrecy, which extended even to the mysteries of Neo-Platonism, alone
preventing the whole truth from being told.** So
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
This does not mean that Atlas is the locality where it fell, for this took
place in Northern and Central Asia; but that Atlas formed part of the
continent.
**
Had not Diocletian burned the esoteric works of the Egyptians in 296, together
with their books on alchemy -- "[[peri chumeias kai chrusou]]";
Caesar 700,000 rolls at Alexandria, and Leo Isaurus 300,000 at Constantinople
(viiith cent.); and the Mahomedans all they could lay their sacrilegious hands
on -- the world might know to-day more of Atlantis than it does. For Alchemy
had its birth-place in Atlantis during the Fourth Race, and had only its
renaissance in Egypt.
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[[Vol.
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secret
was the knowledge of the last islands of Atlantis, indeed, -- on account of the
superhuman powers possessed by its inhabitants, the last direct descendants of
the gods or divine Kings, as it was thought -- that to divulge its whereabouts
and existence was punished by death. Theopompus says as much in his
ever-suspected Meropis, when he speaks of the Phoenicians as being the only
navigators in the seas which wash the Western coast of Africa; and who did it
with such mystery that very often they sunk their own vessels to make the too inquisitive
foreigners lose all trace of them.
There
are those Orientalists and historians -- and they form the majority -- who,
while feeling quite unmoved at the rather crude language of the Bible, and some
of the events narrated in it, show great disgust at the immorality in the
pantheons of India and Greece.* We may be told that before them Euripides,
Pindar, and even Plato, express the same; that they too felt irritated with the
tales invented --"those miserable stories of the poets," as Euripides
expresses it ([[haoidon hoide dustenoi logoi]], Hercules furens, 1346,
Dindorf's Edition).
But
there may have been another reason for this, perhaps. To those who knew that
there was more than one key to theogonic symbolism, it was a mistake to have
expressed it in a language so crude and misleading. For if the educated and
learned philosopher could discern the kernel of wisdom under the coarse rind of
the fruit, and knew that the latter concealed the greatest laws and truths of
psychic and physical nature, as well as the origin of all things -- not so with
the uninitiated profane. For him the dead letter was religion; the
interpretation -- sacrilege. And this dead letter could neither edify nor make
him more perfect, seeing that such an example was given him by his gods. But
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Professor Max Muller's Lectures -- "on the Philosophy of Mythology"
-- are before us. We read his citations of Herakleitos (460 B.C.), declaring
that Homer deserved "to be ejected from public assemblies and
flogged;" and of Xenophanes "holding Homer and Hesiod responsible for
the popular superstitions of Greece. . . . " and for ascribing "to
the gods whatever is disgraceful and scandalous among men . . . unlawful acts,
such as theft, adultery, and fraud." Finally the Oxford Professor quotes
from Professor Jowett's translation of Plato, where the latter tells Adaimantos
(Republic) that "the young man (in the State) should not be told that in
committing the worst of crimes, he is far from doing anything outrageous, and
that he may chastise his father (as Zeus did with Kronos) . . in any manner
that he likes, and in this will only be following the example of the first and
greatest of the gods. . . In my opinion, these stories are not fit to be
repeated." To this Dr. Max Muller observes that "the Greek religion
was clearly a national and traditional religion, and, as such, it shared both
the advantages and disadvantages of this form of religious belief"; while
the Christian religion is "an historical and, to a great extent, an
individual religion, and it possesses the advantage of an authorised codex and
of a settled system of faith" (p. 349). So much the worse if it is
"historical," for surely Lot's incident with his daughters would only
gain, were it "allegorical."
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[[Vol.
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to
the philosopher -- especially the Initiate -- Hesiod's theogony is as historical
as any history can be. Plato accepts it as such, and gives out as much of its
truths as his pledges permitted him.
The
fact that the Atlantes claimed Uranos for their first king, and that Plato
commences his story of Atlantis by the division of the great continent by
Neptune, the grandson of Uranos, shows that there were continents and kings
before Atlantis. For Neptune, to whose lot that continent fell, finds on a
small island only one human couple made of clay (i.e., the first physical human
man, whose origin began with the last sub-races of the Third Root-Race). It is
their daughter Clito that the god marries, and it is his eldest son Atlas who
receives for his part the mountain and the continent which was called by his
name.
Now
all the gods of Olympus, as well as those of the Hindu Pantheon and the Rishis,
were the septiform personations (1) of the noumena of the intelligent Powers of
nature; (2) of Cosmic Forces; (3) of celestial bodies; (4) of gods or Dhyan
Chohans; (5) of psychic and spiritual powers; (6) of divine kings on earth (or
the incarnations of the gods); and (7) of terrestrial heroes or men. The
knowledge how to discern among these seven forms the one that is meant,
belonged at all times to the Initiates, whose earliest predecessors had created
this symbolical and allegorical system.
Thus
while Uranos (or the host representing this celestial group) reigned and ruled
over the Second Race and their (then) Continent; Kronos or Saturn governed the
Lemurians; and Jupiter, Neptune* and others fought in the allegory for
Atlantis, which was the whole earth in the day of the Fourth Race. Poseidonis,
or the (last) island of Atlantis "the third step of Idaspati" (or
Vishnu) in the mystic language of the secret books -- lasted till about 12,000
years ago.** The Atlantes of Diodorus were right in claiming that it was their
country, the region surrounding Mount Atlas, where "the gods were
born" -- i.e., "incarnated." But it was after their fourth
incarnation that they became, for the first time, human Kings and rulers.
Diodorus
speaks of Uranos as the first king of Atlantis, confusing, either consciously
or otherwise, the continents; but, as shown, Plato indirectly corrects the
statement. The first astronomical teacher of men was Uranos, because he is one
of the seven Dhyan Chohans of that second period or Race. Thus also in the
second Manvantara
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Neptune or Poseidon is the Hindu Idaspati, identical with Narayana (the mover
on the waters) or Vishnu, and like this Hindu god he is shown crossing the
whole horizon in three steps. Idaspati means also "the master of the
waters."
**
Bailly's assertion that the 9,000 years mentioned by the Egyptian priests do
not represent "solar years" is groundless. Bailly knew nothing of
geology and its calculations; otherwise he would have spoken differently.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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(that
of Swarochisha), among the seven sons of the Manu, the presiding gods or Rishis
of that race, we find Jyotis,* the teacher of astronomy (Jyotisha), one of the
names of Brahma. And thus also the Chinese revere Tien (or the sky, Ouranos),
and name him as their first teacher of astronomy. Uranos gave birth to the
Titans of the Third Race, and it is they who (personified by Saturn-Kronos)
mutilated him. For as it is the Titans who fell into generation, when
"creation by will was superseded by physical procreation," they
needed Uranos no more.
And
here a short digression must be permitted and pardoned. In consequence of the
last scholarly production of Mr. Gladstone in the Nineteenth Century, "The
Greater Gods of Olympos," the ideas of the general public about Greek
Mythology have been still further perverted and biassed. Homer is credited with
an inner thought, which is regarded by Mr. Gladstone as "the true key to
the Homeric conception," whereas this "key" was merely a blind.
Poseidon "is indeed essentially of the earth earthy . . . . strong and
self-asserting, sensual and intensely jealous and vindictive," -- but this
is because he symbolises the Spirit of the Fourth Root-Race, the ruler of the
Seas, that race which lives above the surface of the seas ([[limne]], Il. xxiv.,
79), which is composed of the giants, the children of Eurymedon, the race which
is the father of Polyphemus, the Titan and one-eyed Cyclops. Though Zeus reigns
over the Fourth Race, it is Poseidon who rules, and who is the true key to the
triad of the Kronid Brothers and to our human races. Poseidon and Nereus are
one: the former the ruler or spirit of Atlantis before the beginning of its
submersion, the latter, after. Neptune is the titanic strength of the living
race; Nereus, its spirit reincarnated in the subsequent Fifth or Aryan Race:
and this is what the great Greek scholar of England has not yet discovered, or
even dimly perceived. And yet he makes many observations upon the
"artfulness" of Homer, who never names Nereus, at whose designation we
arrive . . . . only through the patronymic of the Nereids!
Thus
the tendency of even the most erudite Hellenists is to confine their
speculations to the exoteric images of mythology and to lose sight of their
inner meaning: and it is remarkably illustrated in the case of the Right Hon.
W. E. Gladstone, as we have shown. While almost the most conspicuous figure of
our age as a statesman, he is at the same time one of the most cultured
scholars England has given birth to. Grecian literature has been the loving
study of his life, and he has found time amid the bustle of public affairs to
enrich contemporary literature with contributions to Greek scholarship which
will make his name famous through coming generations. At the same time, as his
sincere
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
See Matsya Purana, which places him among the seven Prajapatis of the period.
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[[Vol.
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admirer,
the present writer cannot but feel a deep regret that posterity, while
acknowledging his profound erudition and splendid culture, will yet, in the
greater light which must then shine upon the whole question of symbolism and
mythology, judge that he has failed to grasp the spirit of the religious system
which he has often criticised from the dogmatic Christian standpoint. In that
future day it will be perceived that the esoteric key to the mysteries of the
Christian as well as of the Grecian theogonies and Sciences, is the Secret
Doctrine of the pre-historic nations, which, along with others, he has denied.
It is that Doctrine alone which can trace the kinship of all human religious
speculations or even so-called Revelations, and it is this teaching which infuses
the Spirit of life into the lay figures on the Mounts of Meru, Olympus,
Walhalla, or Sinai. If Mr. Gladstone were a younger man, his admirers might
hope that his scholastic studies would be crowned by the discovery of this
underlying truth. As it is, he but wastes the golden hours of his declining
years in futile disputations with that giant free-thinker, Col. Ingersoll, each
fighting with the weapons of exoteric temper, drawn from the arsenals of
ignorant LITERALISM. These two great controversialists are equally blind to the
true esoteric meaning of the texts which they hurl at each other's head like
iron bullets, while the world alone suffers by such controversies: since the
one helps to strengthen the ranks of materialism, and the other those of blind
Sectarianism and of the dead letter. And now we may return once more to our
immediate subject.
Many
a time Atlantis is spoken of under another name, one unknown to our
commentators. The power of names is great, and was known since the first men
were instructed by the divine masters. And as Solon had studied it, he
translated the "Atlantean" names into names devised by himself. In
connection with the continent of Atlantis, it is desirable to bear in mind that
the accounts which have come down to us from the old Greek writers contain a
confusion of statements, some referring to the Great Continent and others to
the last small island of Poseidonis. It has become customary to take them all
as referring to the latter only, but that this is incorrect is evident from the
incompatibility of the various statements as to the size, etc., of
"Atlantis."
Thus,
in the Timaeus and Critias, Plato says, that the plain surrounding the city was
itself surrounded by mountain chains. . . . . And the plain was smooth and
level, and of an oblong shape, lying north and south, three thousand stadia in
one direction and two thousand in the other. . . . . They surrounded the plain
by an enormous canal or dike, 101 feet deep, 606 feet broad, and 1,250 miles in
length.
