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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.
"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."
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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TABLE OF CONTENTS.
VOLUME SECOND.
PRELIMINARY NOTES.
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
-------
THE BEGINNINGS OF SENTIENT LIVE ... 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
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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.
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
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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
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STANZA VI. -- THE EVOLUTION OF THE SWEAT-BORN ... 131
Bi-sexual reproduction ... 133
The Virgin Third Race ... 135
A Few Words about Deluges and Noahs ... 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
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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.
A Saint -- Hypnotised ... 175
Sweat-born and Androgynes ... 177
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STANZA VIII. -- EVOLUTION OF THE ANIMAL MAMMALIANS -- THE FIRST ... 180
Archaic Zoology ... 183
The Sin of the Mindless Men ... 185
-------
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 ISLAND ... 220
The Magicians of Atlantis ... 223
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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.
STANZA X. -- Continued ... 271
The Golden Age ... 273
No Devils 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 Eye ... 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
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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.
The oldest Persian Traditions about the Polar, and the Submerged Continents
... 393
Western Speculations founded on the Greek and Puranic Traditions ... 402
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" Brahma ... 465
The Old and the New Jehovah ... 469
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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
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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.
XX. PROMETHEUS THE TITAN ... 519
His Origin in Ancient India ... 519
The Boon he Gives ... 523
-------
XXI. ENOICHION-HENOCH ... 529
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XXII. THE SYMBOLISM OF THE MYSTERY NAMES IAO AND JEHOVAH ... 536
Cross and Circle ... 545
The Fall of the Cross into Matter ... 553
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XXIII. THE UPANISHADS IN GNOSTIC LITERATURE ... 563
When Time be no longer ... 565
The Divine Self's Wisdom ... 566
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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
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XXV. THE MYSTERIES OF 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.
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.
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
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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
Ragon explains Masonic Symbols ... 795
The End a fitting prelude to Truth ... 798
*****************
[[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]] 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. 2, Page]] 24 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 26 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 27 MAN'S DUAL AND TRIPLE NATURE.
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. 2, Page]] 29 THE CELESTIAL GOVERNORS OF HUMANITY.
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 )."***
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 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 the Earth .
[[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 (the circle and diameter)
during the Third (Race) and of 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 ; after
which it becomes 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 , which is only
another form of Venus (Isis) , 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. 2, Page]] 31 THE HORSES OF SUKRA'S CAR.
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. , 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 (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 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 , the central point; the 3 or ; the five, , and the seven or , or
again ; 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 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: --
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 or , 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: . 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 (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) thA
n 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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 62 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 63 WHO ARE THE "FLAMES"?
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. 2, Page]] 64 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 65 DIVINE WILL BECOMES EROS.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 66 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 67 THE RACE THAT NEVER DIES.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 68 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 69 THE VARIOUS PRALAYAS.
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. 2, Page]] 70 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 71 SCIENTIFIC SELF-COMPLACENCE.
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.
11.. 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 (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 , 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, , 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. 2, Page]] 81 MAN, A GOD IN ANIMAL FORM.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 82 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 83 "FIRES," "SPARKS," AND "FLAMES."
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 84 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 85 THE SON OF YAH.
(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.
*************
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 86 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 87 MAN NOT CREATED PERFECT.
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).
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 88 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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;
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 89 PITRIS OF THE GODS AND DEMONS.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 90 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 91 SEVEN CLASSES OF PITRIS.
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."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 92 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 93 A GRAND APOCALYPTIC METAPHOR.
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]]
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 94 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 95 WHAT PROMETHEUS SYMBOLIZED.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 96 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 97 THE TREES OF LIFE.
(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."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 98 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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-
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 99 THE HAMMER OF THOR.
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 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."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 100 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 101 THE DIVINE BABE, AGNI.
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 and 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 and 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.
[[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.
-------
[[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. 2, Page]] 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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, [[diagram]], 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 [greek char], 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," [[daigam]], 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. 1. 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. 2, Page]] 112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 113 THE SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM.
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 reads
"Root," as in the Secondary likewise.
Thus in Alchemy or Western Hermetism (a variant on Eastern Esotericism) we find:
--
X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X.
Sulphur . . . . . . Flamma . . . . . . Spiritus
Hydrargyum . . Natura . . . . . . . Aqua
Sal . . . . . . . . . . Mater . . . . . . . Sanguis
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 114 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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 (aza),
means to illuminate, and (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 --
. . . St. Matthew. . Angel-Man . . Water . . (Jesus-Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael)
A - . 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. 2, Page]] 116 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 117 THE OUTGROWTH OF RACES.
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, 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. 2, Page]] 118 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 120 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 121 LEDA, CASTOR AND POLLUX.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 122 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[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.*
[[Footnote continued]]-------------------------------
In the Book of Enoch we have Adam,** the first divine androgyne, 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.)
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* 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 (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. (Ieve) is the Old Testament term, and
was pronounced Ya-va. Inman suggests that it is contracted from the two words
Yaho-Iah, Jaho-Jah, or Jaho is Jah. Punctuated it is which is, however, a
Rabbinical caprice to associate it with the name Adoni or , which has the same
points. It is curious, and indeed hardly conceivable, that the Jews anciently
read the name (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: (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 or
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 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 Heve (Eve), which is
the feminine of 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]] 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. 2, Page]] 110 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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, [[diagram]], 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 [greek char], 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," [[daigam]], 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. 1. 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. 2, Page]] 112 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 113 THE SECRET WORK OF CHIRAM.
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 reads
"Root," as in the Secondary likewise.
Thus in Alchemy or Western Hermetism (a variant on Eastern Esotericism) we find:
--
X. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . X.
Sulphur . . . . . . Flamma . . . . . . Spiritus
Hydrargyum . . Natura . . . . . . . Aqua
Sal . . . . . . . . . . Mater . . . . . . . Sanguis
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 114 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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 (aza),
means to illuminate, and (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 --
. . . St. Matthew. . Angel-Man . . Water . . (Jesus-Christ, Angel-Man, Mikael)
A - . 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. 2, Page]] 116 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 117 THE OUTGROWTH OF RACES.
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, 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. 2, Page]] 118 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 120 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 121 LEDA, CASTOR AND POLLUX.
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
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 122 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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
[[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.*
[[Footnote continued]]-------------------------------
In the Book of Enoch we have Adam,** the first divine androgyne, 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.)
[[Footnote(s)]] -------------------------------------------------
* 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 (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. (Ieve) is the Old Testament term, and
was pronounced Ya-va. Inman suggests that it is contracted from the two words
Yaho-Iah, Jaho-Jah, or Jaho is Jah. Punctuated it is which is, however, a
Rabbinical caprice to associate it with the name Adoni or , which has the same
points. It is curious, and indeed hardly conceivable, that the Jews anciently
read the name (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: (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 or
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 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 Heve (Eve), which is
the feminine of 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. 2, Page]] 132 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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."
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 133 BI-SEXUAL REPRODUCTION.
"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. 2, Page]] 134 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 135 THE VIRGIN THIRD RACE.
"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. 2, Page]] 136 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 137 EGYPTIAN BELIEF.
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. 2, Page]] 138 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 139 WHAT THE FLOOD MEANS.
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.
[[Vol. 2, Page]] 140 THE SECRET DOCTRINE.
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. 2, Page]] 141 VARIOUS DELUGES.
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 | |