Now
in other places the entire size of the island of Poseidonis is given as about
the same as that assigned here to the "plain around the
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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city"
alone. Obviously, one set of statements refers to the great continent, and the
other to its last remnant -- Plato's island.
And,
again, the standing army of Atlantis is given as upwards of a million men; its
navy as 1,200 ships and 240,000 men. Such statements are quite inapplicable to
a small island state, of about the size of Ireland!
The
Greek allegories give to Atlas, or Atlantis, seven daughters (seven sub-races),
whose respective names are Maia, Electra, Taygeta, Asterope, Merope, Alcyone,
and Celaeno. This ethnologically, as they are credited with having married gods
and with having become the mothers of famous heroes, the founders of many
nations and cities. Astronomically, the Atlantides have become the seven
Pleiades (?). In occult science the two are connected with the destinies of
nations, those destinies being shaped by the past events of their early lives
according to Karmic law.
Three
great nations claimed in antiquity a direct descent from the kingdom of Saturn
or Lemuria (confused already several thousands of years before our era with
Atlantis): and these were the Egyptians, the Phoenicians (Vide Sanchoniathon),
and the old Greeks (Vide Diodorus, after Plato). But the oldest civilized
country of Asia -- India -- can be shown to claim the same descent likewise.
Sub-races guided by Karmic law or destiny repeat unconsciously the first steps
of their respective mother-races. As the comparatively fair Brahmins have come
-- when invading India with its dark-coloured Dravidians -- from the North, so
the Aryan Fifth Race must claim its origin from northern regions. The occult
sciences show that the founders (the respective groups of the seven Prajapatis)
of the Root Races have all been connected with the Pole Star. In the Commentary
we find:--
"He
who understands the age of Dhruva* who measures 9090 mortal years, will
understand the times of the pralayas, the final destiny of nations, O
Lanoo."
Moreover
there must have been a good reason why an Asiatic nation should locate its
great progenitors and saints in the Ursa Major, a northern constellation. It is
70,000 YEARS, HOWEVER, SINCE THE POLE OF THE EARTH POINTED TO THE FURTHER END
OF URSA MINOR'S TAIL; and many more thousand years since the seven Rishis could
have been identified with the constellation of Ursa Major.
The
Aryan race was born and developed in the far north, though after the sinking of
the continent of Atlantis its tribes emigrated further south into Asia. Hence
Prometheus is son of Asia, and Deukalion, his son, the Greek Noah -- he who created
men out of the stones of mother
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The equivalent of this name is given in the original.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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earth
-- is called a northern Scythe, by Lucian, and Prometheus is made the brother
of Atlas and is tied down to Mount Caucasus amid the Snows.*
Greece
had her Hyperborean as well as her Southern Apollo. Thus nearly all the gods of
Egypt, Greece, and Phoenicia, as well as those of other Pantheons, are of a
northern origin and originated in Lemuria, towards the close of the Third Race,
after its full physical and physiological evolution had been completed.** All
the "fables" of Greece were built on historical facts, if that
history had only passed unadulterated by myths to posterity. The
"one-eyed" Cyclopes, the giants fabled as the sons of Coelus and
Terra -- three in number, according to Hesiod -- were the last three sub-races
of the Lemurians, the "one-eye" referring to the Wisdom eye***; for
the two front eyes were fully developed as physical organs only in the
beginning of the Fourth Race. The allegory of Ulysses, whose companions were
devoured while the king of Ithaca was saved by putting out with a fire-brand
the eye of Polyphemus, is based upon the psycho-physiological atrophy of the
"third" eye. Ulysses belongs to the cycle of the heroes of the Fourth
Race, and, though a "sage" in the sight of the latter, must have been
a profligate in the opinion of the pastoral Cyclopes.**** His adventure with
the latter -- a savage gigantic race, the antithesis of cultured civilization
in the Odyssey -- is an allegorical record of the gradual passage from the
Cyclopean civilization of stone and colossal buildings to the more sensual and
physical culture of the Atlanteans, which finally caused the last of
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Deukalion is said to have brought the worship of Adonis and Osiris into
Phoenicia. Now the worship is that of the Sun, lost and found again in its
astronomical significance. It is only at the Pole where the Sun dies out for
such a length of time as six months, for in latitude 68 [[degrees]] it remains
dead only for forty days, as in the festival of Osiris. The two worships were
born in the north of Lemuria, or on that continent of which Asia was a kind of
broken prolongation, and which stretched up to the Polar regions. This is well
shown by de Gebelin's "Allegories d'Orient," p. 246, and by Bailly;
though neither Hercules nor Osiris are solar myths, save in one of their seven
aspects.
**
The Hyperboreans, now regarded as mythical, were described (Herod, IV., 33-35;
Pausanias, 1, 31, 2; V., 7, 8; ad X., 5, 7, 8) as the beloved priests and
servants of the gods, and of Apollo chiefly.
***
The Cyclopes are not the only "one-eyed" representatives in
tradition. The Arimaspes were a Scythian people, and were also credited with
but one eye. (Geographie ancienne, Vol. II, p. 321.) It is they whom Apollo
destroyed with his shafts. (See supra.)
****
Ulysses was wrecked on the isle of AEaea, where Circe changed all his
companions into pigs for their voluptuousness; and after that he was thrown
into Ogygia, the island of Calypso, where for some seven years he lived with
the nymph in illicit connection (Odyssey and elsewhere). Now Calypso was a
daughter of Atlas (Odys. Book XII.), and all the traditional ancient versions,
when speaking of the Isle of Ogygia, say that it was very distant from Greece,
and right in the middle of the ocean: thus identifying it with Atlantis.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
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the
Third Race to lose their all-penetrating spiritual eye. That other allegory,
which makes Apollo kill the Cyclops to avenge the death of his son Asclepios,
does not refer to the three races represented by the three sons of Heaven and
Earth, but to the Hyperborean Arimaspian Cyclopes, the last of the race endowed
with the "Wisdom-eye." The former have left relics of their buildings
everywhere, in the south as much as in the north; the latter, were confined to
the north solely. Thus Apollo -- pre-eminently the god of the Seers, whose duty
it is to punish desecration -- killed them -- his shafts representing human
passions, fiery and lethal -- and hid his shaft behind a mountain in the
Hyperborean regions. (Hygin. "Astron. Poetique," Book ii. c. 15).
Cosmically and astronomically this Hyperborean god is the Sun personified,
which during the course of the sidereal year (25,868 y.) changes the climates
on the earth's surface, making of tropical, frigid regions, and vice versa.
Psychically and spiritually his significance is far more important. As Mr. Gladstone
pertinently remarks in his "Greater Gods of Olympos," "the
qualities of Apollo (jointly with Athene) are impossible to be accounted for
without repairing to sources, which lie beyond the limit of the traditions most
commonly explored for the elucidation of the Greek mythology" (Nineteenth
Century, July, 1887.)
The
history of Latona (Leto), Apollo's mother, is most pregnant in various
meanings. Astronomically, Latona is the polar region and the night, giving birth
to the Sun, Apollo, Phoebus, etc. She is born in the Hyperborean countries
wherein all the inhabitants were priests of her son, celebrating his
resurrection and descent to their country every nineteen years at the renewal
of the lunar cycle (Diod. Sic. II. 307). Latona is the Hyperborean Continent,
and its race -- geologically.*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
To make a difference between Lemuria and Atlantis, the ancient writers referred
to the latter as the northern or Hyperborean Atlantis, and to the former as the
southern. Thus Apollodorus says (Mythology, Book II.): "The golden apples
carried away by Hercules are not, as some think, in Lybia; they are in the
Hyperborean Atlantis." The Greeks naturalised all the gods they borrowed
and made Hellenes of them, and the moderns helped them. Thus also the
mythologists have tried to make of Eridan the river Po, in Italy. In the myth
of Phaeton it is said that at his death his sisters dropped hot tears which
fell into Eridan and were changed into amber! Now amber is found only in the
northern seas, in the Baltic. Phaeton, meeting with his death while carrying
heat to the frozen stars of the boreal regions, awakening at the Pole the
Dragon made rigid by cold, and being hurled down into the Eridan, is an
allegory referring directly to the changes of climate in those distant times
when, from a frigid zone, the polar lands had become a country with a moderate
and warm climate. The usurper of the functions of the sun, Phaeton, being
hurled into the Eridan by Jupiter's thunderbolt, is an allusion to the second
change that took place in those regions when, once more, the land where
"the magnolia blossomed" became the desolate forbidding land of the
farthest north and eternal ices. This allegory covers then the events of two
pralayas; and if well understood ought to be a demonstration of the enormous
antiquity of the human races.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 771 THE CHILDREN OF NIOBE.
When
the astronomical meaning cedes its place to the spiritual and divine -- Apollo
and Athene transforming themselves into the form of birds, the symbol and glyph
of the higher divinities and angels -- then the bright god assumes divine creative
powers. Apollo becomes the personification of Seership, when he sends the
astral double of AEneas to the battle field (II. 431-53), and has the gift of
appearing to his Seers without being visible to other persons present --
(Iliad, xvii., 322-36) -- a gift, however, shared by every high Adept.
The
King of the Hyperboreans, was, therefore, the son of Boreas, the north-wind,
and the High Priest of Apollo. The quarrel of Latona with Niobe (the Atlantean
race) -- the mother of seven sons and seven daughters personifying the seven
sub-races of the Fourth Race and their seven branches (see Apollodorus for this
number) -- allegorizes the history of the two continents. The wrath of
"the sons of god," or of "Will and Yoga," at seeing the
steady degradation of the Atlanteans was great (See "The Sons of God and
the Sacred Island"); and the destruction of the "children of
Niobe" by the children of Latona -- Apollo and Diana, the deities of
light, wisdom and purity, or the Sun and Moon astronomically, whose influence
causes changes in the earth's axis, deluges and other cosmic cataclysms -- is
thus very clear.* The fable about the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
So occult and mystic is one of the aspects of Latona that she is made to
reappear even in Revelation (xii.) as the woman clothed with the Sun (Apollo)
and the Moon (Diana) under her feet, who being with child "cries,
travailing in birth, pained to be delivered." A great red Dragon, etc.,
stands before the woman ready to devour the child. She brings forth the man
child who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron, and who was caught unto
the throne of God (the Sun). The woman fled to the wilderness still pursued by
the Dragon, who flees again, and casts out of his mouth water as a flood, when
the earth helped the woman and swallowed the flood; and the Dragon went to make
war with the remnant of her seed who keep the commandment of God, etc. (See
xii., 1, 17.) Anyone, who reads the allegory of Latona pursued by the revenge
of jealous Juno, will recognise the identity of the two versions. Juno sends
Python, the Dragon, to persecute and destroy Latona and devour her babe. The
latter is Apollo, the Sun, for "the man-child, who was to rule all nations
with a rod of iron" of Revelation, is surely not the meek "Son of
God," Jesus, but the physical Sun, "who rules all nations"; the
Dragon being the North Pole, gradually chasing the early Lemurians from the
lands which became more and more Hyperborean and unfit to be inhabited by those
who were fast developing into physical men, for they now had to deal with the
climatic variations. The Dragon will not allow Latona "to bring
forth" -- (the Sun to appear). "She is driven from heaven, and finds
no place where she can bring forth," until Neptune (the ocean), moved with
pity, makes immovable the floating isle of Delos (the nymph Asteria, hitherto
hiding from Jupiter under the waves of the ocean) on which Latona finds refuge
and where the bright god [[Delios]] is born, the god, who no sooner appears
than he kills Python, the cold and frost of the Arctic region, in whose deadly
coils all life becomes extinct. In other words, Latona-Lemuria is transformed
into Niobe-Atlantis, over which her son Apollo, or the Sun, reigns -- with an
iron rod, truly, since Herodotus makes the Atlantes curse his too great heat.
This allegory is reproduced in its other mystic meaning (another of the seven
keys) in the [[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 772 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
never-ceasing
tears of Niobe, whose grief causes Zeus to change her into a fountain --
Atlantis covered with water -- is no less graphic as a symbol. Niobe, let it be
remembered, is the daughter of one of the Pleiades (or Atlantides) the
grand-daughter of Atlas therefore, (See "Metamorphoses of Ovid," Book
VI.), because she represents the last generations of the doomed continent.
A
true remark, that of Bailly, which says that Atlantis had an enormous influence
on antiquity. "If these names," he adds, "are mere allegories,
then all that those fables contain of truth comes from Atlantis; if the fable
is a real tradition -- however altered -- then the whole of the ancient history
is still in it." (Lettres sur l'Atlantide, p. 137.)
So
much so, that all ancient writings -- prose and poetry -- are full of the
reminiscences of the Lemuro-Atlanteans, the first physical races, though the
Third and the Fourth in number. Hesiod records the tradition about the men of
the age of Bronze, whom Jupiter had made out of ash-wood and who had hearts
harder than diamond. Clad in bronze from head to foot they passed their lives
in fighting. Monstrous in size, endowed with a terrible strength, invincible
arms and hands descended from their shoulders, says the poet (Hesiod, in oper.
and dieb. v. 143). Such were the giants of the first physical races. The
Iranians have a reference to the later Atlanteans in Yasna ix. 15. Tradition
maintains that the "Sons of God," or the great Initiates of the
Sacred Island, took advantage of the Deluge, to rid the earth of all the
Sorcerers among the Atlanteans. The said verse addresses Zoroaster as one of
the "Sons of God." -- It says: "Thou, O Zarathustra, didst make
all demons (i.e., Sorcerers), who before roamed the world in human forms,
conceal themselves in the earth" (i.e., helped them to get submerged).
The
Lemurians, as also the early Atlanteans, were divided into two distinct classes
-- the "Sons of Night" or Darkness, and the "Sons of the
Sun," or Light. The old books tell us of terrible battles between the two,
when the former, leaving their land of Darkness, from whence the Sun departed
for long months, descended from their inhospitable regions and "tried to
wrench the lord of light" from their better favoured brothers of the
equatorial regions. We may be told that the ancients knew nothing of the long
night of six months' duration in the Polar regions. Even Herodotus, more
learned
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] chapter just cited of the Apocalypse. Latona
became a powerful goddess indeed, and saw her son receive worship (solar
worship) in almost every fane of antiquity. In his occult aspect Apollo is patron
of Number 7. He is born on the seventh of the month, and the swans of Myorica
swim seven times around Delos singing that event; he is given seven chords to
his Lyre -- the seven rays of the sun and the seven forces of nature. But this
only in the astronomical meaning, whereas the above is purely geological.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 773 THE CYCLES OF TIME.
than
the rest, only mentions a people who slept for six months in the year, and remained
awake the other half. Yet the Greeks knew well that there was a country in the
north where the year was divided into a day and night of six months' duration
each, for Pliny says so in his Fourth Book, c. 12. They speak of the Cimmerians
and of the Hyperboreans, and draw a distinction between the two. The former
inhabited the Palus Maeotis (between 45 [[degrees]] and 50 [[degrees]]
latitude). Plutarch explains that they were but a small portion of a great
nation driven away by the Scythians, which nation stopped near Tanais, having
crossed Asia. "These warlike multitudes lived formerly on the ocean
shores, in dense forests, and under a tenebrous sky. There the pole is almost
touching the head, there long nights and days divide the year" (in Mario).
As to the Hyperboreans, these peoples, as expressed by Solinus Polyhistor (c.
16), "sow in the morning, reap at noon, gather their fruits in the
evening, and store them during the night in their caves."
Even
the writers of the Zohar knew of the fact (as shown in iii., fol. 10a), as it
is written: "In the Book of Hammannunah, the Old, we learn . . . . there
are some countries of the earth which are lightened, whilst others are in
darkness; these have the day, when for the former it is night; and there are countries
in which it is constantly day, or in which at least the night continues only
some instants." (Isaac Myer's "Qabbalah," p. 139).
The
island of Delos, the Asteria of the Greek mythology, was never in Greece, a
country which, in its day, was not yet in existence, not even in its molecular
form. Several writers have shown that it represented a country or an island,
far larger than the small dots of land which became Greece. Both Pliny and
Diodorus Siculus place it in the Northern seas. One calls it Basilea or
"royal" (Vol. II., p. 225 of Diod.); the other, Pliny, names it
Osericta (Book xxxvii, c. 2), a word, according to Rudbeck (Vol. I., p.
462-464), having had "a significance in the northern languages, equivalent
to the Island of the divine Kings or god-Kings," or again the "royal
island of the gods," because the gods were born there, i.e., the divine
dynasties of the kings of Atlantis proceeded from that place. Let geographers
and geologists seek for it among that group of islands discovered by Nordenskiold
on his Vega voyage in the arctic regions.* The secret books inform us that the
climate has changed in those regions more than once since the first men
inhabited those now almost inaccessible latitudes. They were a paradise before
they became hell;
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
These islands were "found strewn with fossils of horses, sheep, oxen,
etc., among gigantic bones of elephants, mammoths, rhinoceroses," etc. If
there was no man on earth at that period "how came horses and sheep to be
found in company with the huge antediluvians?" asks a master in a letter.
("Esoteric Buddhism," 67). The reply is given above in the text.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 774 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
the
dark Hades of the Greeks and the cold realm of Shades where the Scandinavian
Hel, the goddess-Queen of the country of the dead, "holds sway deep down
in Helheim and Niflheim." Yet, it was the birth-place of Apollo, who was
the brightest of gods, in heaven -- astronomically -- as he was the most
enlightened of the divine kings who ruled over the early nations, in his human
meaning. The latter fact is borne out in the Iliad IV., 239-62, Vide "The
Greater gods" -- wherein Apollo is said to have appeared four times in his
own form (as the god of the four races) and six times in human form, i.e., as
connected with the divine Dynasties of the earlier unseparated Lemurians.
It
is those early mysterious peoples, their countries (which have now become
uninhabitable), as well as the name given to man both dead and alive, which
have furnished an opportunity to the ignorant Church fathers for inventing a
hell, which they have transformed into a burning instead of a freezing locality.*
It
is, of course, evident that it is neither the Hyperboreans, nor the Cimmerians,
the Arimaspes, nor even the Scyths -- known to and communicating with the
Greeks -- who were our Atlanteans. But they were all the descendants of their
last sub-races. The Pelasgians were certainly one of the root-races of future
Greece, and were a remnant of a sub-race of Atlantis. Plato hints as much in
speaking of the latter, whose name it is averred came from pelagus, the great
sea. Noah's Deluge is astronomical and allegorical, but it is not mythical, for
the story is based upon the same archaic tradition of men -- or rather of
nations -- which were saved during the cataclysms, in canoes, arks, and ships.
No one would presume to say that the Chaldean Xisuthrus, the Hindu Vaivasvata,
the Chinese Peirun -- the "beloved of the gods," who rescued him from
the flood in a canoe -- or the Swedish Belgamer, for whom the gods did the same
in the north, are all identical as a personage. But their legends have all
sprung from the catastrophe which involved both the continent and the island of
Atlantis.
The
allegory about the antediluvian giants and their achievements in Sorcery is no
myth. Biblical events are revealed indeed. But it is neither by the voice of
God amid thunder and lightning on Mount
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
A good proof that all the gods, and religious beliefs, and myths have come from
the north, which was also the cradle of physical man, lies in several suggestive
words which have originated and remain to this day among the northern tribes in
their primeval significance; but although there was a time when all the nations
were "of one lip," these words have received a different meaning with
the Greeks and Latins. One such word is Mann, Man, a living being, and Manes,
dead men. The Laplanders call their corpses to this day manee, (Voyage de
Renard en Laponie I., 184). Mannus is the ancestor of the German race; the
Hindu Manu, the thinking being, from man; the Egyptian Menes; and Minos, the
King of Crete, judge of the infernal regions after his death -- all proceed
from the same root or word.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 775 WHO WERE THE NEPHILIM?
Sinai,
nor by a divine finger tracing the record on tablets of stone, but simply
through tradition via pagan sources. It was not surely the Pentateuch that
Diodorus was repeating when he wrote upon the Titans -- the giants born of
Heaven and Earth, or, rather, born of the Sons of God who took to themselves
for wives the daughters of men who were fair. Nor was Pherecydes quoting from
Genesis when giving details on those giants which are not to be found in the
Jewish Scriptures. He says that the Hyperboreans were of the race of the
Titans, which race descended from the earliest giants, and that it was that
Hyperborean region which was the birth-place of the first giants. The
Commentaries on the sacred books explain that the said region was the far
north, the polar lands now, the pre-Lemurian earliest continent, embracing once
upon a time the present Greenland, Spitzbergen, Sweden, Norway, etc.
But
who were the Nephilim of Genesis vi. 4? There were Palaeolithic and Neolithic
men in
Now
mythology, built upon Hesiod's Theogony, which is but a poetised record of
actual traditions, or oral history, speaks of three giants, called Briareus,
Kottos, and Gyges, living in a dark country where they were imprisoned by
Kronos for their rebellion against him. All the three are endowed by myth with
an hundred arms and fifty heads, the latter standing for races, the former for
sub-races and tribes. Bearing in mind that in mythology every personage almost
is a god or derni-god, and also a king or simple mortal in his second aspect;*
and
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Thus, for instance, Gyges is a hundred-armed and fifty-headed monster, a
demi-god in one case, and a Lydian, the successor of Candaules, king of the
country, in another version. The same is found in the Indian Pantheon, where
Rishis and the Sons of Brahma are reborn as mortals.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 776 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
that
both stand as symbols for lands, islands, powers of nature, elements, nations,
races and sub-races, the esoteric Commentary will become comprehensible. It
says that the three giants are three polar lands which have changed form
several times, at each new cataclysm, or disappearance of one continent to make
room for another. The whole globe is convulsed periodically; and has been so
convulsed, since the appearance of the First Race, four times. Yet, though the
whole face of the earth was transformed thereby each time, the conformation of
the arctic and antarctic poles has but little altered. The polar lands unite
and break off from each other into islands and peninsulas, yet remain ever the
same. Therefore northern Asia is called the "eternal or perpetual
land," and the Antarctic the "ever living" and "the
concealed"; while the Mediterranean, Atlantic, Pacific and other regions
disappear and reappear in turn, into and above the great waters.
From
the first appearance of the great continent of Lemuria, the three polar giants
had been imprisoned in their circle by Kronos. Their gaol is surrounded by a
wall of bronze, and the exit is through gates fabricated by Poseidon (or
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The continents perish in turn by fire and water: either through earthquakes and
volcanic eruptions, or by sinking and the great displacement of waters. Our
continents have to perish owing to the former cataclysmal process. The
incessant earthquakes of this and the past years may be a warning.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 777 MYTHOLOGY BUILT ON HISTORY.
thought
of the world, and succeeded. For nearly two thousand years they impressed
thinking Humanity with the belief in the existence of Satan.
But
as it is now the conviction of more than one Greek scholar -- as it was that of
Bailly and Voltaire -- that Hesiod's theogony was based upon historical facts
(see Decharme's Mythol. de la Grece Antique), it becomes easier for the occult
teachings to find their way into the minds of thoughtful men, and therefore are
these passages from mythology brought forward in our discussion upon modern
learning in this Addendum.
Such
symbolisms as are found in all the exoteric creeds, are so many landmarks of
prehistoric truths. The sunny, happy land, the primitive cradle of the earliest
human races, has become several times since then hyperborean and Saturnine*;
thus showing the Golden Age and reign of Saturn from multiform aspects. It was
many-sided in its character indeed -- climatically, ethnologically and morally.
For, the Third, Lemurian Race must be physiologically divided into the early
androgynous and the later bi-sexual race; and the climate of its dwelling
places and continents into that of an eternal spring and eternal winter, into
life and death, purity and impurity. The Cycle of legends is ever being
transformed on its journey by popular fancy. Yet it may be cleansed from the
dross it has picked up on its way through many nations and through the
countless minds which have added their own exuberant additions to the original
facts. Leaving for a while the Greek interpretations we may seek for some more
corroborations of the latter in the scientific and geological proofs.
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Denis, the geographer, tells us that the great sea North of Asia was called glacial,
or Saturnine (v. 35). Orpheus (v. 1077) and Pliny (Book IV., c. 16) corroborate
the statement by showing that it is its giant inhabitants who gave it the name.
And the Secret Doctrine explains both assertions by telling us that all the
continents were formed from North to South; and that as the sudden change of
climate dwarfed the race that had been born on it, arresting its growth, so,
several degrees southward, various conditions had always produced the tallest
men in every new humanity, or race. We see it to this day. The tallest men now
found are those in Northern countries, while the smallest are Southern
Asiatics, Hindus, Chinamen, Japanese, etc. Compare the tall Sikhs and
Punjabees, the Afghans, Norwegians, Russians, Northern Germans, Scotchmen, and
the English, with the inhabitants of central India and the average European on
the continent. Thus also the giants of Atlantis, and hence the Titans of
Hesiod, are all Northerners.
-------
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 778 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
§
VII.
SCIENTIFIC
AND GEOLOGICAL PROOFS OF THE EXISTENCE OF SEVERAL SUBMERGED CONTINENTS.
IT
may not be amiss -- for the benefit of those who resolve the tradition of a
lost Miocene Atlantis into an "antiquated myth," to append a few
scientific admissions on this point. Science, it is true, is largely
indifferent to such questions. But there are Scientists ready to admit that, in
any case, a cautious agnosticism as to geological problems concerning the
remote past is far more philosophical than a priori denial, or even hasty
generalizations on insufficient data.
Meanwhile
two very interesting instances, that have been lately met with, may be pointed
out as "confirming" certain passages in the letter of a Master,
published in "Esoteric Buddhism." The eminence of the authorities
will not be questioned:--
[[First
Column]]
Extract
from p. 61 of "Esoteric Buddhism."
No.
1.
"The
sinking of the Atlantis (the group of continents and islands) began during the
Eocene period . . . . and it culminated in the Miocene, first in the final
disappearance of the largest, an event coincident with the elevation of the
Alps, and second in the sinking of the last of the fair islands mentioned by
Plato."
[[First
Column continued on next page]]
[[Second
Column]]
Extract
from a Lecture by W. Pengelly, F.R.S., F.G.S.
No.
1.
"Was
there, as some have believed, an Atlantis -- a continent or Archipelago of
large islands occupying the area of the North Atlantic? There is, perhaps,
nothing unphilosophical in the hypothesis. For since, as geologists state, 'The
Alps have acquired 4,000 and even in some places more than 10,000 feet of their
present altitude since the commencement of the Eocene epoch' (Lyell's
Principles 2nd Ed. p. 256.) -- a post-Miocene depression might have carried the
hypothetical Atlantis into almost abysmal depths."*
[[Second
Column continued on next page]]
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Having already given several instances of the vagaries of Science, it is
delightful to find such agreement in this particular case. Read in connection
with the scientific admission (cited elsewhere) of the geologists' ignorance of
even the approximate duration of periods, the following passage is highly
instructive: "We are not yet able to assign an approximate date for the
most recent epoch at which our Northern Hemisphere was covered with glaciers.
According to Mr. Wallace, this epoch may have occurred seventy thousand years
ago, while others would assign to it an antiquity of at least two hundred
thousand years, and there are yet others who urge strong arguments on behalf of
the opinion that a million of years is barely enough to have produced the
changes which have taken place since that event." (Fiske, "Cosmic
[[Footnote continued on next page]]
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 779 GEOLOGY CORROBORATES OCCULTISM.
[[First
Column continued from previous page]]
No.
2.
"Lemuria
cannot any more be confounded with the Atlantis continent than Europe with
America. Both sank and were drowned with all their 'gods'; yet, between the two
catastrophes a short period of about some 700,000 years elapsed; Lemuria
flourishing and ending her career just about that trifling lapse of time before
the early Eocene Age, since its Race was the Third. Behold the relics of that
once great race in some of the flat-headed aborigines of your AUSTRALIA."
("Esoteric Buddhism," p. 55.)
[[Second
Column continued from previous page]]
No.
2.
"It
would be premature to say, because no evidence has yet been adduced, that men may
not have existed in the Eocene Age, especially as it can be shown that a race
of men, the lowest we know of, co-exists with that remnant of the Eocene flora
which still survives on the continent and islands of Australia." (Extract
from an article in "Popular Science Review," Vol. V. p. 18, by
Professor Seemann, Ph.D., F.L.S., P.A.S.).
Haeckel,
who fully accepts the reality of a former Lemuria, also regards the Australians
as direct descendants of the Lemurians. "Persistent forms (of both his
Lemurian stems,) are in all probability still surviving . . . Papuans and
Hottentots . . . Australians . . . one division of the Malays."
[[End
of Columns]]
With
regard to a former civilization, of which a portion of these degraded
Australians are the last surviving offshoot, the opinion of Gerland is strongly
suggestive. Commenting upon the religion and mythology of the tribes, he
writes, "The statement that the Australian civilization (?) indicates a
higher grade, is nowhere more clearly proved than here, where everything
resounds like the expiring voices of a previous and richer age. The idea that
the Australians have no religion or mythology is thoroughly false. But this
religion is certainly quite deteriorated." (Cited in Schmidt's
"Doctrine of Descent of Darwinism," pp. 301-2.) As to his other
statement, namely, that the Australians are a "division of the
Malays" (Vide his ethnological theories in the "Pedigree of
Man"), Haeckel is in error, if he classes the Australians with the rest.
The Malays and Papuans are a mixed stock, resulting from the intermarriages of
the low Atlantean sub-races with the Seventh sub-race of the Third Root-Race.
Like the Hottentots, they are of indirect Lemuro-Atlantean descent. It is a
most suggestive fact -- to those concrete thinkers who demand a physical proof
of Karma -- that the lowest races of men are now rapidly dying out; a
phenomenon largely due to an extraordinary sterility setting in among the
women, from the time that they were first approached by the Europeans. A process
of decimation is taking
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
[[Footnote
continued from previous page]] Philosophy," Vol. II., p. 304). Prof.
Lefevre, again, gives us as his estimate 100,000 years. Clearly, then, if
modern Science is unable to estimate the date of so comparatively recent an era
as the Glacial Epoch, it can hardly impeach the Esoteric Chronology of
Race-Periods and Geological Ages.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 780 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
place
all over the globe, among those races, whose "time is up" -- among
just those stocks, be it remarked, which esoteric philosophy regards as the
senile representatives of lost archaic nations. It is inaccurate to maintain
that the extinction of a lower race is invariably due to cruelties or abuses
perpetrated by colonists. Change of diet, drunkenness, etc., etc., have done
much; but those who rely on such data as offering an all-sufficient explanation
of the crux, cannot meet the phalanx of facts now so closely arrayed.
"Nothing," says even the materialist Lefevre, "can save those
that have run their course. . . . It would be necessary to extend their
destined cycle. . . . The peoples that have been most spared . . . Hawaiians or
Maories, have been no less decimated than the tribes massacred or tainted by
European intrusion." ("Philosophy," p. 508.)
True;
but is not the phenomenon here confirmed of the operation of CYCLIC LAW
difficult to account for on materialist lines? Whence the "destined
cycle" and the order here testified to? Why does this (Karmic) sterility
attack and root out certain races at their "appointed hour"? The
answer that it is due to a "mental disproportion" between the
colonizing and aboriginal races is obviously evasive, since it does not explain
the sudden "checks to fertility" which so frequently supervene. The
dying out of the Hawaiians, for instance, is one of the most mysterious
problems of the day. Ethnology will sooner or later have to recognize with
Occultists that the true solution has to be sought for in a comprehension of
the workings of Karma. As Lefevre remarks, "the time is drawing near when
there will remain nothing but three great human types" (before the Sixth
Root-Race dawns), the white (Aryan, Fifth Root-Race), the yellow, and the
African negro -- with their crossings (Atlanto-European divisions). Redskins,
Eskimos, Papuans, Australians, Polynesians, etc., etc. -- all are dying out.
Those who realize that every Root-Race runs through a gamut of seven sub-races
with seven branchlets, etc., will understand the "why." The tide-wave
of incarnating EGOS has rolled past them to harvest experience in more
developed and less senile stocks; and their extinction is hence a Karmic necessity.
Some extraordinary and unexplained statistics as to Race extinction are given
in de Quatrefages' "Human Species," p. 428 et seq. No solution,
except on the occult lines, is able to account for these.
But
we have digressed from our direct subject. Let us hear now what Professor
Huxley has to say on the subject of former Atlantic and Pacific Continents.
He
writes in "NATURE," Nov. 4th, 1880: "There is nothing, so far as
I am aware, in the biological or geological evidence at present accessible, to
render untenable the hypothesis that an area of the mid-
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 781 TRADITION AS TRUE AS HISTORY.
Atlantic
or Pacific sea-bed as big as Europe, should have been uplifted as high as Mont
Blanc, and have subsided again, any time since the Palaeozoic epoch, if there
were any grounds for entertaining it."
That
is to say, then, that there is nothing which can militate against positive evidence
to the fact; nothing, therefore, against the geological postulates of the
Esoteric Philosophy. Dr. Seemann assures us in the "Popular Science
Review" (Vol. V., p. 18), article "Australia and Europe formerly one
Continent,"* that:--
"The
facts which botanists have accumulated for reconstructing these lost maps of
the globe are rather comprehensive; and they have not been backward in
demonstrating the former existence of large tracts of solid land in parts now
occupied by the great oceans. The many striking points of contact between the
present flora of the United States and Eastern Asia, induced them to assume
that, during the present order of things, there existed a continental
connection between South-Eastern Asia and Western America. The singular
correspondence of the present flora of the Southern United States with that of
the lignite flora of Europe induces them to believe that, in the Miocene
period, Europe and America were connected by a land passage, of which Iceland,
Madeira, and the other Atlantic islands are remnants; that, in fact, the story
of an Atlantis, which an Egyptian priest told to Solon, is not purely
fictitious, but rests on a solid historical basis. . . . Europe of the Eocene
period received the plants which spread over mountains and plains, valleys and
river-banks (from Asia generally), neither exclusively from the South nor from
the East. The west also furnished additions, and if at that period these were
rather meagre, they show, at all events, that the bridge was already building,
which, at a late period, was to facilitate communication between the two
continents in such a remarkable manner. At that time some plants of the Western
Continent began to reach Europe by means of the island of Atlantis, then
probably just rising (?) above the ocean."
And
in another number of the same review (Vol. I., p. 143) Mr. Duppa Crotch, M.A.,
F.L.S., in an article entitled "The Norwegian Lemming and its
Migrations," alludes to the same subject.
"Is
it probable that land could have existed where now the broad Atlantic rolls?
All tradition says so: old Egyptian records speak of Atlantis, as Strabo and
others have told us. The Sahara itself is the sand of an ancient sea, and the
shells which are found upon its surface
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Undoubtedly a fact and a confirmation of the esoteric conception of the Lemuria
which originally not only embraced great areas in the Indian and Pacific
oceans, but projected round South Africa into the North Atlantic. Its Atlantic
portion subsequently became the geological basis of the future home of the
Fourth Race Atlanteans.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 782 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
prove
that, no longer ago than the Miocene period, a sea rolled over what is now
desert. The voyage of the 'Challenger' has proved the existence of three long
ridges* in the Atlantic Ocean,** one extending for more than three thousand
miles, and lateral spurs may, by connecting these ridges, account for the
marvellous similarity of the fauna of the Atlantic islands.*** . . . . The
submerged continent of LEMURIA, in what is now the Indian Ocean, is considered
to afford an explanation of many difficulties in the distribution of organic
life, and, I think, the existence of a MIOCENE ATLANTIS will be found to have a
strong elucidative bearing on subjects of greater interest [Truly So!] than the
migration of the lemming. At all events, if it can be shown that land existed
in former ages where the North Atlantic now rolls, not only is a motive found
for these apparently suicidal migrations, but also a strong collateral proof
that what we call instincts are but the blind and sometimes even prejudicial
inheritance of previously acquired experiences."
(At
certain periods, we learn, multitudes of these animals swim to sea and perish.
Coming, as they do, from all parts of Norway, the powerful instinct which
survives throughout ages as an inheritance from their progenitors impels them
to seek a continent, once existing but now submerged beneath the ocean, and to
court a watery grave.)
In
an article containing a criticism of Mr. A. R. Wallace's "Island
Life" -- a work devoted largely to the question of the distribution of
animals, etc. -- Mr. Starkie Gardiner writes ("Subsidence and
Elevation," Geological Magazine, June, 1881):--
"By
a process of reasoning supported by a large array of facts of different kinds,
he arrives at the conclusion that the distribution of life upon the land as we
now see it, has been accomplished without the aid of important changes in the
relative positions of continents and seas. Yet if we accept his views, we must
believe that Asia and Africa, Madagascar and Africa, New Zealand and Australia,
Europe and America, have been united at some period not remote geologically,
and that seas to the depth of 1,000 fathoms have been bridged over; but we must
treat as utterly gratuitous and entirely opposed to
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Cf. the published reports of the "Challenger" expedition; also
Donnelly's "Atlantis," p. 468 and pp. 46-56, chap. "The
Testimony of the Sea."
**
Even the cautious Lefevre speaks of the existence of Tertiary men on
"upheaved lands, islands and continents then flourishing, but since
submerged beneath the waters," and elsewhere introduces a "possible
Atlantis" to explain ethnological facts. Cf. his "Philosophy,"
Eng. Ed., pp. 478 and 504. Mr. Donnelly remarks with rare intuition that
"modern civilization is Atlantean . . . . the 'inventive' faculty of the
present age is taking up the delegated work of Creation where Atlantis left it
thousands of years ago" (Atlantis, p. 133). He also refers the origin of
culture to the Miocene times. It is, however, to be sought for in the teachings
given to the Third Race-men by their Divine Rulers -- at a vastly earlier
period.
***
An equally "curious" similarity is traced between some of the West
Indian and West African fauna.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 783 ATLANTIS, NECESSARY TO ETHNOLOGY.
all
the evidences at our command (!!), the supposition that temperate Europe and
temperate America, Australia, and South America, have ever been connected
except by way of the Arctic or Antarctic circles and that lands now separated
by seas of more than 1,000 fathoms depth have ever been united. Mr. Wallace, it
must be admitted, has succeeded in explaining the chief features of existing
life-distribution, without bridging the Atlantic or Pacific, except towards the
Poles, yet I cannot help thinking that some of the facts might perhaps be more
easily explained by admitting the former existence of the connection between
the coast of Chile and Polynesia* and Great Britain and Florida, shadowed by
the submarine banks which stretch between them. Nothing is urged that renders
the more direct connection impossible, and no physical reason is advanced why
the floor of the ocean should not be upheaved from any depth. The route by
which (according to the anti-Atlantean and Lemurian hypotheses of Wallace) the
floras of South America and Australia are supposed to have mingled, is beset by
almost insurmountable obstacles, and the apparently sudden arrival of a number
of sub-tropical American plants in our Eocene flora, necessitates a connection
more to the south than the present 1,000 fathom line . . . . forces are
unceasingly acting, and there is no reason why an elevating force once set in
action in the centre of an ocean should cease to act until a continent is
formed. They have acted and lifted out from the sea, in comparatively recent
geological times, the loftiest mountains on earth. Mr. Wallace himself admits
repeatedly that sea-beds have been elevated 1,000 fathoms and islands have
risen up from the depths of 3,000 fathoms; and to suppose that the upheaving
forces are limited in power, is, it seems to me, 'utterly gratuitous and
entirely opposed to all the evidences at our command.' "
The
"Father" of English Geology -- Sir Charles Lyell -- was an
Uniformitarian in his views of continental formation. On page 492 of his
"Antiquity of Man" we find him saying:--
"Professor
Unger (Die versunkene Insel Atlantis) and Heer (Flora Tertiaria Helvetiae) have
admitted on botanical grounds the former existence of an Atlantic Continent
during some part of the Tertiary Period, as affording the only plausible
explanation that can be imagined of the analogy between the Miocene flora of
central Europe, and the existing flora of Eastern America. Professor Oliver, on
the other hand, after showing how many of the American types found fossil in
Europe are common to Japan, inclines to the theory, first advanced by Dr. Asa
Gray, that the migration of species, to which the community of types in the
Eastern States of North America, and the Miocene flora of Europe is due, took
place when there was an overland communication from America to central Asia
between the fiftieth and sixtieth parallels of latitude, or south of Behring
Straits, following the direction of the Aleutian islands. By this course they
may have made their way, at any epoch, Miocene, Pliocene, or Pleistocene,
antecedently to the Glacial Epoch, to Amoorland, on the East coast of North
Asia."
The
unnecessary difficulties and complications here incurred in order to avoid the
hypothesis of an Atlantic Continent, are really too
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Pacific portion of the giant Lemurian Continent christened by Dr. Carter
Blake, the anthropologist, "Pacificus."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 784 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
apparent
to escape notice. If the botanical evidences stood alone, scepticism would be
half legitimate; but in this case all branches of science converge to one
point. Science has made blunders, and has exposed itself to greater errors than
the admission of our two now invisible continents, would lay it open to. It has
denied even the undeniable, from the days of the mathematician Laplace down to
our own, and that only a few years ago.* We have Professor Huxley's authority
for saying that there is no a priori improbability whatever against possible
evidences supporting the belief. (Vide supra.) But now that the POSITIVE
EVIDENCE is brought forward, will that eminent scientist admit the corollary?
Touching
on the problem in another place ("Principles of Geology," pp. 12-13),
Sir Charles Lyell tells us: "Respecting the cosmogony of the Egyptian
priests, we gather much information from writers of the Grecian sects, who
borrowed almost all their tenets from Egypt, and amongst others that of the
former successive destruction and renovation of the world. (Continental, not
cosmic, catastrophes.) We learn from Plutarch that this was the theme of one of
the hymns of Orpheus, so celebrated in the fabulous ages of Greece. It was
brought by him from the banks of the Nile; and we even find in his verses, as
in the Indian systems, a definite period assigned for the duration of every
successive World. The returns of great catastrophes were determined by the
present period of the Magnus Annus, or great year -- a cycle composed of the
revolutions of the sun, moon, and planets, and terminating when these return together
to the sign whence they were supposed at some remote epoch to set out. We learn
particularly from the Timaeus of Plato that the Egyptians believed the world to
be subject to occasional conflagrations and deluges. The sect of the Stoics
adopted most fully the system of catastrophes destined at intervals to destroy
the world. These, they taught, were of two kinds -- the cataclysm, or
destruction by water, and the Ecpyrosis, or destruction by fire (submarine
volcanoes). From the Egyptians they derived the doctrine of the gradual
debasement of man from a state of innocence" (nascent simplicity of the
first sub-races of each Root-Race). "Towards the
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
When Howard read, before the Royal Society of London, a paper on the first
serious researches that were made on the aerolites, the Geneva naturalist
Pictet, who was present, communicated, on his return to Paris, the facts
reported to the French Academy of Sciences. But he was forthwith interrupted by
Laplace, the great astronomer, who cried: "Stop! we have had enough of
such fables, and know all about them," thus making Pictet feel very small.
Globular-shaped lightnings or thunderbolts have been admitted by Science only
since Arago demonstrated their existence, says de Rochat ("Forces
non-definies," p. 4): "Every one remembers Dr. Bouilland's
misadventure at the Academy of Medicine when he had declared Edison's
phonograph 'a trick of ventriloquism! ` "
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 785 ASTRAEA FALLS ON HER HEAD.
termination
of each era the gods could no longer bear with the wickedness of man, and a
shock of the elements, or a deluge, overwhelmed them; (vide degeneracy into
magical practices and gross animality of the Atlanteans) after which calamity,
Astraea again descended on the earth to renew the golden age." (Dawn of a
new Root-Race.)
Astraea,
the goddess of justice, is the last of the deities to forsake the earth, when
the gods are said to abandon it and be taken up into heaven by Jupiter again.
But, no sooner does Zeus carry away from earth Ganymedes (the object of lust,
personified) than the father of the gods throws down Astraea back on the earth
again, on which she falls upon her head. Astraea is Virgo, the constellation of
the Zodiac. Astronomically it has a very plain significance, and one which
gives the Key to the occult meaning. But it is inseparable from Leo, the sign
that precedes it, and from the Pleiades and their sisters, the Hyades, of which
Aldebaran is the brilliant leader. All of these are connected with the
periodical renovations of the earth, with regard to its continents -- even
Ganymedes, who in astronomy is Aquarius. It was already shown that while the
South Pole is the pit (or the infernal regions figuratively and
cosmologically), the North Pole is geographically the first continent; while
astronomically and metaphorically the celestial pole, with its pole star in heaven,
is Meru, or the seat of Brahma, the throne of Jupiter, etc. For in the age when
the gods forsook the earth and were said to ascend into heaven, the ecliptic
had become parallel with the meridian, and part of the Zodiac appeared to
descend from the north pole to the north horizon. Aldebaran was in conjunction
then with the Sun, as it was 40,000 years ago, at the great festival in
commemoration of that Magnus Annus, of which Plutarch was speaking. Since that
year (40,000 years ago) there has been a retrograde motion of the equator, and
about 31,000 years ago Aldebaran was in conjunction with the vernal equinoctial
point. The part assigned to Taurus, even in Christian mysticism, is too well
known to need repetition. The famous Orphic hymn on the great periodical
cataclysm divulges the whole esotericism of the event. Pluto (in the pit)
carries off Eurydice, bitten by the (polar) serpent. Then Leo, the lion, is
vanquished. Now, when the Lion is in the pit, or below the south pole, then
Virgo, as the next sign, follows him, and when her head, down to the waist, is
below the South horizon -- she is inverted. On the other hand, the Hyades are
the rain or Deluge constellations; and Aldebaran (he who follows, or succeeds
the daughters of Atlas, or the Pleiades) looks down from the eye of Taurus. It
is from this point of the ecliptic that the calculations of the new cycle were
commenced. The student has to remember also, that when Ganymedes (Aquarius) is
raised to
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 786 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
heaven
(or above the horizon of the North Pole) Virgo or Astraea, who is
Venus-Lucifer, descends head downwards below the horizon of the South Pole, or
the pit; which pit, or the pole, is also the Great Dragon, or the Flood. Let
the student exercise his intuition by placing these facts together; no more can
be said.
"The
connection," comments Lyell, "between the doctrine of successive
catastrophes and repeated deteriorations in the moral character of the human
race, is more intimate and natural than might at first be imagined. For, in a
rude state of society, all great calamities are regarded by the people as
judgments of God on the wickedness of man. . . . In like manner in the account
given to Solon by the Egyptian priests of the submersion of the island of
Atlantis under the waters of the ocean, after repeated shocks of an earthquake,
we find that the event happened when Jupiter had seen the moral depravity of
the inhabitants."
True;
but was it not owing to the fact that all esoteric truths were given out to the
public by the Initiates of the temples under the guise of allegories?
"Jupiter," is merely the personification of that immutable Cyclic
Law, which arrests the downward tendency of each Root-Race, after attaining the
zenith of its glory.* Unless we hold with Prof. John Fiske's singularly
dogmatic opinion** that every myth "is an explanation by the uncivilized
mind, of some natural phenomenon; not an allegory, not an esoteric symbol, for
the ingenuity is wasted (! !) which strives to detect in myths the remnants of
a refined primeval science -- but an explanation. Primitive men had no profound
science to perpetuate by means of allegory [How does Mr. Fiske know?], nor were
they such sorry pedants as to talk in riddles when plain language would serve
their purpose." We venture to say the language of the Initiated few was
far more "plain," and their science-philosophy far more com-
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
The Cyclic Law of Race-Evolution is most unwelcome to scientists. It is
sufficient to mention the fact of "primeval civilization" to excite
the frenzy of Darwinians; it being obvious that the further culture and science
is pushed back, the more precarious becomes the basis of the ape-ancestor
theory. But as Jacolliot says:-- "Whatever there may be in these
traditions (submerged continents, etc.), and whatever may have been the place
where a civilization more ancient than that of Rome, of Greece, of Egypt, and
of India, was developed, it is certain that this civilization did exist, and it
is highly important for Science to recover its traces, however feeble and
fugitive they be." (Histoire des Vierges; les peuples et les continents
disparus, p. 15.) Donnelly has proved the fact from the clearest premises, but
the Evolutionists will not listen. A Miocene civilization upsets the
"universal stone-age" theory, and that of a continuous ascent of man
from animalism! And yet Egypt, at least, runs counter to current hypotheses.
There is no stone-age visible there, but a more glorious culture is apparent,
the further back we are enabled to carry our retrospect. (Verb. Sap.)
**
"Myths and Myth-Makers," p. 21.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 787 INGENIOUS EXPLANATIONS.
prehensive
and satisfying alike to the physical and spiritual wants of man, than even the
terminology and system respectively elaborated by Mr. Fiske's Master -- Herbert
Spencer. What, however, is Sir Charles Lyell's "explanation" of the
"myth"? Certainly, he in no way countenances the idea of its
"astronomical" origin, as asserted by some writers.
The
two interpreters are entirely at variance with one another. Lyell's solution is
as follows. A disbeliever in cataclysmal changes, from the absence (?) of any
reliable historical data on the point, as well as from a strong bias to the
Uniformitarian conceptions of geologic changes,* he attempts to trace the
Atlantis "tradition" to the following sources:--
(1)
Barbarous tribes connect catastrophes with an avenging God, who is assumed in
this way to punish immoral races.
(2)
Hence the commencement of a new race is logically a virtuous one.
(3)
The primary source of the geologic basis of the tradition was Asia -- a
continent subject to violent earthquakes. Exaggerated accounts would thus be
handed down the ages.
(4)
Egypt, being herself free from earthquakes, nevertheless based her not
inconsiderable geologic knowledge on these cataclysmal traditions.
An
ingenious "explanation," as all such are. But proving a negative is
proverbially a difficult task. Students of esoteric science, who know what the
resources of the Egyptian priesthood really were, need no such laboured
hypothesis. Moreover, while an imaginative theorist is always able to furnish a
reasonable solution of problems which, in one branch of science, seem to
necessitate the hypothesis of periodical cataclysmic changes on the surface of
our planet, the impartial critic, who is not a
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Violent minor cataclysms and colossal earthquakes are recorded in the annals of
most nations -- if not of all. Elevation and subsidence of continents is always
in progress. The whole coast of South America has been raised up 10 to 15 feet
and settled down again in an hour. Huxley has shown that the British islands
have been four times depressed beneath the ocean and subsequently raised again
and peopled. The Alps, Himalayas and Cordilleras were all the result of
depositions drifted on to sea-bottoms and upheaved by Titanic forces to their
present elevation. The Sahara was the basin of a Miocene sea. Within the last
five or six thousand years the shores of Sweden, Denmark and Norway have risen
from 200 to 600 feet; in Scotland there are raised beaches with outlying stacks
and skerries surmounting the shore now eroded by the hungry wave. The North of
Europe is still rising from the sea and South America presents the phenomenon
of raised beaches of over 1,000 miles in length, now at a height varying from
100 to 1,300 feet above the sea-level. On the other hand, the coast of
Greenland is sinking fast, so much so that the Greenlander will not build by
the shore. All these phenomena are certain. Why may not a gradual change have
given place to a violent cataclysm in remote epochs? -- such cataclysms
occurring on a minor scale even now (e.g., the case of Sunda island with 80,000
Malays).
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 788 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
specialist,
will recognise the immense difficulty of explaining away the cumulative
evidences, -- namely, the archaeological, ethnological, geological, traditional,
botanical, and even biological -- in favour of former continents now submerged.
When each science is fighting for its own hand, the cumulative force of the
evidence in its collectivity is almost invariably lost sight of.
In
the "Theosophist" (August, 1880), we wrote: "We have as
evidences the most ancient traditions of various and wide-separated peoples --
legends in India, in ancient Greece, Madagascar, Sumatra, Java, and all the
principal isles of Polynesia, as well as the legends of both Americas. Among
savages; and in the traditions of the richest literature in the world -- the
Sanskrit literature of India -- there is an agreement in saying, that, ages
ago, there existed in the Pacific Ocean, a large Continent, which by a
geological cataclysm was engulfed by the sea,* (Lemuria). And it is our firm
belief . . . that most, if not all, of the islands from the Malayan archipelago
to Polynesia, are fragments of that once immense submerged Continent. Both
Malacca and Polynesia, which lie at the two extremities of the ocean, and
which, since the memory of man never had, and never could have any intercourse
with, or even a knowledge of each other, have yet a tradition common to all the
islands and islets, that their respective countries extended far, far into the
Sea: that there were in the world but two immense continents, one inhabited by
yellow, the other by dark men; and that the Ocean, by command of the gods, and
to punish them for their incessant quarrelling, swallowed them up.
Notwithstanding the geographical proof that New Zealand, the Sandwich and
Easter Islands, are at a distance from each other of between 800 and 1,000
leagues, and that, according to every testimony, neither these nor any other
intermediate islands, for instance, the Marquesan, Society, Fiji, Tahitian,
Samoan, and other islands, could, since they became islands, ignorant as their
people were of the compass, have communicated with each other before the
arrival of Europeans; yet they one and all maintain that their respective countries
extended far toward the West, on the Asian side. Moreover, with very small
differences, they all speak dialects evidently of the same language; and
understand each other with little difficulty; have the same religious beliefs
and superstitions; and pretty much the same customs. And as few of the
Polynesian islands were discovered earlier than a century ago, the Pacific
Ocean itself being unknown to Europe till the days of Columbus, and as these
islanders have never ceased repeating the same old traditions since the
Europeans first set
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For the opinions of Jacolliot, after long travels through the Polynesian
Islands and his proofs of a former great geological cataclysm in the Pacific
Ocean, see his "Histoire des Vierges: Peuples et Continents
disparus," p. 308.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 789 HAECKEL FOR ONCE IS RIGHT.
foot
on their shores, it seems to us a logical inference that our theory is nearer
to the truth than any other. "Chance would have to change its name and
meaning, were all this due but to chance alone."
"A
great series of animal-geographical facts," declares Professor Schmidt, writing
in defence of the hypothesis of a former Lemuria, "is explicable only on
the theory of the former existence of a Southern Continent of which Australia
is a remnant. . . . . " [the distribution of species] "points to the
vanished land of the South where perhaps the home of the progenitors of the
Maki of Madagascar may also be looked for."*
Mr.
A. R. Wallace, in his "Malay Archipelago," arrives at the following
conclusion after a review of the mass of evidence at hand:-- "The
inference that we must draw from these facts is undoubtedly that the whole of
the islands eastwards beyond Borneo and Sumatra do essentially form part of a
former Australian or Pacific Continent . . . This continent must have been
broken up before the extreme south-eastern portion of Asia was raised above the
waters of the ocean, for a great part of the land of Borneo and Java is known
to be geologically of quite recent formation."
According
to Haeckel:-- "Southern Asia itself was not the earliest cradle of the
human race, but Lemuria, a continent that lay to the South of Asia, and sank
later on beneath the surface of the Indian Ocean." ("Pedigree of
Man," Eng. Trans. p. 73.) In one sense Haeckel is right as to Lemuria --
the "cradle of the Human race." That continent was the home of the
first physical Human Stock -- the later Third-Race Men. Previous to that epoch
the Races were far less consolidated and physiologically quite different.
(Haeckel makes Lemuria extend from Sunda Island to Africa and Madagascar and
eastwards to Upper India.)
Professor
Rutimeyer, the eminent Palaeontologist, asks:-- "Need the conjecture that
the almost exclusively graminivorous and insectivorous marsupials, sloths,
armadilloes, ant-eaters and ostriches, once possessed an actual point of union
in a Southern Continent of which the present flora of Terra del Fuego and
Australia must be the remains -- need this conjecture raise difficulties at a
moment when from their fossil remains, Heer restores to sight the ancient
forests of Smith's Sound and Spitzbergen." (Cited in Schmidt's
"Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p. 237.)
Having
now dealt generally with the broad scientific attitude on the two questions, it
will, perhaps, conduce to an agreeable brevity, if we sum up the more striking
isolated facts in favour of that fundamental contention of Esoteric
Ethnologists -- the reality of Atlantis. Lemuria
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
"Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p. 236. (Cf. also his lengthy
arguments on the subject, pp. 231-7.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 790 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
is
so widely accepted, that further pursuit of the subject is unnecessary. With
regard, however, to the former, it is found that:--
(1)
The Miocene flora of Europe have their most numerous and striking analogues in
the flora of the United States. In the forests of Virginia and Florida are
found the magnolias, tulip-trees, evergreen oaks, plane trees, etc., etc.,
etc., which correspond with European Tertiary flora term for term. How was the
migration effected, if we exclude the theory of an Atlantic Continent bridging
the ocean between America and Europe? The proposed "explanation" to
the effect that the transition was by way of Asia and the Aleutian islands is a
mere uncalled-for theory, obviously upset by the fact that a large number of
these flora only appear EAST of the Rocky Mountains. This also negatives the
idea of a trans-Pacific migration. They are now superseded by European
continents and islands to the North.
(2)
Skulls exhumed on the banks of the Danube and Rhine bear a striking similarity
to those of the Caribs and Old Peruvians (Littre). Monuments have been exhumed
in Central America, which bear representations of undoubted negro heads and
faces. How are such facts to be accounted for except on the Atlantean
hypothesis? What is now N. W. Africa was once connected with Atlantis by a
network of islands, few of which now remain.
(3)
According to Farrar ("Families of Speech") the "isolated
language" of the Basques has no affinities with the other languages* of
Europe, but with "the aboriginal languages of the vast opposite continent
(America) and those alone." Professor Broca is also of the same opinion.
Palaeolithic
European man of the Miocene and Pliocene times was a pure Atlantean, as we have
previously stated. The Basques are, of course, of a much later date than this,
but their affinities, as here shown, go far to prove the original extraction of
their remote ancestors. The "mysterious" affinity between their
tongue and that of the Dravidian races of India will be understood by those who
have followed our outline of continental formations and shiftings.
(4)
Stones have been found in the Canary Islands bearing sculptured symbols similar
to those found on the shore of Lake Superior. Berthollet was induced
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
For further facts as to the isolation of the Basques in Europe and their ethnological
relations, cf. Joly, "Man before Metals," p. 316. B. Davis is
disposed to concede, from an examination of the skulls of the Guanches of the
Canary Islands and modern Basques, that both belong to a race proper to those
ancient islands, of which the Canaries are the remains!! This is a step in
advance indeed. De Quatrefages and Hamy also both assign the Cro-Magnon men of
South France and the Guanches to one type -- a proposition which involves a
certain corollary which both these writers may not care to father.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[[Vol.
2, Page]] 791 FINAL AND IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE.
by
such evidence to postulate the unity of race of the early men of Canary Islands
and America (Cf. Benjamin, the "Atlantic Islands," p. 130.)
The
Guanches of the Canary Islands were lineal descendants of the Atlanteans. This
fact will account for the great stature evidenced by their old skeletons, as
well as by those of their European congeners the Cro-Magnon Palaeolithic men.
(5)
Any experienced mariner has but to navigate the fathomless ocean along the
Canary Islands to ask himself the question when or how that group of volcanic
and rocky little islands has been formed, surrounded on every side by that vast
watery space. Such frequent questions led finally to the expedition of the
famous Leopold von Buch, which took place in the first quarter of the present
century. Some geologists maintained that the volcanic islands had been raised
right from the bottom of the ocean, the depth of which in the immediate
vicinity of the island varies from 6,000 to 18,000 feet. Others were inclined
to see in these groups, including Madeira, the Azores, and the islands of Cape
de Verdes -- the remnants of a gigantic but submerged continent which had once
united Africa with America. The latter men of science supported their
hypothesis by a mass of evidence in its favour, drawn from ancient
"myths." Hoary "superstitions," such as the fairy-like
Atlantis of Plato, the Garden of Hesperides, Atlas supporting the world on his
shoulders, all of them mythoi connected with the peak of Teneriffe, did not go
far with sceptical Science. The identity of animal and vegetable species --
showing either a previous connection between America and the remaining groups
of the islands -- (the hypothesis of their having been drifted from the New to
the Old World by the waves was too absurd to stand long) -- found more serious
consideration. But it is only quite lately, and after Donnelly's book had been
published several years, that the theory has greater chances than ever of
becoming an accepted fact. Fossils found on the Eastern Coast of South America
have now been proved to belong to the Jurassic formations, and are nearly
identical with the Jurassic fossils of Western Europe and Northern Africa. The
geological structure of both coasts is also almost identical; the resemblance
between the smaller marine animals dwelling in the more shallow waters of South
America, the Western African, and the South European coasts, is also very
great. All such facts are bound to bring naturalists to the conclusion that
there has been, in distant pre-historic ages, a continent which extended from
the coast of Venezuela, across the Atlantic Ocean, to the Canarese Islands and
North Africa, and from Newfoundland nearly to the coast of France.
(6)
The great resemblance between the Jurassic fossils of South
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America,
North Africa, and Western Europe is a striking enough fact in itself, and
admits of no explanation, unless the ocean is bridged with an Atlantis. But
why, also, is there so marked a similarity between the fauna (animal life) of
the -- now -- isolated Atlantic islands? Why did the specimens of Brazilian
fauna dredged up by Sir C. Wyville Thompson resemble those of Western Europe?
Why does a resemblance exist between many of the West African and West Indian
animal groups? Again:
"When
the animals and plants of the Old and New World are compared, one cannot but be
struck with their identity; all, nearly all belong to the same genera, while
many, even of the species, are common to both continents . . . indicating that
they radiated from a common centre" (Atlantis), ("Westminster
Review," Jan., 1872).
The
horse, according to Science, originated in America. At least, a large
proportion of the once "missing links" connecting it with inferior
forms have been exhumed from American strata. How did the horse penetrate into
Europe and Asia, if no land communication bridged the oceanic interspaces? Or
if it is asserted that the horse originated in the New World, how did such
forms as the hipparion, etc., get into America in the first instance on the
migration hypothesis?
Again
"Buffon had . . . remarked in the repetition of the African in the
American fauna, how, for example, the lama is a juvenescent and feeble copy of
the camel, and how the puma of the New represented the lion of the Old
World" (Schmidt, "Doctrine of Descent and Darwinism," p. 223).
(7)
The following quotation runs with No. (2), but its significance is such and the
writer cited so authoritative, that it deserves a place to itself:--
"With
regard to the primitive dolichocephalae of America, I entertain a hypothesis
still more bold, namely, that they are nearly related to the Guanches of the
Canary Islands, and to the Atlantic populations of Africa, the Moors, Tuaricks,
Copts, which Latham comprises under the name of Egyptian-Atlantidae. We find
one and the same form of skull in the Canary Islands, in front of the African
coast, and in the Carib islands, on the opposite coast which faces Africa. The
colour of the skin on both sides of the Atlantic is represented in these
populations as being of a reddish-brown." (Professor Retzius,
"Smithsonian Report," 1859, p. 266.)
If,
then, Basques and Cro-Magnon Cave-Men are of the same race as the Canarese
Guanches, it follows that the former are also allied to the aborigines of
America. This is the conclusion which the independent investigations of
Retzius, Virchow, and de Quatrefages necessitate. The Atlantean affinities of
these three types become patent.
(8)
The sea-soundings undertaken by H.M.S. "Challenger" and the
"Dolphin," have established the fact that a huge elevation some 3,000
miles in length, projecting upwards from the abysmal depths of the
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Atlantic,
extends from a point near the British Islands southwards, curving round near
Cape de Verde, and running in a south-easterly direction along the West African
Coast. This elevation averages some 9,000 feet in height, and rises above the
waves at the Azores, Ascension, and other places. In the ocean depths around
the neighbourhood of the former the ribs of a former massive piece of land have
been discovered (vide investigations of United States Ship "Dolphin"
and others). "The inequalities, the mountains and valleys of its surface
could never have been produced in accordance with any known laws for the
deposition of sediment, nor by submarine elevation; but, on the contrary, must
have been carved by agencies acting above the water-level." -- (Scientific
American, July 28th, 1877). It is most probable that necks of land formerly
existed knitting Atlantis to South America, somewhere above the mouth of the
Amazon; to Africa near Cape de Verde, while a similar point of juncture with
Spain is not unlikely, as contended for by Donnelly. (Vide his chart,
"Atlantis," p. 47, Eng. Ed., 1884, though he deals with only a
fragment of the real continent.) Whether the latter existed or not, is of no
consequence, as the fact that (what is now) N. W. Africa was -- before the
elevation of the Sahara and the rupture of the Gibraltar connection -- an
extension of Spain. Consequently no difficulty can be raised as to how the
migration of the European fauna (etc.) took place.
Enough
has now been said from the purely scientific standpoint, and it is needless, in
view of the manner in which the subject has now been developed on the lines of
esoteric knowledge, to swell the mass of testimony further. In conclusion, the
words of one of the most intuitive writers of the day may be cited as admirably
illustrative of the opinions of the occultist, who awaits in patience the dawn
of the coming day:--
"We
are but beginning to understand the past; one hundred years ago the world knew
nothing of Pompeii or Herculaneum; nothing of the lingual tie that binds
together the Indo-European nations; nothing of the significance of the vast
volume of inscriptions upon the tombs and temples of Egypt; nothing of the
meaning of the arrow-headed inscriptions of Babylon; nothing of the marvellous
civilizations revealed in the remains of Yucatan, Mexico, and Peru. We are on
the threshold. Scientific investigation is advancing with giant strides. Who
shall say that one hundred years from now, the great museums of the world may not
be adorned with gems, statues, arms, and implements from Atlantis, while the
libraries of the world shall contain translations of its inscriptions, throwing
new light upon all the past history of the human race, and all the great
problems which now perplex the thinkers of to-day."*
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Donnelly, "Atlantis; the Ante-Diluvian World," p. 480.
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And
now to conclude.
-------
We
have concerned ourself with the ancient records of the nations, with the
doctrine of chronological and psychic cycles, of which these records are the
tangible proof; and with many other subjects, which may, at first sight, seem
out of place in this volume.
But
they were necessary in truth. In dealing with the secret annals and traditions
of so many nations, whose very origins have never been ascertained on more
secure grounds than inferential suppositions, in giving out the beliefs and
philosophy of more than prehistoric races, it is not quite as easy to deal with
the subject matter as it would be if only the philosophy of one special race,
and its evolution, were concerned. The Secret Doctrine is the common property
of the countless millions of men born under various climates, in times with
which History refuses to deal, and to which esoteric teachings assign dates
incompatible with the theories of Geology and Anthropology. The birth and
evolution of the Sacred Science of the Past are lost in the very night of Time;
and that, even, which is historic -- i.e., that which is found scattered hither
and thither throughout ancient classical literature -- is, in almost every
case, attributed by modern criticism to lack of observation in the ancient
writers, or to superstition born out of the ignorance of antiquity. It is,
therefore, impossible to treat this subject as one would the ordinary evolution
of an art or science in some well-known historical nation. It is only by
bringing before the reader an abundance of proofs all tending to show that in
every age, under every condition of civilization and knowledge, the educated
classes of every nation made themselves the more or less faithful echoes of one
identical system and its fundamental traditions -- that he can be made to see
that so many streams of the same water must have had a common source from which
they started. What was this source? If coming events are said to cast their
shadows before, past events cannot fall to leave their impress behind them. It
is, then, by those shadows of the hoary Past and their fantastic silhouettes on
the external screen of every religion and philosophy, that we can, by checking
them as we go along, and comparing them, trace out finally the body that
produced them. There must be truth and fact in that which every people of
antiquity accepted and made the foundation of its religions and its faith.
Moreover, as Haliburton said, "Hear one side, and you will be in the dark;
hear both sides, and all will be clear." The public has hitherto had
access to, and heard but one side -- or rather the two one-sided views of two
diametrically opposed classes of men, whose prima facie propositions or
respective premises differ widely, but whose final conclusions are the same --
Science and Theology. And now our
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[[Vol.
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readers
have an opportunity to hear the other -- the defendants' -- justification on
and learn the nature of our arguments.
Were
the public to be left to its old opinions: namely, on one side, that Occultism,
Magic, the legends of old, etc., were all the outcome of ignorance and
superstition; and on the other, that everything outside the orthodox groove was
the work of the devil, what would be the result? In other words, had no
theosophical and mystic literature obtained a hearing for the few last years,
the present work would have had a poor chance of impartial consideration. It
would have been proclaimed -- and by many will still be so proclaimed -- a
fairy tale woven out of abstruse problems, poised in, and based on the air;
built of soap bubbles, bursting at the slightest touch of serious reflection,
with no foundation, as it would be alleged, to stand upon. Even "the
ancient superstitious and credulous classics" have no word of reference to
it in clear and unmistakable terms, and the symbols themselves fail to yield a
hint at the existence of such a system. Such would be the verdict of all. But
when it becomes undeniably proven that the claim of the modern Asiatic nations
to a Secret Science and an esoteric history of the world, is based on fact;
that, though hitherto unknown to the masses and a veiled mystery even to the
learned, (because they never had the key to a right understanding of the
abundant hints thrown out by the ancient classics), it is still no fairy tale,
but an actuality -- then the present work will become but the pioneer of many
more such books. The statement that hitherto even the keys discovered by some
great scholars have proved too rusty for use, and that they were but the silent
witnesses that there do exist mysteries behind the veil which are unreachable
without a new key -- is borne out by too many proofs to be easily dismissed. An
instance may be given as an illustration out of the history of Freemasonry.
In
his "Franc-maconnerie Occulte," rightly or wrongly, Ragon, an
illustrious and learned Belgian Mason, reproaches the English Masons with
having materialized and dishonoured Masonry, once based upon the Ancient
Mysteries, by adopting, owing to a mistaken notion of the origin of the craft,
the name of Free Masonry and Free Masons. The mistake is due, he says, to those
who connect Masonry with the building of Solomon's Temple, deriving its origin
from it. He derides the idea, and says: . . "The Franc Mason (which is not
macon libre, or free masonry) knew well when adopting the title, that it was no
question of building a wall, but that of being initiated into the ancient
Mysteries veiled under the name of Francmaconnerie (Freemasonry); that his work
was only to be the continuation or the renovation of the ancient mysteries, and
that he was to become a mason after the manner of Apollo or Amphion. And do not
we know that the ancient initiated poets, when speaking of the foundation
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[[Vol.
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of
a city, meant thereby the establishment of a doctrine? Thus Neptune, the god of
reasoning, and Apollo, the god of the hidden things, presented themselves as
masons before Laomedon, Priam's father, to help him to build the city of Troy
-- that is to say, to establish the Trojan religion." (Maconnerie
Orthodoxe, p. 44.)
Such
veiled sentences with double meaning abound in ancient classical writers.
Therefore, had an attempt been made to show that, e.g., Laomedon was the
founder of a branch of archaic mysteries in which the earth-bound material soul
(the fourth principle), was personified in Menelaus' faithless wife (the fair
Helen), if Ragon had not come to corroborate what we asserted, we might be told
that no classical author speaks of it, and that Homer shows Laomedon building a
city, not an esoteric worship or MYSTERIES! And who are those left now, save a
few Initiates, who understand the language and correct meaning of such
symbolical terms?
But
after having pointed to many a misconceived symbol bearing on our thesis, there
still remains more than one difficulty to be overcome. Most important among
several such obstacles is that of chronology. But this could hardly be helped.
Wedged
in between theological chronology and that of the geologists, backed by all the
materialistic Anthropologists who assign dates to man and nature which fit in
with their own theories alone -- what could the writer do except what is being
done? Namely, since theology places the Deluge 2448 B.C., and the World's
Creation only 5890 years ago; and since the accurate researches by the methods
of exact Science, have led the geologists and physicists to assign to the
incrusted age of our Globe between 10 million and 1,000 million of years* (a
trifling difference, verily!): and the Anthropologists to vary their divergence
of opinion as to the appearance of man -- between 25,000 and 500,000 of years
-- what can one who studies the Occult doctrine do, but come out and bravely
present the esoteric calculations before the world?
But
to do this, corroboration by even a few "historical" proofs was
necessary, though all know the real value of the so-called "historical
evidence." For, whether man had appeared on earth 18,000 or 18,000,000
years ago, can make no difference to profane History, since it begins hardly a
couple of thousand years before our era, and since, even then, it grapples
hopelessly with the clash and din of contradictory and mutually-destroying
opinions around it. Nevertheless, in view of the respect the average reader has
been brought up in for exact science, even that short Past would remain
meaningless, unless the esoteric teachings were corroborated and supported on
the spot --
[[Footnote(s)]]
-------------------------------------------------
*
Vide Sir W. Thomson and Mr. Huxley.
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[[Vol.
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whenever
possible -- by references to historical names of a so-called historical period.
This is the only guide that can be given to the beginner before he is permitted
to start among the (to him) unfamiliar windings of that dark labyrinth called
the pre-historic ages. This necessity has been complied with. It is only hoped
that the desire to do so, which has led the writer to be constantly bringing
ancient and modern evidence as a corroboration of the Archaic and quite
unhistoric Past, will not bring on her the accusation of having sorely jumbled
up without order or method the various and widely-separated periods of history
and tradition. But literary form and method had to be sacrificed to the greater
clearness of the general exposition.
To
accomplish the proposed task, the writer had to resort to the rather unusual
means of dividing each volume or Book into three Parts; the first of which only
is the consecutive, though very fragmentary, history of the Cosmogony and the
Evolution of Man on this globe. But these two volumes had to serve as a
PROLOGUE, and prepare the reader's mind for those which shall now follow. In
treating of Cosmogony and then of the Anthropogenesis of mankind, it was
necessary to show that no religion, since the very earliest, has ever been
entirely based on fiction, as none was the object of special revelation; and
that it is dogma alone which has ever been killing primeval truth. Finally,
that no human-born doctrine, no creed, however sanctified by custom and
antiquity, can compare in sacredness with the religion of Nature. The Key of
Wisdom that unlocks the massive gates leading to the arcana of the innermost
sanctuaries can be found hidden in her bosom only: and that bosom is in the
countries pointed to by the great seer of the past century Emanuel Swedenborg.
There lies the heart of nature, that shrine whence issued the early races of
primeval Humanity, and which is the cradle of physical man.
Thus
far have proceeded the rough outlines of the beliefs and tenets of the archaic,
earliest Races contained in their hitherto secret Scriptural records. But our
explanations are by no means complete, nor do they pretend to give out the full
text, or to have been read by the help of more than three or four keys out of
the sevenfold bunch of esoteric interpretation, and even this has only been
partially accomplished. The work is too gigantic for any one person to
undertake, far more to accomplish. Our main concern was simply to prepare the
soil. This, we trust we have done. These two volumes only constitute the work
of a pioneer who has forced his way into the well-nigh impenetrable jungle of
the virgin forests of the Land of the Occult. A commencement has been made to
fell and uproot the deadly upas trees of superstition, prejudice, and conceited
ignorance, so that these two
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[[Vol.
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volumes
should form for the student a fitting prelude for Volumes III. and IV. Until
the rubbish of the ages is cleared away from the minds of the Theosophists to
whom these volumes are dedicated, it is impossible that the more practical
teaching contained in the Third Volume should be understood. Consequently, it
entirely depends upon the reception with which Volumes I. and II. will meet at
the hands of Theosophists and Mystics, whether these last two volumes will ever
be published, though they are almost completed.
Satyat
Nasti paro dharmah.
THERE
IS NO RELIGION HIGHER THAN TRUTH.
End
of Vol. II.
Cardiff Theosophical Society
206 Newport Road, Cardiff, CF24 -1DL.